In 1937, Napoleon Hill published Think and Grow Rich, his famous work on the 13 steps required for generating vast personal wealth. The book built on his 20-year exploration of the character traits of America's richest self-made industrialists, which resulted in his first book, Law of Success (1928). This work took eight volumes and 1,500 pages to extol the 17 principles for high achievement gleaned from interviewing 500 of the country's most successful people.

Yet, despite Hill's volumes, his formulaic discoveries became ultimately distilled into four crucial elements. These are, he claimed, desire, faith, plans and persistence.

Of course, these need to be in the right order. After all, persistence prior to plans may result in wasted endeavour, and plans are pointless unless we first have faith they can be executed. Nonetheless, this simple formula should be borne in mind for anyone seeking success, says Hill – or for that matter productivity where there was once unproductive mental chaos.

Intriguingly, Hill also alluded to a ‘great universal truth’ – a ‘supreme secret’ that underpins the 17 principles or 13 steps, and even the four elements of his distillation. His patron, Andrew Carnegie (the Scottish-American steel magnate), apparently confirmed this mysterious ingredient in the elixir of success, although it was written down only in 1967, shortly before Hill's death.

Here it is:

That's it! There are no limits to what we can achieve, Hill intonates, other than those we impose on ourselves due to our limiting self-beliefs. Those that accept this – truly, fully, unambiguously – will ‘think and grow rich’ or achieve other extraordinary feats (Hill was as impressed by Ghandi as he was by Carnegie, Ford, Woolworth and Gillette). Meanwhile, the rest of us will struggle – generating the very barriers that we assumed were hindering our progress.

Oh dear.

For me (and others like me) this feels immediately condemning. As stated, self-belief has been my biggest failing – meaning I've behaved in ways that generate the very failure I feared. I even manage to conjure a self-fulfilling defeat from the jaws of victory simply because, beneath it all, I've no faith that a successful outcome is possible.

Desire – the starting point of all achievement

Yet Hill's formula offers another potential clue as to why my efforts had been so fruitless: I'd disobeyed his sequencing. As stated, plans without faith will fail despite persistence. So – just maybe – the key missing ingredient for generating faith is what Hill insists is ‘the starting point of all achievement: desire’. Would I develop the faith that allowed me to persist with my plans if I could conjure sufficient desire?

In fact, I can immediately confirm this to be true. Ultimately, I've not failed. Here I am, writing my fourth book, with only the first (a ‘lad-lit’ comedy about my time in New York) deemed a failure by any measure (and even that was a largely self-imposed assessment). However modestly, my writing has succeeded to the point it's converted my directionless and ultimately unproductive frustrations into a fulfilling and sustainable path. Why? Because writing is my thing; and being a writer is what I've always desired. Anything else – surveying, banking, entrepreneurship – always felt like a replacement activity for my ultimate desire, which was to write.

What's more, this desire has resulted in a strong belief in my writing. In fact, it's the one area of my life where I've maintained strong self-belief no matter what the setbacks or criticisms. Sure, my first book flopped (by my measure) but I've never doubted my writing skills: just that the book was poorly marketed or that my publisher erroneously failed to share my faith in the book's excellence.

Having made writing the core of my existence, therefore, I've succeeded. My desire to write gave me faith, which led to strong planning and dogged persistence – confirming the veracity of Hill's distilled process.

And if it works for me – believe me – it can work for others.

The key is to understand Hill's core message, which is that – while plans are important – they're impossible to fulfil without faith. And faith relies on desire. Only once we've discovered the pursuit, where we believe in our skills – our thing – will we develop both the flow and stoicism required to make serious progress. And, if we're struggling to find the thing, it maybe because we've been looking in the wrong place. Perhaps due to external pressures we've been sent down the wrong path – told to pursue careers or skills that, deep down, we don't desire.

Hill and Carnegie's supreme secret, therefore, is as much to do with desire as it is with belief, because only desire can generate that level of belief. Desire comes first – so that's where we must start our journey towards successful productivity.

Definiteness of purpose

In his section on desire, Hill tells the story of Edwin C. Barnes, whose greatest desire was to be the business partner of renowned inventor Thomas Edison (he of light-bulb fame). In fact, all Barnes possessed was desire – he had no qualifications and not even the train fare for the journey to Edison's New Jersey yard (arriving hobo-style on a freight train). Yet, eventually, that's exactly what happened. Barnes became Edison's partner to market the Ediphone (an early dictation device).

Barnes succeeded because his desire was focused on a single pursuit that absorbed all his energy and willpower. He was also persistent – working menially in Edison's workshop for years prior to seeing his chance via a product others dismissed as a likely flop.

‘It is a remarkable illustration of the power of a definite desire’, writes Hill. ‘Barnes won his goal, because he wanted to be a business associate of Mr Edison, more than he wanted anything else.’

Of course, this can all sound a bit old-fashioned to modern ears – a bit like the admonishments of our elders and betters. But the tone isn't meant to be hectoring. It's meant to point out that – if we're demotivated and even a little listless – it may be because we've yet to find, or yet to find a way of profitably pursuing, what we truly desire.

Growing a vocation

Modern writers make exactly the same point as Hill, although are less focused on wealth or material desires and more on what could be termed ‘meaning’.

‘I regularly hear people lament that they are “still searching for their vocation” or envying others who have “found their ultimate calling,”’ writes School of Life co-founder Roman Krznaric in his 2012 book How to Find Fulfilling Work. ‘What they seem to be looking for is a career that offers them an all-embracing sense of mission or purpose.’

That said, Krznaric is cautious about the notion of searching for the thing: a vocation that jumps out and declares itself so, ‘not because vocations do not exist’, he writes, ‘but because we have to realize that a vocation is not something we find, it's something we grow – and grow into.’

Those striving for their vocation often remain frustrated, says Krznaric, because they spend too much time looking for the thing they were ‘meant to do’. Yet such a search may be too great a leap, he claims. Instead, they should pursue a career that motivates them ‘to get up in the morning’, from which will emerge the goal that gives their work meaning.

‘The goal or purpose of the medical researcher might be to discover a cure for motor neurone disease’, says Krznaric. ‘For an environmental activist it could be to promote the ideal of low-carbon living, for a painter, to break traditional conventions and replace them with a new vision of the objectives of art.’

In all cases, their purpose emerged from within careers that motivated them – a concept I can confirm. Via journalism, public relations and now, authoring, I've established that writing is my thing. But only slowly has my vocation emerged – of combining my writing and PR skills to articulate what I've learnt about my own insecurities.

These insecurities always held me back, as they do for millions. Yet I never lost my desire to write, or my faith that my writing is worth reading. Just that I lacked the opportunity, or the self-belief, to push myself forwards. Finally, the penny dropped regarding the roots of my issues and, suddenly, my skills and desires were aligned to create my vocation, which quickly translated into strong plans, persistence, and sustainable progress.

Meaning emerged from following my desire to write, and allowing that to gel into a specific – and life-changing – goal.

Suffering's meaning

A further perspective on this comes from Viktor Frankl, a Viennese psychiatrist specializing in depression. In 1944, his entire family was transported to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, with only Viktor and his sister surviving to tell the tale. And tell the tale he did: the experience acted as the catalyst for his famous 1946 work Man's Search for Meaning.

Frankl wrote what I consider to be a tremendously important statement for the insecure, under-confident or simply ineffec­­tive person trying to turn their life in a positive direction: ‘suffering ceases to be suffering’, he said, ‘at the moment it finds a meaning.’

In other words, we can use our suffering – even our ineffectiveness – as fuel for achieving higher things, which gives our pain purpose.

In the camps, Frankl discovered what he called the ‘last of the human freedoms’, which was his attitude. He had the freedom to choose the mental impact his imprisonment would have on him which, extraordinarily, made him freer than his Nazi captors.

He decided he would use his experiences to lecture the world on the human condition as he saw it, a visualization that sus­­tained him through the horror and gave him the will to survive. Indeed, Frankl's suffering ceased the moment he saw that it had meaning – that there was a higher purpose.

Finding faith

Next comes faith. We have to believe that we can achieve what we desire or our quest is doomed, considers Hill.

‘In faith is the “external elixir” which gives life, power, and action to the impulse of thought’, writes Hill. ‘Faith is the starting point of all accumulation of riches … [and is] the basis of all “miracles.”’

This is far from a religious quest, although it can feel just as abstract to those who lack self-belief. Indeed, Hill doesn't deny the difficulty of injecting or even expressing faith or self-belief into those that lack it: like describing ‘the colour red to a blind man who's never seen colour’ was how he termed it. That said, he considered it a state of mind that could be developed – oddly through the process of repetition.

‘Repetition of affirmation of orders to your subconscious mind is the only known method of voluntary development of the emotion of faith’, he writes.

Hill is a rational thinker aware that such statements may come across as too mystical for his audience of ambitious rationalists. He therefore used studies in criminology to prove his point.

‘When men first come into contact with crime, they abhor it’, he claimed (quoting an unnamed criminologist). ‘If they remain in contact with crime for a time, they become accustomed to it, and endure it. If they remain in contact with it long enough, they finally embrace it, and become influenced by it.’

By the same measure, Hill claims that any thought that's repeatedly invoked within us will become part of our subconscious mind and therefore accepted and translated into an impulse to act. And that includes faith.

Again, this may hit the brick wall of our inbuilt cynicism, constructed from years of setbacks and frustrations. In fact, we may even see cynicism as an intelligent response. Who, after all, wants to be the willing pawn of those trying to manipulate us, perhaps through pedalling faith?

Yet, two points tell me that we can develop the self-belief we need to succeed. First is the fact that many of us have developed strong convictions regarding our failures or inabilities. Sure, we may feel these are evidence-based, but they're convictions nonetheless; just negative ones. Our need is therefore not to develop faith (which we patently have), but to develop faith in our positive aspirations (or even, as stated, our plans), rather than our negative (self-perceived) attributes.

And, second, is the fact that what we seek is not a spiritual or religious rebirth. There's nothing supernatural going on here – just the notion that faith cannot be bluffed or conjured from thin air. It has to be real faith. But – importantly – it doesn't have to be total faith.

As stated, this isn't religious. We require the faith to act, and to keep acting through the setbacks. That's all. Our poor faith currently stalls our progress. Yet we simply need a tipping point – where the weight of our faith rebalances in favour of action, and against procrastination.

Looking for the nugget

The aim here is not to lie to yourself. You just need to convince yourself of the truth, which makes the place to start the journey towards faith that one nugget – the single thing you're good at no matter how deep and broad your other deficiencies. If nothing else, you can surely develop faith in one attribute or talent (in my case, writing). This is your redoubt – the faith you maintain no matter what the criticism of others, or even in spite of the self-critic within. In your deepest self you know this is something you can do well. No matter how small a thing it is – or how pathetic and useless you feel it to be – this thing can be the seed that propagates your inner faith.

Of course, faith has to be expanded – not least into something offering a sustainable future. And it also has to connect back to desire: you have to grow your faith around something you want. Yet, in my opinion, that's the easy bit. Almost certainly, your talents have followed your desires, not least because – as we've seen – this generates flow. So your only need is to plan a sustainable future using that talent – not least because that's where you've invested your faith.

This brings us back to our plans, and our need to believe in them, which we'll develop below. Yet we still have to conquer those lingering doubts – perhaps that our talent-base is too small or too irrelevant to develop into a profitable pursuit.

In fact, such thoughts make me angry – not with the sufferer, I hasten to add, who I consider a victim despite their apparent lack of attributes (which many will assume makes their low status somehow deserved). But with their education. If we reach adulthood feeling useless it's almost certainly due to poor education – whether this came about via our family or within a formalized structure such as a national education system. We've been failed by them because they didn't spot our talents or didn't know how to develop them.

This is an outrageous crime, in my opinion. But one which, guided by Viktor Frankl's philosophy of developing meaning from suffering, we must turn to our advantage in adulthood. Such a poor start will give our progress real purpose: personally, spiritually and, hopefully, sustainably.

Are we too late? Not if we have sufficient desire. If we do, it's never too late – as long as we can muster the faith to get going.

An example to illustrate: a previous girlfriend of mine declared herself a ‘bit thick’. Despite its frustrations, she clung to a low-level sales job that leveraged her good looks – assuming she was incapable of anything more cerebral. During one less-than-thrilling evening, however, we started playing Connect Four (the logic game involving placing coloured discs in a row while trying to block an opponent). She thrashed me. Game after game, I was no match due to her ability to spot emerging patterns and opportunities as the game progressed.

Over several sessions, this proved to be no fluke: she was definitely a whizz at Connect Four. We then tried chess, which she'd never played. By the second game I was, again, relegated to the role of enthusiastic loser. She had an eye for sequences of moves and their consequences that left me for dead.

Of course, such skills have to be bankable, although a little thinking would soon sort that out. Sure, becoming a chess pro may have seemed a (self-imposed) stretch for an Essex girl (although a beautiful blond chess champion would have certainly been noticed). Yet it was obvious she could analyze possible strategies, plan outcomes, remove choices, integrate changes – even calculate algorithms: all attributes employable in careers well above what she saw as her lowly role flogging beauty products.

Alas, my ex-girlfriend didn't desire a career in management consultancy or as an analyst or strategist, although – in my opin­­ion – this was due to her poor education. She'd left school with nothing more than low confidence and a conviction that professional careers were not for the likes of her. If she'd developed faith from her desires, however, the outcome could have been very different.