Psycho-Cybernetics: Updated and Expanded (The Psycho-Cybernetics Series)

by Maxwell Maltz

Dr. Maltz makes it clear that all of us have goals, whether we intentionally articulate them or not. The brain and nervous system are continually leading us in the direction of images we think about consciously, or images that are so much a part of us that we’re led toward them on autopilot. The alcoholic or drug addict has goals just as much as the entrepreneur, politician, professional athlete, or mother-to-be. With this in mind, we can become aware of what’s “under the hood”—and

your servo-mechanism toward success instead of failure, all you need is one experience that made you feel good about yourself. Remembering and then using that modest accomplishment will be instrumental in improving your self-image. You do not need a huge success experience to alter your self-image for the better. You do not need an experience that is a mirror of what you’re trying to create or accomplish. All you need is an experience like tying your shoe or learning to write your name for the first time, wherein you can say, “Yes, I’m glad I learned that skill. Yes, I remember the first day I could do it. Yes, I was happy.” This one memory, this one positive experience, no matter how long ago it took place, is all you need to begin changing the course of your life in the present.

Servo-mechanisms are divided into two general types: (1) where the target, goal, or answer is known and the objective is to reach it or accomplish it, and (2) where the target or answer is not known and the objective is to discover or locate it. The human brain and nervous system operate in both ways.

A computer solves problems in much the same way. First of all, a great deal of data must be fed into the machine. This stored (or recorded) information is the machine’s “memory.” A problem is posed to the machine. It scans back through its memory until it locates the only “answer” that is consistent with and meets all the conditions of the problem. Problem and answer together constitute a “whole” situation or structure. When part of the situation or structure (the problem) is given to the machine, it locates the only “missing parts,” or the right size brick, so to speak, to complete the structure.

A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment.

Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a real experience. In either case, it reacts automatically to information that you give to it from your forebrain. Your nervous system reacts appropriately to what you think or imagine to be true. The

You act, and feel, not according to what things are really like, but according to the image your mind holds of what they are like. You have certain mental images of yourself, your world, and the people around you, and you behave as though these images were the truth, the reality, rather than the things they represent.

that is vividly imagined. If we picture ourselves performing in a certain manner, it is nearly the same as the actual performance. Mental practice helps to make perfect.

If you have an important interview coming up, such as making an application for a job, his advice was: Plan for the interview in advance. Go over in your mind all the various questions that are likely to be asked. Think about the answers you are going to give. Then “rehearse” the interview in your mind. Even if none of the questions you have rehearsed come up, the rehearsal practice will still work wonders. It gives you confidence. And even though real life has no set lines to be recited like a stage play, rehearsal

You must have a clear mental picture of the correct thing before you can do it successfully.

As stated earlier, this concept does not mean that you are a machine, but that your physical brain and body functions as a machine that you operate.

If . . . we have in our minds a picture of ourselves as fear-haunted and defeated nobodies, we must get rid of that picture at once and hold up our heads. That is a false picture and the false must go. God sees us as men and women in whom and through whom He can do a great work. He sees us as already serene, confident, and cheerful. He sees us not as pathetic victims of life, but masters of the art of living; not wanting sympathy, but imparting help to others, and therefore thinking less and less of ourselves, and full, not of self-concern, but of love and laughter and a desire to serve. . . . Let us look at the real selves which are in the making the moment we believe in their existence. We must recognize the possibility of change and believe in the self we are now in the process of becoming. That old sense of unworthiness and failure must go. It is false and we are not to believe in what is false.

The next important thing to remember is that during this 30 minutes you see yourself acting and reacting appropriately, successfully, ideally. It doesn’t matter how you acted yesterday. You do not need to try to have faith you will act in the ideal way tomorrow. Your nervous system will take care of that in time—if you continue to practice. See yourself acting, feeling, “being,” as you want to be. Do not say to yourself, “I am going to act this way tomorrow.” Just say to yourself: “I am going to imagine myself acting this way now—for thirty minutes today.” Imagine how you would feel if you were already the sort of personality you want to

Within you, whoever you may be, regardless of how big a failure you may think yourself to be, is the ability and the power to do whatever you need to do to be happy and successful. Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you just as soon as you can change your beliefs. Just as quickly as you can dehypnotize yourself from the ideas of “I can’t,” “I’m not worthy,” “I don’t deserve it,” and other self-limiting ideas.

Feelings of inferiority originate not so much from facts or experiences, but our conclusions regarding facts, and our evaluation of experiences. For example, the fact is that I am an inferior weight lifter and an inferior dancer. This does not, however, make me an “inferior person.” Paul Anderson’s and Arthur Murray’s inability to perform surgery makes them “inferior surgeons,” but not “inferior persons.” It all depends on “what” and “whose” norms we measure ourselves by.

It is not knowledge of actual inferiority in skill or knowledge that gives us an inferiority complex and interferes with our living. It is the feeling of inferiority that does this.

And this feeling of inferiority comes about for just one reason: We judge ourselves, and measure ourselves, not against our own “norm” or “par” but against some other individual’s “norm.” When we do this, we always, without exception, come out second best. But because we think and believe and assume that we should measure up to some other person’s “norm,” we feel miserable, and second-rate, and conclude that there is something wrong with us. The next logical conclusion in this cockeyed reasoning process is to conclude that we are not “worthy”; that we do not deserve success and happiness, and that ...

All this comes about because we have allowed ourselves to be hypnotized by the entirely erroneous idea that “I should be like so-and-so” or “I should be like everybody else.” The fallacy of the second idea can be readily seen through, if analyzed, for in truth there are no fixed standards common to “everyb...

The person with an inferiority complex invariably compounds the error by striving for superiority. His feelings spring from the false premise that he is inferior. From this false premise, a whole structure of “logical thought” and feeling is built. If he feels bad because he is inferior, the cure is to make himself as good as everybody else, and the way to feel really g...

“You” as a personality are not in competition with any other personality simply because there is not another person on the face of the earth like you, or in your particular class. You are an individual. You are unique. You are not “like” any other person and can never become “like” any other person. You are not “supposed” to be like any other person and no other person is “supposed” to be like you.

His experiments proved that the best way to break a habit is to form a clear mental image of the desired end result, and to practice without effort toward reaching that goal. Dunlap found that either “positive practice” (refraining from the habit) or “negative practice” (performing the habit consciously and voluntarily) would have beneficial effect provided the desired end result was kept constantly in mind. “If a response habit is to be learned, or if a response pattern is to be made habitual,” Dr. Dunlap wrote in Personal Adjustment, “it is essential that the learner shall have an idea of the response that is to be achieved or shall have an idea of the change in the environment that the response will produce.

Continually criticizing yourself for past mistakes and errors does not help matters, but on the other hand tends to perpetuate the very behavior you would change. Memories of past failures can adversely affect present performance, if we dwell on them and foolishly conclude, “I failed yesterday; therefore, it follows that I will fail again today.” However, this does not prove that unconscious reaction patterns have any power in themselves to repeat and perpetuate themselves, or that all buried memories of failure must be eradicated before behavior can be changed.

If we are victimized, it is by our conscious, thinking mind and not by the “unconscious.” For it is with the thinking part of our personality that we draw conclusions, and select the “goal images” that we shall concentrate upon. The minute that we change our minds and stop giving power to the past, the past with its mistakes loses its power over us. Ignore Past Failures and Forge Ahead Here again,

If you will analyze this, you will see that you are using a process you have often used before—worry! The only difference is you change your goals from negative to positive. When you worry, you first of all picture some undesirable future outcome, or goal, very vividly in your imagination. You use no effort or willpower. But you keep dwelling on the “end result.” You keep thinking about it—dwelling on it—picturing it to yourself as a “possibility.” You play with the idea that it “might happen.”

Remember that your automatic mechanism can as easily function as a Failure Mechanism as it can as a Success Mechanism, depending on the data you give it to process, and the goals you set for it. It is basically a goal-striving mechanism. The goals it works on are up to you. Many of us unconsciously and unwittingly—by holding negative attitudes and habitually picturing failure to ourselves in our imagination—set up goals of failure.

“Always think of what you have to do as easy and it will become so,” said Émile Coué,

To spend time and effort concentrating on what you do not want is not rational.

“genius” is a process; a natural way in which the human mind works to solve any problem, but that we mistakenly apply the term “genius” only when the process is used to write a book or paint a picture.

When we feel jittery, or worried, or anxious in thinking of the great amount of work that lies before us, the jittery feelings are not caused by the work, but by our mental attitude—which is “I ought to be able to do this all at once.” We become nervous because we are trying to do the impossible, and thereby making futility and frustration inevitable. The truth is: We can only do one thing at a time. Realizing this, fully convincing ourselves of this simple and obvious truth, enables us to mentally stop trying to do the things that lie next, and to concentrate all our awareness, all our responsiveness, on this one thing we are doing now. When we work with this attitude, we are relaxed, we are free from the feelings of hurry and anxiety, and we are able to concentrate and think at our best.

You can have many goals, but concentrating on just one at a time will help you accomplish far more than attempting to focus on many at once. Get the fire of desire started within being single-minded about one goal and the flame will naturally spread to the others without you forcing it.

Happiness is native to the human mind and its physical machine. We think better, perform better, feel better, and are healthier when we are happy. Even our physical sense organs work better. Russian psychologist K. Kekcheyev tested people when they were thinking pleasant and unpleasant thoughts. He found that when thinking pleasant thoughts they could see better, taste, smell, and hear better, and detect finer differences in touch.

The very word “disease” means a state of unhappiness—“dis-ease.” A recent survey showed that by and large, optimistic, cheerful businessmen who “looked on the bright side of things” were more successful than pessimistic businessmen.

Happiness is not something that is earned or deserved. Happiness is not a moral issue, any more than the circulation of the blood is a moral issue. Both are necessary to health and well-being. Happiness is simply “a state of mind in which our thinking is pleasant a good share of the time.” If you wait until you deserve to think pleasant thoughts, you are likely to think unpleasant thoughts concerning your own unworthiness. “Happiness is not the reward of virtue,” said Spinoza in his book Ethics, “but virtue itself; nor do we delight in happiness because we restrain our lusts; but, on the contrary, because we delight in it, therefore are we able to restrain them.”

have found that one of the commonest causes of unhappiness among my patients is that they are attempting to live their lives on the deferred payment plan. They do not live, or enjoy life now, but wait for some future event or occurrence. They will be happy when they get married, when they get a better job, when they get the house paid for, when they get the children through college, when they have completed some task or won some victory. Invariably, they are disappointed. Happiness is a mental habit, a mental attitude, and if it is not learned and practiced in the present it is never experienced. It cannot be made contingent upon solving some external problem. When one problem is solved, another appears to take its place. Life is a series of problems. If you are to be happy at all, you must be happy—period! Not happy “because of.”

“Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion of the things that happen.”

It has been pointed out earlier that since man is a goal-striving being, he is functioning naturally and normally when he is oriented toward some positive goal and striving toward some desirable goal. Happiness is a symptom of normal, natural functioning, and when man is functioning as a goal-striver, he tends to feel fairly happy, regardless of circumstances.

However, once he got the promotion, he ceased to think in terms of what he wanted, but in terms of what others expected of him, or whether he was living up to other people’s goals and standards. He was like the skipper of a ship who had relinquished his hold upon the wheel, and hoped that he would drift in the right direction. He was like a mountain climber, who as long as he looked upward to the peak he wished to scale, felt and acted courageously and boldly. But when he got to the top, he felt there was nowhere else to go, and began to look down, and became afraid. He was now on the defensive, defending his present position, rather than acting like a goal-striver and going on the offensive to attain his goal. He regained control when he set himself new goals and began to think in terms of “What do I want out of this job? What do I want to achieve? Where do I want to go?”

“Functionally, a man is somewhat like a bicycle,” I told him. “A bicycle maintains its poise and equilibrium only so long as it is going forward towards something. You have a good bicycle. Your trouble is you are trying to maintain your balance sitting still, with no place to go. It’s no wonder you feel shaky.” We are engineered as goal-seeking mechanisms. We are built that way. When we have no personal goal that we are interested in and that “means something” to us, we are apt to “go around in circles,” feel “lost,” and find life itself “aimless” and “purposeless.” We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.

“but its application is wider than war. All problems, personal, national, or combat, become smaller if you don’t dodge them, but confront them. Touch a thistle timidly, and it pricks you; grasp it boldly and its spines crumble.”

Prescription: The prescription for compassion is threefold: (1) Try to develop a genuine appreciation for people by realizing the truth about them; they are children of God, unique personalities, creative beings. (2) Take the trouble to stop and think of the other person’s feelings, his viewpoints, his desires and needs. Think more of what the other fellow wants, and how he must feel.

We simply must get it through our heads that holding a low opinion of ourselves is not a virtue, but a vice.

Prescription: Stop carrying around a mental picture of yourself as a defeated, worthless person. Stop dramatizing yourself as an object of pity and injustice.

But the biggest secret of self-esteem is this: Begin to appreciate other people more; show respect for any human being merely because he is a child of God and therefore a “thing of value.” Stop and think when you’re dealing with people. You’re dealing with a unique, individual creation of the Creator of all. Practice treating other people as if they have some value—and surprisingly enough your own self-esteem will go up.

Yet, what do most of us do? We destroy our self-confidence by remembering past failures and forgetting all about past successes. We not only remember failures, we impress them on our minds with emotion. We condemn ourselves. We flay ourselves with shame and remorse (both are highly egotistical, self-centered emotions). And self-confidence disappears. It doesn’t matter how many times you have failed in the past. What matters is the successful attempt, which should be remembered, reinforced, and dwelt upon.

The greatest mistake a man can make is to be afraid of making one.

Emotional habits of resentment and self-pity also go with an ineffective, inferior self-image. You begin to picture yourself as a pitiful person, a victim, who was meant to be unhappy.

LIFE BECOMES WORTHWHILE WHEN YOU HAVE WORTHWHILE GOALS

Emptiness is a symptom that you are not living creatively. You either have no goal that is important enough to you, or you are not using your talents and efforts in striving toward an important goal. It is the person who has no purpose of his own who pessimistically concludes, “Life has no purpose.” It is the person who has no goal worth working for who concludes, “Life is not worthwhile.” It is the person with no important job to do who complains, “There is nothing to do.” The individual who is actively engaged in a struggle, or in striving toward an important goal, does not come up with pessimistic philosophies concerning the meaninglessness or the futility of life.

Emptiness, when once experienced, can become a way of avoiding effort, work, and responsibility. It becomes an excuse, or a justification, for noncreative living. If all is vanity, if there is no new thing under the sun, if there is no joy to be found anyway—why bother? Why try? If life is just a treadmill—if we work eight hours a day so we can afford a house to sleep in, so we can sleep eight hours to become rested for another day’s work—why get excited about it? All these intellectual “reasons” vanish, however, and we do experience joy and satisfaction, when once we get off the treadmill, stop going around and around in circles, and select some goal worth striving for—and go after it.

remembering how he had felt, and how he had acted, when he “was eating in the kitchen with