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

by Maxwell Maltz

You are basically an “actor”—not a “reactor.” Throughout this book we have spoken of reacting and responding appropriately to environmental factors. Man, however, is not primarily a “reactor,” but an “actor.” We do not merely react and respond, willy-nilly, to whatever environmental factors may be present, like a ship that goes whichever way the wind happens to blow. As goal-striving beings we first must act. We set our own goal, determine our own course. Then—within the context of this goal-striving structure—we respond and react appropriately, that is, in a manner that will further our progress and serve our own ends.

This means maintaining an aggressive, goal-directed attitude, rather than a defensive, evasive, negative one: No matter what happens, I can handle it, or I can see it through, rather than I hope nothing happens.

Your automatic Creative Mechanism is teleological. That is, it operates in terms of goals and end results. Once you give it a definite goal to achieve, you can depend on its automatic guidance system to take you to that goal much better than you ever could by conscious thought.

Remember what has been emphasized earlier: Our brain and nervous system cannot tell the difference between a real experience, and one that is vividly imagined.

In short, science confirms that there is a “tattooing,” or action pattern, of engrams in your brain for every successful action you have ever performed in the past. And if you can somehow furnish the spark to bring that action pattern into life, or “replay” it, it will execute itself, and all you’ll have to do is “swing the clubs” and “let nature take its course.”

We can acquire the “habit of success”; we can build into our gray matter patterns and feelings of success at any time and at any age by following Dr. Eliot’s advice to teachers. If we are habitually frustrated by failure, we are very apt to acquire habitual “feelings of failure,” which color all new undertakings. But by arranging things so that we can succeed in little things, we can build an atmosphere of success that will carry over into larger undertakings. We can gradually undertake more difficult tasks and, after succeeding in them, be in a position to undertake something even more challenging. Success is literally built upon success, and there is much truth in the saying “Nothing succeeds like success.” Gradualness

1. The Need for Love 2. The Need for Security 3. The Need for Creative Expression 4. The Need for Recognition 5. The Need for New Experiences 6. The Need for Self-Esteem