"Psycho-Cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz

• You can learn more from failure than success.
• The “self-image” is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self-image and you change the personality and the behavior.
• We learn to function successfully by experiencing success. Memories of past successes act as built-in “stored information” which gives us self-confidence for the present task.
• Whether we realize it or not, each of us carries about with us a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves.
• Once an idea or belief about ourselves goes into this picture it becomes “true”, as far as we personally are concerned. We do not question its validity, but proceed to act upon it just as if it were true.
• All your actions, feelings, behavior -- even y our abilities -- are always consistent with this self-image.
• The self-image can be changed.
• To really “live”, that is to find life reasonably satisfying, you must have an adequate and realistic self image that you can live with.
• Do not be afraid of making mistakes, or of temporary failures.
• Skill learning of any kind is accomplished by trial and error, mentally correcting aim after an error, until a “successful” motion, movement or performance has been achieved.
• 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.
• You must have a clear mental picture of the correct thing before you can do it successfully.
• Great living starts with a picture, held in your imagination, of what you would like to do or be.
• 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.
• 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.
• The important factor in learning, in short, it the thought of an objective to be attained, either as a specific behavior pattern or as the result of the behavior, together with a desire for the attainment of the object.
• It is conscious thinking which is the “control knob” of your unconscious machine.
• 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.
• The minute that we change our minds, and stop giving power to the past, the past with its mistakes loses power over us.
• A man should make up his mind with emphasis as to what he rationally believes, and should never allow contrary irrational beliefs to pass unchallenged or obtain a hold over him, however brief.
• To conclude “I can’t” in advance, without trying, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, is not rational.
• Do your worrying before you place your bet, not after the wheel starts turning.
• Form the habit of consciously responding to the present moment.
• Look neither forward nor backward beyond a 24-hour cycle. Live today as best you can. By living today well you do the most within your power to make tomorrow better.
• Practice becoming more consciously aware of your present environment.
• Try to do only one thing at a time.
• Relax while you work.
• We think better, perform better, feel better, and are healthier when we are happy.
• Happiness is a mental habit, a mental attitude, and if it is not learned and practiced in the present it is never experienced.
• The success type personality has the following traits:
• Sense of direction
• Understanding
• Courage
• Charity
• Esteem
• Self-confidence
• Self-acceptance
• We are engineered as goal-seeking mechanisms. We are built that way. When we have no personal goal which we are interested in and which “means something” to us, we are apt to “go around in circles”, feel “lost” and find life itself “aimless”, and “purposeless”.
• Having a goal and understanding the situation are not enough. You must have the courage to act, for only by actions can goals, desires and beliefs be translated into realities.
• All problems, personal, national, or combat, become smaller if you don’t dodge them, but confront them.
• If we wait until we are absolutely certain and sure before we act we will never do anything.
• Chronic frustration usually means that the goals we have set for ourselves are unrealistic, or the image we have of ourselves is inadequate, or both.
• The failure type personality has the following traits:
• Frustration, hopelessness, futility
• Aggressiveness (misdirected)
• Insecurity
• Loneliness (lack of “oneness”)
• Uncertainty
• Resentment
• Emptiness
• Work remains one of the best therapies, and one of the best tranquilizers for a troubled spirit.
• Loneliness is a way of self-protection.
• The lonely personality is afraid of other people.
• You cannot correct your course if you are standing still. You cannot change or correct “nothing”
• Big men and big personalities make mistakes and admit them. It is the little man who is afraid to admit he has been wrong.
• 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.
• To live creatively, we must be willing to be a little vulnerable.
• Don’t wonder in advance what you are “going to say”. Just open your mouth and say it. Improvise as you go along.
• Don’t plan. Don’t think before you act. Act -- and correct your actions as you go along.
• Stop criticizing yourself. The inhibited person indulges in self-critical analysis continually.
• Make a habit of speaking louder than usual. Inhibited people are notoriously soft-spoken. Raise the volume of your voice.
• The technique of “shadow-boxing”, or “practice without pressure”, is so simple, and the results so striking, that some people are inclined to associate it with some sort of magic.
• Close scrutiny will show that most of these everyday so-called “crisis situations” are not life-or-death matters at all, but opportunities to either advance, or stay where you are.
• Skill learning is largely a matter of trial-and-error practice until a number of “hits”, or successful actions have registered in memory.
• Start with an “opponent” over which you can succeed, and gradually take on more and more difficult tasks.
• Even in those areas where we have already developed a high degree of skill, it sometimes helps to “drop back”, lower our sights a bit, and practice with a feeling of ease. This is especially true when one reaches a “sticking point” in progress, where effort for additional progress is unavailing.
• You are never too old to exercise.