Many people are drawn to read Psycho-Cybernetics or learn Cybernetic Transposition to empower them to radically change their life circumstance; making more money being seen as the direct path to living without limits.  Feeling good about themselves and their life situation is what they seek.

Today I was thinking about out what is the fast track to feeling good and I came upon this excerpt from Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz and it spoke to me the importance of transforming ourselves from the inside out FIRST….

 The Self-image: Your Key to Living Without Limits

“I would argue that the most important psychological discovery of modern times is the discovery of the self-image. By understanding your self-image and by learning to modify it and manage it to suit your purposes, you gain incredible confidence and power.

Whether we realize it or not, each of us carries within us a mental blueprint or picture of ourselves. It may be vague and ill-defined to our conscious gaze.

In fact, it may not be consciously recognizable at all. But it is there, complete down to the last detail. This self-image is our own conception of the “sort of person I am.” It has been built up from our own belief about ourselves.

Our Past Experiences Define Us (or does it?)

Most of these beliefs about ourselves have unconsciously been formed from our past experiences, our successes and failures, our humiliations, our triumphs, and the way other people have reacted to us, especially in early childhood.

From all these we mentally construct a self (or a picture of a self). Once an idea or a belief about ourselves goes into this picture it becomes “truth,” 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.

The self-image then controls what you can and cannot accomplish, what is difficult or easy for you, even how others respond to you just as certainly and scientifically as a thermostat controls the temperature in your home.

Specifically, all your actions, feelings, behavior, even your abilities, are always consistent with this self-image. Note the word: always.

In short, you will “act like” the sort of person you conceive yourself to be. More important, you literally cannot act otherwise, in spite of all your conscious efforts or willpower.  This is why trying to achieve something difficult with teeth gritted is a losing battle.

Willpower is not the answer. Self-image management is.”