Maxwell Maltz

His plight is somewhat comparable to the young man who cannot secure a job because he has no experience, and cannot acquire experience because he cannot get a job.

“Nothing succeeds like success.” We learn to function successfully by experiencing success. Memories of past successes act as built-in “stored information,”

Understanding the psychology of the self can mean the difference between success and failure, love and hate, bitterness and happiness. The discovery of the real self can rescue a crumbling marriage, recreate a faltering career, and transform victims of “personality failure.”
On another plane, discovering your real self means the difference between freedom and the compulsions of conformity.

1. All your actions, feelings, behaviors—even your abilities—are always consistent with this self-image. In short, you will “act like” the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.

Theatre of the Mind. I’d close my eyes, then remember and relive my best moments—seeing them play out like a mental movie. My victories. My successes. My happiest times.

Develop a more self-reliant attitude. Assume responsibility for your own life and emotional needs. Try giving affection, love, approval, acceptance, understanding to other people, and you will find them coming back to you as a sort of reflex action.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to “get your feelings hurt,” or “take offense,” when you are suffering tensions brought about by frustration, fear, anger, or depression?

We go to work feeling out of sorts, or down in the dumps, or with self-confidence shaken because of some adverse experience. A friend comes by and makes a joking remark. Nine times out of ten we would laugh, think it funny, “think nothing about it,” and make a good-natured crack in return. But not today.

Today, we are suffering tensions of self-doubt, insecurity, anxiety.
We “take” the remark in the wrong way, become offended and hurt, and an emotional scar begins to form.

This simple, everyday experience illustrates very well the principle that we are injured and hurt emotionally—not so much by other people or what they say or don’t say—but by our own attitude and our own response.

When we “feel hurt” or “feel offended,” the feeling is entirely a matter of our own response. In fact the feeling is our response.

Give Up Grudges as You Would a Gangrenous Arm

First, the “wrong”—and particularly our own feeling of condemnation of it—must be seen as an undesirable thing rather than a desirable thing. Before a man can agree within himself to have his arm amputated, he must cease to see his arm as a desirable thing to be
retained, but as an undesirable, damaging, and threatening thing to be given up.