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.

All the evidence points to the
conclusion that in order to receive an “inspiration” or a “hunch,” the person must first of all be intensely interested in solving a particular problem, or securing a particular answer. He must think about it consciously, gather all the information he can on the subject, consider all the possible courses of action. And above all, he must have a burning desire to solve the problem. But, after he has defined the problem, sees in his imagination the desired end result, secured all the information and facts that he can, then additional struggling, fretting, and worrying over it does not help, but seems to hinder the solution.

Creative performance is spontaneous and “natural” as opposed to self-conscious and studied. The most skilled pianist in the world could never play a simple composition if he tried to consciously think out just which finger should strike which key—while he was playing. He has given conscious thought to this matter previously—while learning—and has practiced until his actions become automatic and habit-like. He was able to become a skilled performer only when he reached the point where he could cease conscious effort and turn the matter of playing over to the unconscious habit mechanism that is a part of the Success Mechanism.

Conscious effort inhibits and jams the automatic Creative Mechanism. The reason some people are self-conscious and awkward in social situations is simply that they are too consciously concerned, too
anxious, about doing the right thing. They are painfully conscious of every move they make. Every action is “thought out.” Every word spoken is calculated for its effect. We speak of such persons as “inhibited,” and rightly so. But it would be more true were we to say that the person is not inhibited, but that the person has inhibited his own Creative Mechanism. If these people could let go, stop trying, not care, and give no thought to the matter of their behavior, they could act creatively, spontaneously, and be themselves.

“Do Your Worrying Before You Place Your Bet, Not After the Wheel Starts Turning”

Form the Habit of Consciously Responding to the Present Moment