Chapter 8 - The Success Type Personailty

Chapter 8 of Psycho-Cybernetics defines what a "sucess-type" personality is.

SUCCESS to Dr. Maltz is an acronym for:

Sense of direction
Understanding
Courage
Charity
Esteem
Self-Confidence
Self-Acceptance

SENSE OF DIRECTION:

Human beings function like a bicycle. It can maintain its poise and equilibrium as long as it is heading forwards. With no place to go, it is difficult to maintain balance and the bike will be "shaky" in its balance.

When you have no personal goals, you will go around in circles and find life as aimless and purposeless. The people who say that life is not worthwhile are really saying that they have no worthwhile goals.

Prescription: Get a goal that is worth working for. Decide what you want out of a situation. In addition to person goals, help out a "cause" which you can identify with that will help others.

UNDERSTANDING:

Understanding depends on good communication. Communication is vital for any guidance system or computer to function well. Your Success Mechanism will not function appropriately if the information is faulty or misunderstood.

Oftentimes, we color incoming sensory data with our own fears, anxieties or desires.

Prescription: If you have made any mistakes, correct hem and move towards your goal. An automatic guidance system corrects its cause through negative feedback data. It acknowledges errors, corrects them and moves towards the goal.

COURAGE:

Having a goal and understanding of the situation are not enough. You must have the courage to pursue the goal. Often the difference between a successful person and an average person is that the successful person is willing to bet on himself and take a calculated risk. A step in the wrong direction is better than staying "on the spot" all your life. Once you are moving, you can correct your course as you go. The automatic mechanism cannot guide you when you are "standing still".

A man who will not develop his own courage is likely to find courage from external sources such as alcohol.

Prescription: Have the courage to make a few mistakes and suffer a little pain to get to your goal. Don't sell yourself short. You have all the resources within you. You will never know you have them within yourself until you act and give them a chance to work for you.

CHARITY:

It is a psychological fact that our feelings about other people is a reflection on how we feel about ourselves. Thus, when a person is charitable towards others, he will be charitable towards himself.

Prescription: Develop a genuine appreciation for people and their uniqueness. Think about other people's feelings and their desires and needs. Think about how they feel. Treat other people as important.

ESTEEM:

Having a low self-esteem is a form of self-sabotage.

Prescription: The word "esteem" literally means "to appreciate the worth of". The biggest secret of self-esteem is to appreicate others.

SELF-CONFIDENCE:

Confidence is built upon an experience of success. When we firs begin any undertaking, we are likly to have little confidence in our ability because we have not learned from experience that we can succeed. All your successes will breed other successes. The more we practice something, the more we will have sucess at it. This is because the "computer" in thebrain will remember the sucessful attempts and discard the failures. Dwelling on, reinforcing, and rembering our successes will increase self-confidence.

Prescription: Consider all errors, and unsuccessful attempts as learning experiences. Deliberately remember and picture your successes and how it felt like when your previous goals were achieved and accomplished. When starting a new project, call up the feelings from all your past successes and use them for your new project.

SELF-ACCEPTANCE:

Changing your self-image does not mean changing yourself or improving yourself. What it means is changing your mental conception and realization of that self. Having a better self-image does not create any new abilities, talents, and powers -- a better self-image releases and utilizes them.

Self-acceptance means accepting yourself for who you are with all your strengths as well as weaknesses. Your mistakes and failures are not "you", it is only what you have done. You are not your mistakes. If you have made a mistake, then you should use it as negative feedback to move yourself towards the goal you are aiming for.

Prescription: Accept yourself as you are, even with your shortcomings. Differentiate your "self" and your "behavior".