She senses the executives are better than her. She feels below standard because the executives are dressed in suits while she wears a basic top and skirt. She does not know the executives very well and finds it hard to socialize with them, which makes her feel less as a person. Regardless of the superficial reason for her difference that makes her feel less than the executives, the real problem is her inferiority complex.

In 1912, a psychologist by the name of Alfred Alder wrote a book titled The Neurotic Character. His research in the book founded a popular area of psychology known as the inferiority complex, a term that describes a sense of inferiority an individual feels about oneself towards other people. It revolves around social status, power, ego, and dominance. You will have an inferiority complex when you feel less than people. You think other people are better than you.

Sally in our example feels inferior because she thinks the executives are better than her. Her inferiority has nothing to do with not knowing the executives, being dressed differently, or having a less prestigious job. Her interpretation of this situation that makes her feel below standard creates her inferiority.

An inferiority complex can arise when you experience an imagined or conditioned feeling of inferiority. As is the case for most people, it is a combination of imagination and subtle conditioning. You feel inferior when an event takes place, which makes you feel less than others (conditioning aspect), and your creative imagination (imagination aspect) would “blow out” your understanding of the event beyond what seems reasonable to another person.

The conditioning aspect in Sally’s example is her actual differences to the executives. She is wearing different clothes to the executives and she is not “a part of the group” based on her employment status. The imagination aspect for Sally is her clothes fall below standards, the executives are better than her, the executives want nothing to do with her because of her difference, plus many other irrationalities she thinks that makes her feel like a lesser human. The big difference between conditioning and imagination hold the answer to cure your inferiority complex.

The First Main Factor of Inferiority: Conditioning

I would be completely lying and doing everyone a disfavor if I said, “The inferiority complex is all in the mind. Just stop thinking you’re inferior because you’re not.” If it were so simple, billions of people would not experience feelings of inferiority sometime in their life. The inferiority complex is society’s psychological black plague that devours too many lives.

My main motivation in writing this article was to provide an accurate source of information to overcome the problem based on what works. The information in this article is a collection of the most useful advice on the inferiority complex I have synthesized over the years, along with specific lessons I have developed to overcome my own inferiority complex; unlike personal development teachers I know of who solely emphasize positiveness to overcome feelings of inferiority.

I did some brief browsing on the web to see what information was available on the inferiority complex, and most of the advice offered is harmful. “Experts” were telling people “things will get better”, “be more positive”, or “it’s not so bad”. If you have the inferiority complex and someone says similar things to you, you will understand the massive frustration caused from the misunderstanding when someone gives you such poor advice.

Positive thinking can be nicely understood through an analogy in a Bible verse. In Luke chapter five (NKJV), Jesus was talking to complaining Pharisees. Jesus replied to them in a parable so they would be more likely to understand:

“No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.”

The garment and the wineskins examples are what positive thinking does to our self-image. A new patch over the bad garment improves the garment a little bit, yet it is still its same old self. If new wine (positive thinking) is poured into old wineskins (your poor self-image of feeling inferior), then nothing good will result. It is a battle of willpower and what is known as creative imagination.

Positive thinking can slightly improve the situation, but in the end it usually results in frustration as your willpower becomes exhausted. Willpower results in an oscillation between the problem and an absence of the problem – failing to create a permanent solution. You cannot use self-determination to cure feelings of inferiority. Whenever willpower fights creative imagination, creative imagination is the victor. I repeat for emphasis: Your creative imagination, which consists of images and feelings, will always conquer your willpower.

From personal experience and coaching others, I know first hand that a better self-image where you do not feel inferior cannot be achieved through positive self-talk, affirmations, and the like. Unfortunately, thousands of people have taught, and continue to teach, that using positive self-talk will overcome your problems. Positive self-talk is often nothing more than an attempt to live deliriously from reality, ignoring what really takes place.

When Doing Becomes Being – Why Failure and Criticism Fuel Inferiority

The primary factors of conditioning that determine whether you become inferior or rise above the circumstance is your attitude towards criticism and failure. Do not forget about the creative imagination component – the stronger influence of feeling inferior – yet criticism and failure most powerfully influence the conditioning component.

Criticism and failure will always bang at your door to success – more so as you achieve your goals. I have noticed that as readers of my newsletter (ToP Tips) and articles increase, so does the criticism. I get excited with this because I know the criticism signals achievement. Any criticism and failure has nothing to do with me – in fact, it usually has more to do with the other person.

You and I will always have our critics if we avoid mediocrity. Anyone that has achieved anything notable, sooner or later receives harsh criticism. Find a dark corner where you can hide from the world if you want to avoid criticism (but then again, you will be criticized for hiding). The Greek philosopher Aristotle said, “Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.”

People criticize you because they either want to improve your life, desire to release their frustration, or have their own problems. Failure and criticism say nothing about you; rather, let them signal personal growth. You can take criticism as a sign of progressing in life. If I had not experienced feelings of inferiority, I would not have worked on myself and personally grown. No way would I be writing this article today. I am certain I would not teach any communication skills.

You will never eliminate criticism or failure. The conditioning aspect of inferiority will never vanish. Therefore, to overcome the inferiority complex you cannot expect to avoid failure, dodge criticism, and achieve perfection. You must learn, move on, and maintain a goal-focused attitude to overcome an inferiority complex.

Criticism and failure will never stop as long as you pursue goals. Problems arise when you let the two burglars get a foot hold within your life. You come to feel inferior by associating criticism and failure with how you see yourself. The thieves steal valuable mental goods important to your success.

You will always do things in an inferior way to what other people can do – there is no ignoring that – but a secret to overcome your inferiority complex is to stop associating yourself with your actions. Stop letting failure and criticism form your identity. Inferiority arises when doing becomes being. When you associate what you do with yourself, actions of doing become actions of being.

A young guy gets poor results at school. He associates his grades with his intelligence – leading him to believe he is dumb. Is he really dumb because he was too lazy to study? No. A guy that gets poor results at school and does not feel inferior, dissociates himself with the result. He does not let his lack of study and effort over the school year make him feel that he is his outcome.

When you feel criticism is a signal of your unworthiness, only then does it stimulate inferiority, shame, and failure. Do not take criticism personally and think of yourself as a failure. Justly deserved criticism needs to be used as feedback to adjust your course of action back on the path of success.

The Three Factors of Criticism – Don’t Let These Get You Down

We all have been criticized. Some people suffer while others flourish and experience great levels of confidence, success, happiness, and intimate relationships. Why is this? What can you learn from this to overcome your inferiority complex?

The underlying reason some people feel inferior from criticism and failure, while other people flourish under such feedback, is how they react to the three components of criticism: the power of the sender, intensity, and frequency. You cannot control the three components of criticism – as is true for any conditioning aspect of inferiority – but you can control your reaction to them (the imagination component).

If you are passionate about boxing and Muhammad Ali said you are a hopeless boxer, his power and status intensifies the criticism. In addition, if his criticism was delivered in an intense outburst, the criticism would have a bigger impact on you feeling inferior as a boxer. If Ali also constantly reminded you how hopeless you are at boxing, this would stimulate further inferiority. The sender, intensity, and frequency of positive and negative messages impact how we feel about ourselves.

What matters, however, is your reaction. Think of a time when the power of the sender, intensity of the criticism, and the frequency of criticism made you feel inferior. If you can – and I suggest you do – make your selected memory one related to your current feelings of inferiority. If you are a shy person, perhaps think of a time when someone told you to stop talking because you have nothing good to say.

Once you have come up with one or several memories, ask yourself these questions:

• What were you thinking when the person made you feel inferior?
• What emotions did you experience?
• What self-talk followed the person’s negative feedback?
• How long did these feelings and thoughts last?
• How intense were these feelings and thoughts?

After answering these questions, if you reacted poorly to the negative feedback given to you in these situations, you should now be aware of how your feelings of inferiority develop. This is big. If you have the inferiority complex or know someone with it, I hope you’re getting excited about this insight.

The powerful lesson we can learn from this is that people’s criticism and other types of negative feedback has no power over you. It is not the events that make you inferior; it is your reaction to the events. It is the thoughts and feelings you experience after the event that determine whether your inferiority grows or dies. The conditioning aspect of inferiority partly manifests through the criticism of others – if you let it – yet your reaction to the event determines how you feel about yourself.

You condition yourself to feel inferior through self-criticism. You become your own worst enemy. The failed events and experiences shape your identity, making you appear a failure.

Harmful feelings trail behind harmful thoughts. You start to feel inferior. You use your creative imagination poorly and begin to evoke images of failure, misery, shame, unworthiness, and low self-esteem. All the negative messages you’ve accepted over time mold your self-image to make you feel inferior. You eventually believe you are inferior. That is essentially how an inferiority complex develops – through your creative imagination.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of The New Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz
2. How to Not Care What People Are Thinking About You – and Release Your People-Magnetic Self Into the Conversation
3. Setting SMART Achievable Personal Goals
4. On Achieving Goals – Part 2: How to Be Self-Motivated
5. 5 Truths About Fear: What Fear Doesn’t Want You To Know

Let’s say the problem is being overweight – as it is for many. You have 20 pounds you want to drop. You are sick of the extra weight making you feel bad and not look your best, which motivates you to lose weight. You build the willpower and determination to drop a few pounds to feel good again and improve your looks.

Through determination to solve your weight problem, two weeks later you jump on the scales to discover you have lost nine pounds. You’re ecstatic! The tension you once had about your weight eases. Because you feel more comfortable with your body – and your willpower drained a lot of mental energy – you return to old habits. You take less action to lose weight.

One month passes since your weight loss accomplishment, yet the nine pounds finds itself back on you. It feels too difficult to exert willpower to maintain a strict diet and exercise regime. You criticize yourself over your weakness and your inability to change. You feel helpless in forever creating a permanent solution to your weight loss problem.

The scenario above is by no means unusual. Weight loss challenges occur everyday in diverse forms. Other common examples include: managing anger, but we still blow up; quitting smoking, but we still smoke; getting a new job, but we remain in the old one; starting a new healthy relationship, but we remain in a destructive relationship; communicating more effectively, but we don’t communicate effectively and remain true to our ourselves. Why is this?

The Problem: The Tension-Resolution Model

Robert Fritz in his book The Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life says we fail to change ourselves when we problem solve. That’s right! Problem solving is responsible for, well, not solving the problem.

Problem solvers feel victimized for not receiving what they want. They often miserable and depressed, and blame circumstances for their reality. Their circumstances clinch them by the throat to direct what they do.

Fritz says we fail to change when we try to solve our problems because mental and emotional oscillation occurs between tension and resolution. One moment the pain creates tension. For example, you could be sick of loneliness and your failure to find an attractive partner who has a great personality. The tension pushes you along to improve your dating skills and better your life to attract a wonderful partner. Your efforts help you find someone you love. The tension dissipates – as does your efforts to improve your life. Eventually, you stop doing what worked to attract the person. The attraction disappears and you fight with each other more, which causes the two of you to break up.

The tension-resolution model describes tension as the problem. As the tension builds, you feel compelled to solve the problem. The intensity of the problem lessens as does the tension when you problem solve. You have less motivation to keep the problem at bay. The end result: the unwanted behavior returns!

Old habits reenter our lives because we problem solve instead of changing the underlying structure. Fritz says to solve a problem means to remove something, the problem. We try to remove anger, smoking, swearing, complaining, blaming, and negativity. In each of the hypothetical examples provided earlier, weight is regained because you did not want the 20 pounds and you lost your partner because you feared loneliness. We try to make something go away rather than create what we want. Our reactive nature to problems ensures we remain stuck in trouble. It is easy to think problem solving will make you happy when it only makes something go away.

Problem Solving Hurts Your Relationships

Problem solving also does not create what you want in relationship communication and persuasion. Too often we try to change people by building tension in them – and they may temporarily change to reduce the tension – but they quickly revert to old patterns. Sending people solutions makes them resist what you try to create!

One third of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program is about effectively creating solutions in others. We desperately try to change people by criticizing, ordering, threatening, questioning, or advising, for example, but this creates a tension-resolution dynamic to prevent change. You can pain someone into changing, but if they don’t have the underlying structure to change, they will not change. (I strongly encourage you to get my program by clicking here if you are interested in being a charismatic individual that changes people’s minds.)

The Path of Least Resistance

If you have visited Boston, the crazy road structure probably befuddled you. It appears Boston had no planning in their road infrastructure. Rumors say that Boston’s road structure is based on seventeenth-century cow paths. When cows walked the land, they walked on paths that provided the least resistance. Step-by-step the cows walked paths easiest to them.

Dirt paths developed overtime, reaffirming these paths to be the easiest direction of travel for cows. When humans populated the lands and began constructing roads, they followed the cows. Settlers paved over the dirt roads because it was easiest to work with the paths created by the cows rather than construct new paths. Because the cows followed their path of least resistance, rather than strategic paths optimal for human travel, Boston’s roads are meandering structures confusing to its travelers.

William Fowler, director of the Massachusetts Historical Society, says Boston’s road paths were not founded on cow paths. The example, nonetheless, serves its purpose to explain human behavior: energy flows along the path of least resistance.

In physics, objects travel through a system following the path of least resistance. Like water in the Amazon river, our energy flows along the easiest path. Like wind blowing through the Grand Canyon, our energy flows along the easiest path. Like pedestrians walking along a busy New York street, our energy flows along the easiest path.

Laziness is human nature. Our innate desire pushes for easier ways to do activities. Does this mean we secretly desire to sloth in front of the television while eating a bag of Doritos and sipping our favorite beer? Of course not. What it does mean is that we take the easiest path to get where we want to go. Our energy flows along the path that provides the minimal amount of resistance. Fritz says, “You got to where you are in your life right now by moving along the path of least resistance.”

Why Self-Help and the Law of Attraction Sucks

We try to fight the path of least resistance by using techniques like willpower, affirmations, and positive-thinking. We use these self-help techniques to motivate us to change, but our attempts to solve the problem fail to create a solution.

The problem with traditional self-help does not stop there. The messages sent through affirmations, willpower, and positive-thinking create the opposite effect to one’s desired outcome! These techniques create a paradoxical effect of no change. The subtle messages communicated from traditional self-help skills is that “I lie to myself because I find it difficult to change”.

You can see this by analyzing intention manifestation, the law of attraction, metaphysics, and similar principles that publicly took off when the movie The Secret hit Oprah. According to these areas of study, if you continually reaffirm what you want and stay true to the universe, the universe will automatically manifest your dreams.

Believers of “the secret” are bogged in their way of seeing that anything contradictory to their belief system is either frowned upon, overlooked, or manipulated to affirm their beliefs. Sounds a lot like a cult.

The underlying structure of new age fields of thought ironically cause people to not change. If you truly believe something, you do not reaffirm it to yourself. You do not rise in the morning to spend 15 minutes chanting affirmations that the universe will give you want you want if you believe you’ll get it. The unconscious messages sent through willpower and positive-thinking say you will not change or find it difficult to change because you need to use techniques to manipulate your subconscious mind.

Dr. Maxwell Maltz in The New Psycho-cybernetics emphasizes that willpower does not create change. Techniques that consume willpower burn energy because we remain stuck in the destructive tension-resolution pattern. The internal friction consumes energy on fruitless efforts. We spin our wheels in a stationary position. Energy is wasted that could otherwise be put into tasks that move us toward our goals. You need to channel valuable willpower and determination into choices and decisions that take you to your desired future.

How to Create a Permanent Solution – The Secret to Lasting Change

A radical shift in choice towards fulfilling what you want leads to permanent change. In terms of managing anger, for example, if you make the fundamental choice that governs your behavior to be a calm person by safely expressing anger, you do not fight your anger by trying to resolve it; rather, you change the structure of your anger to create a new behavior that brings what you want. Situations that test your anger lead you to create results and processes aligned with your fundamental choice and desired outcome.

People subject themselves to their circumstances by living in a respond-react environment. Fritz put it nicely when he said problem solving “subjects you to the whims of circumstances” (seen in situations where people expect things to be a certain way in order to make them happy). In problem solving, you wander (and wonder) through life’s maze where your environment is the walls. Your environment dictates who you are and where you go.

Permanent change in human behavior does not arise from problem solving where you rest at the helm of life’s circumstances. Lasting change comes from a new underlying structure of your being that guides life. Instead of fighting change, you become the change because it is your new path of least resistance. It becomes easier for you to do what you want and move towards your goals than doing otherwise.

Until a fundamental choice of good health is made, one cannot be truly healthy. Individuals in psychotherapy who fail to make an authentic fundamental choice of good health do not change. They stick to old patterns of unhealthy behavior. Some are even addicted to their challenges – without their problems, their identity is void and people give them little attention. They may say they want to change, but deep down they want their challenges because it fulfills a need. They fail to choose the empowering vision or they try to solve a problem instead of changing the underlying structure of their life.

Fritz emphasizes that the real solution to change is knowing your present reality and possessing a clear vision of what you want. This means knowing exactly where you are and where you want to go without delusion. Once you define what you want and understand your present reality, you will feel freedom and be at ease with yourself. A new structure directs your energy to effortlessly create what you want.

The greatest problem people have when defining what they want is they define what they do not want. “I don’t want to be anger”, “I don’t want to blow up at my kids”, “I don’t want to lose my temper”, “I don’t want to be fat”, and “I don’t want to be unhealthy” are a few examples of defining what you do not want. Knowing you do not want to travel to New York for a holiday does not help you go on holidays. How are you suppose to arrive at your destination if it is unknown?

Artists are excellent models to follow because they create a solution and know the end result. An artist stares at a blank canvas ready to start a new project. If he paints without a vision of the end result, he will not know when the painting is complete. He will feel unfilled and demotivated as the painting continues because he responds and reacts to the present moment of painting. On the contrary, if he knows what he wants, he will paint to achieve his vision. He will create a painting that fulfills his desires – and he will know when the painting is complete. He does not seek external validation for his painting because the satisfaction comes internally from knowing the painting matches his vision.

People think artists are spontaneous, but creativity is not always analogous with spontaneity. The best way to create comes through knowing what you want. An awareness of what you want allows your creative mind to compose processes that manifest your desired solution.

Putting It All Together

I will give you a strong example in my life I struggled with that touches on everything discussed in this article. Though I learned communication skills for years and used some of the information, I never fully changed my behavior. I tried so desperately to communicate well by using willpower, positive-thinking, and determination, yet I reverted to old habits. My energy flowed along the path of least resistance of poor communication. It was harder for me to effectively communicate than poorly communicate.

Sometimes I would solve the problem, but I was merely making something go away; I was not creating what I wanted. What I wanted was being ignored in favor of removing what I did not want. Other times, the “change” was temporary. I tried to solve my problem of poor communication instead of changing my underlying structure that would create permanent change.

As I discuss in my communication secrets program, I was resisting what I did not want, which created a persistent problem. There was the tension-resolution dynamic. Sometimes I changed, which decreased the intensity of the problem, but then so did the tension and my effort to communicate well. My willpower was burned so I let problems be – after all, interpersonal problems began to resolve. Tension would eventually increase again as the cycle started over.

I solved this by analyzing my current reality, where I was in my communication, and its affects on me. Next, I developed a crystal clear vision of what I wanted, then I made the choice to have it. When I made the fundamental choice to be true to myself, to communicate effectively (not “to avoid bad communication”), permanent change took place. My identity and life orientation changed to be one who uses effective communication.

Today I do not exert willpower to communicate effectively – though I need to remember my vision and remind myself what I want. I use effective communication with minimal effort. My new structure has changed my life orientation. The processes I engage in effortlessly take me to a life of good communication.

You and I always gravitate to the processes aligned with our fundamental choices. You still need to learn the “how” of what you want, but that comes naturally once you follow this decision path.

I want you to analyze your current reality. Next, think of what you exactly want. Have a pure vision of your desired reality. Write it down on several sheets of paper. You can make what you want clear by writing it in detail on several pages (I have a 10 page document that describes my perfect day). Lastly, make the fundamental choice to get what you want – and mean it. These are the foundations of lasting change.

When you follow this plan to change your structure, you create permanent change. People, information, and other processes will seem to magically drop into place. It becomes easy for you to create what you want. Your energy flows along this new path of least resistance.

You are the creative force in your life. It’s time to live how you want.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life by Brian Tracy
2. Change Your Words to Change People: Persuasive Power Words
3. Just Be Yourself – Why It’s Bad Advice: Being Yourself is the Problem
4. Neuro-Linguistic Programming Presuppositions – 12 Rules to Change Your Reality
5. On Achieving Goals – Part 2: How to Be Self-Motivated

Few of us realize our habitual behavior. We remain blind to the patterns that take us to our desired destination or the future we want to avoid. Author Robert Fritz, developer of the Technologies for Creating, has developed a field of study called “Macrostructural Patterns” explained in his book that demystifies habitual behavior to help you create what you want in life.

The core behind what Fritz teaches is that human behavior, like physics, flows along the path of least resistance. Just as water flows through a river along its path of least resistance, so does human energy. Though the path of least resistance can carry you in unruly directions – as it so often does – it can empower you to effortlessly flow towards your goals.

Fritz says we fail to change because we fight our habits with willpower, positive-thinking, affirmations, and other similar self-help techniques. We also try to remove what we do not want instead of creating what we do want. We get stuck in problem solving instead of creation.

Many golden gems in the book will change how you approach problem solving for life in general to a new empowering direction. When you change the structure of your behavior by making primary and fundamental choices to behave in a way that is consistent with your vision – while acknowledging your present reality – you create lasting change.

The book is not about creativity, painting, and similar artistic works; it is about harnessing your innate human potential to create the life you want. Being human means you were born to create. From better managing emotions to eliminating destructive health patterns, The Path of Least Resistance provides you with simple methods to create your desired life.

Though Fritz’s book is simple and the concepts are few, when you read the book I advise you to let the italicized sentences sink into your mind as you pause to think deeply about what is written. There are a lot of “higher level concepts” shared that leave you to ponder their application in your life. These concepts are by no means New Age or based on pop psychology, as Fritz emphasizes in the book, but based on the “tradition of the arts and sciences”.

Once you make a fundamental choice aligned with your vision, while knowing your present reality, you will create what you want with less effort. Your new path of least resistance will lead you to your desired destination so you cannot but get the future you envision. People, processes, and circumstances align themselves once you decide to become the creative force in your life.

If you feel circumstances mold your life; if you have tried to change yourself, but reverted to your old way of behaving; if you have ever wanted to create a life you want The Path of Least Resistance is for you. You can grab your copy of the book now from Amazon by clicking here.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
2. Review of Influence by Robert Cialdini
3. Why Problem Solving Doesn’t Solve the Problem and the Real Solution to Permanent Change
4. Review of The New Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz
5. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Maxwell Maltz became a plastic surgeon in the 1920′s and successfully changed people’s physical appearance for decades. In his private New York practice he operated on people from all around the world like well-known celebrities. People entered Maltz’s practice with poor perceptions of themselves as they underwent operation in hope to look and feel like a new person.

Some clients following their operations left Dr. Maltz’s practice feeling happy with the surgery he performed. Other times, though patients had successful operations, they left feeling unhappy. It wasn’t too long until Dr. Maltz operated on them again to correct another “wrong feature” of their body. Dr. Maltz became curious. He wondered why some individuals maintained unusual perceptions of their body despite undergoing successful plastic surgery and correcting their unlikable body features. He investigated why people had inflated and distorted pictures of their physical “defects”.

After years of research and experience, Dr. Maltz came up with the reason plastic surgery did not solve people’s image problems: plastic surgery successfully healed people’s physical defects, but these people still had “emotional scars” from their inaccurate self-image. After coaching athletes, patients, salespeople, and many others who become interested in his findings, he came to write Psycho-Cybernetics.

Passing away in 1975 at the age of 76, Dr. Maltz’s teachings have more than survived over the years. Dr. Maltz is the founder of modern self-improvement. All teachings after 1960 about visualization, creative imagination, and relaxation, stem from Psycho-Cybernetics.

The New Psycho-Cybernetics is an updated version of the author’s original teachings, edited and updated by Dan Kennedy, a well-known copywriter and entrepreneurial genius. Kennedy has successfully kept Maltz’s style of writing in tact throughout the new version, which includes more examples and elaboration on Maltz’s original teachings.

Throughout the book, Maltz and Kennedy focus on the self-image because Maltz says it determines whether you achieve a goal. Along with the self-image is an in-depth discussion on what the original author calls the “automatic-success mechanism”, which each of us has within ourselves. We all have what it takes to achieve our goals, but we fail to achieve them by poorly using this mechanism. We are brought up to believe that we must experience pain, work hard, and use willpower, but this fights our creative mechanism to easily get what we want. One way we stimulate the automatic-success mechanism is by vividly visualizing our future – and by doing this we create a new self-image that helps us achieve our goals.

The New Psycho-Cybernetics contains 31 exercises you can use for various circumstances. Some remove anxiety when you phone a customer or start a conversation, while other exercises direct at long-term goals like gaining a promotion at work. The techniques mentioned in the book will help anyone lose weight, slow down the aging process, improve their athletic performance, become more confident, make more sales, and improve their relationships. Why? The self-image and creative imagination shapes our lives.

In terms of communication, The New Psycho-Cybernetics is a must-read for anyone that experiences anxiety, fear, or worry in situations like public speaking, meeting the opposite sex, talking with someone famous, and the list goes on. The book is definitely not limited to these areas – as it will change the way you think and feel about anything – but I felt these were its strong points. Maltz provides thorough explanations and mental exercises for relaxation and developing a success-type personality in a way that transcends many modern day teachings. His experience as a plastic surgeon seems to have given him insights about visualizations and self-perception that other authors fail to grasp.

As The New Psycho-Cybernetics is an updated version of Psycho-Cybernetics – the origin of modern day self improvement material – this book is a must-have in any person’s bookshelf. With millions of lives already changed, the book speaks for itself. It changed my life because I realized the severe degree my mental theater shapes who I am. I cannot emphasize enough the impact The New Psycho-Cybernetics will have on your life. It will change how you think and perceive yourself in an easy way that doesn’t use the hard work of willpower. If you are after an easy way to achieve what you want, grab your copy of the book now from Amazon by clicking here.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Winning with People by John Maxwell
2. Inferiority Complex and the Self-Image
3. Review of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
4. Review of The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz
5. Review of Think and Grow Rich! by Napoleon Hill

I frequently get asked by people how they can overcome such thoughts where they try to read someone’s mind. They want to know how they can eliminate worry over people’s judgments and thoughts in a conversation because it creates social awkwardness.

I use to have the same problem. I worried over people’s judgments of me – in conversations and in general social situations. I stand at 6’9” (206cm) and attract attention wherever I go. Some people go about their day as I walk by, while others gawk in amazement. (I don’t know if they realize it, but I’m tall and not deaf.) Thoughts such as, “Why are they looking at me like that?” destroyed my ability to socially enjoy myself until I discovered a few secrets I will share with you in this article that transformed me into a confident, happy, powerful person.

Surviving the Brutality of People’s Thoughts

Why are you concerned what people think of you? Take time as you explore your concerns. Analyze your unexplored fears and anxieties. Read on once you have thought deeply about this question.

As you explore your worries and anxieties about people’s thoughts towards you, you will see the problem boils down to worrying if people accept or approve you. Your worries center on accurate mind-reading in hope of adjusting yourself to be accepted or approved by people.

Social acceptance is important for everyone. If our ancestors were rejected and ostracized from their tribe, it was like a death sentence because they had to confront other tribes and animals while hunting and gathering food by themselves. It was near impossible to survive alone.

It is okay to want acceptance. Your fears are a survival mechanism, but because interactions and group structures have changed after thousands of years, you have outdated ways of thinking and behaving. What thoughts and beliefs helped humans thousands of years ago, even you last year, are unlikely to serve you well now. When you worry what people think of you, does it help you survive? Does it improve your conversation skills?

If you think about thinking about people’s thoughts, you see the anxious process does more harm than good. It chokes your social skills as you struggle to release your real, powerful self into the conversation. When you try to determine people’s judgments towards you, your perception of their social judgments creates inhibition and blinds your natural, magnetic personality.

We worry what people think of us more than we know:

• You keep quiet in a meeting as you withhold your ideas in fear of saying the wrong thing and being rejected. From a survival perspective, the fear makes sense because you could be ostracized from the workplace and lose your job, money, and lifestyle. In reality, suggesting an idea will never cause such a drastic outcome (unless you say something absurd like, “Let’s steal from the poor”, but even then your coworkers will probably laugh-off your remarks).
• When you talk to your spouse, you know something needs to be said, but you keep quiet because you fear his or her reaction. From a survival perspective, this could ultimately result in a break up where your genes cease to pass onto the next generation. If you say what is on your mind, however, your relationship strengthens because you discuss what really matters. (Difficult Conversations is a great book for these tough conversations.)
• You avoid doing something silly or unusual in public because you fear other people will label you as “weird”. I know people who do not kiss their partner in public because they worry what the viewing public thinks. The same survival principles hold true again: the fear originates from being ostracized from society. Nonetheless, no one is going to reject you – yet alone remember you – because you did something you consider an embarrassment.

If you do something people consider daring, they may put you down, but they will admire your courage. More often than not, something that is “out there” may not even be “out there” because we fathom what constitutes safety. Giving your opinion in a conversation is not going to determine if you live or die even if it appears daring to you.

Although it is uncomfortable to take action on something you are inhibited over, the return is greater than the initial expense. When you decide to not mind-read people in your conversations, your discomfort increases the same time your power increases. This is as certain as water grows plants. Facing the uncomfortable makes you powerful.

The Innate Gift of Mind-Reading

Our ability to infer another person’s mental state is referred by psychologists as having a “theory of mind”. The survival mechanism of mind-reading helps you adapt to diverse people and is powerful if you know how to use it.

Researchers agree our theory of mind develops around two years of age. Toddlers can calculate people’s desires, intents, and thoughts. If a toddler sees a crying baby, she infers the distressed baby’s mental state. The toddler may tug her mother’s sleeve, pulling her to comfort the distressed baby. Up until then, you will not see empathetic children with mind-reading skills.

If you were like a baby absent of a theory of mind, you would continuously get in social and emotional trouble. A theory of mind helps you to do the closest thing to mind-reading as you dig into a person’s mind. You are able to see the intangible like: a young boy picked on at school feels hurt and alone; your partner comes home from work smiling, leading you to believe he or she had a good day at work; a depressed friend who recently broke up with her boyfriend leads you to think she needs space for recovery. Your inference into mental states helps adjust your behavior to better accommodate people.

What if, however, your friend who broke up with her boyfriend, wants to be comforted by you. Because you guessed she needed space, she would feel neglected, ignored, and more rejected. Inaccurate mind-reading causes relationship destruction.

Tell someone their destructive mental state or intent behind an action, such as, “You’re jealous because you think…”, and you will cause immediate trouble. This is what I refer to as “diagnosing” where we figure out people’s intents behind their actions, which gets us into arguments and detracts from our power with people. (I recommend you read the third chapter on diagnosing of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People for more information about this bad communication habit.)

Mind-reading also frustrates the beholder. We jeopardize our wellbeing from judgments because we have limited ability to infer someone’s mental state. A person laughing at a distance who makes eye contact with you may be giggling at a joke, not you. You think people judge you – a useful process when used correctly – but it too often sends you to mental imprisonment as you become anxious and constrain your real self from entering the conversation. Your theory of mind is too often an unreliable tool to calculate what people think.

You were given the ability to read someone’s mind so you could better adapt to the environment. Someone aggressively staring you down triggers thoughts of potential danger, allowing you to change to survive the threat. You can be over-reliant on this skill, however, by worrying about people’s thoughts when there is no concrete evidence (such as nonverbal communication) that signal you need to adjust your behavior. What is used to survive and better connect you with people, separates you. (You can improve this innate skill to become become better with people by discovering several tricks of psychology to read people’s minds based on the roots of empathy.)

Using the Power Given to You to Become Better With People

Let’s take a look at the paradoxical outcome seen in the following example of someone concerned about social acceptance and meeting a person’s expectations – and be sure to learn from this example. A guy is meeting his girlfriend’s parents for the first time. He worries about being “good enough” for his girlfriend’s parents and living up to their high expectations. He is concerned that if his girlfriend’s parents think he is not their daughter’s Mr. Right, he will be rejected and forced to break up with his girlfriend.

He has two extreme options to select:

1. He needs to gain their approval.
2. He does not need to gain their approval.

Let’s say the guy chooses the first option. In this situation the guy is determined to get the parents’ approval. He analyzes the situation, thinks, worries, and focuses on what the parents could think. He tries to mind-read the parents, which makes him anxious.

When the guy tries to calculate what the parents expect of him, he gets stressed and anxious. His continual analysis of the parents’ thoughts causes awkward behavior. He becomes fidgety, apologetic, and strangled from his natural self. He gets along great with friends, but when it comes to talking with strangers he feels awful.

In this first situation, the guy forward-thinks and screws his chances of gaining the parents’ approval because he is seen as needy and unconfident. The guy needs people to validate his identity, which ironically causes them to disapprove of him.

When you need approval, people sense your neediness and social anxiety then reject you. A weak self causes you to be rejected, which causes you to feel more unworthy – and the cycle continues as you develop an inferiority complex.

Individuals with a weak self-esteem who always worry what others think live in their reality by deriving one’s self-esteem from external sources. They never build true self-esteem that only comes from within. (In my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program, I discuss this weak reality we live in as we yearn for praise and other signals that validate our identity.) When you derive your powerful self from competence, capability, and self-responsibility – instead of external validation that moderates your behavior – you release your powerful self into the conversation (like the guy in the second situation you will soon see).

In the second situation, the guy does not require the parents’ approval. If he finds something funny, he laughs. If he wants something, he asks for it. If he likes something, he says so. These behaviors are different to the first situation where the guy is fidgety, apologetic, and strangled from his natural self.

You may think “he can’t just ignore the parents’ approval of him because he’ll screw up!” The same thought drives destructive mind-reading: you think mind-reading people’s judgments helps your ability to adapt, but more destruction than construction occurs. Your confidence and self-esteem gets knocked down from the destruction of so-called “adapting”.

It is okay to want people to like you without their approval, but not needing approval is different from reckless behavior and not caring what people think of you. Having no need for approval does not mean you run down the street screaming and waving your hands above your head. Do enough reckless behavior and you will be ostracized from society as you get put in prison (or a mental institution). You can moderate your behavior without needing people’s approval.

Beyond Not Caring What People Think: How to Become More Powerful in Conversations

An elimination of harmful mind-reading is only the first step to not care what people think about you. Because you infer people’s thoughts to get along with people, the second step is to replace the anxious behavior with something to help you with people. Behavioral adjustment to get people to like you is what mind-reading poorly achieves.

In our example, once the guy does not require his girlfriend’s parents to validate if he is good enough for his girlfriend, the battle is only half won. He still needs to adapt. He needs to do things like be polite, friendly, joke around, and other things to gain the parents’ acceptance.

Acceptance differs from approval. Seeking approval passes a test to grant yourself permission to be who you are. It is about being “good enough” to meet someone’s standards. On the other hand, acceptance for our purpose builds a positive response to something that is offered. When you seek acceptance, you have a strong sense of self that you present to people, and whether they accept it is up to them. Should people not accept you, it does not diminish your self-esteem because your powerful self comes from inner worth, not external validation. Approval and acceptance are valuable terms you need to reread, understand, and burn into memory.

If you are to be powerful with people, you must build acceptance by doing things people favor, such as starting interesting conversations, being friendly, and using other effective communication techniques. Grow yourself and adapt to situations, but do not feel people must validate your reality. Work towards acceptance, but do not worry for approval. Powerfully confident individuals do not require people’s approval at all. They are concerned about people in their life, but they do not limit or inhibit themselves. They seek acceptance without approval.

Once you know the difference between acceptance and approval, and how to build acceptance, release your spontaneous self that attracts people in conversations. Dr. Maxwell Maltz in The New Psycho-cybernetics writes about self-consciousness and releasing your powerful self into the conversation:

“The reason some people are self-conscious and awkward in social situations is simply that they are too consciously concerned, too anxious to do the right thing, and too fearful of saying or doing the wrong thing… 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’… Your creative mechanism cannot function or work tomorrow – or even a minute from now. Only right now.”

The paradoxical effect of releasing yourself in the conversation discussed by Dr. Maltz is that people accept you when you stop trying and start being. We fear revealing our true self into conversation, but when we unleash it, people feel it and become attracted to our authenticity.

The guy in the second situation who does not require the parent’s approval, feels confident and people feel his confidence. The end result: the parents are more likely to accept him. When you rise above the need for people’s approval, your confidence soars, uncertainty ceases to exist, worrying vanishes, and fear of how others see you stops. You are happy with who you are and what you can do.

It surprises me that the purpose of worrying what people think of you is to get them to like and approve of you. Once you do not need approval from others, however, they actually approve of you! It is Zen-like that when you trash that line of thinking, you achieve its goal.

Emotional Freedom in the Present Moment

A great pianist never anticipates, when performing, every detail needed to play a great song. The pianist allows himself to be enthralled in the moment as his natural playing abilities shine through his music. His focus in the moment makes people accept and like his music.

In a conversation, do not anticipate people’s thoughts towards you, then your natural, powerful personality will be seen. You will behave freely as you do with friends. Act as if no one thinks about you because few probably are. Turn-off the imaginary spotlight you see on yourself and you will be amazed at your high self-confidence. Your new-found confidence will radiate into your conversations as you free yourself from inhibition and release your real self.

I want you to live in the present moment instead of anticipating the future. Be in the now as you surrender yourself to the moment. People’s reactions do not matter because all the matters is how you respond right now.

Your thoughts about people’s thoughts towards you is an outdated way of thinking that destroys your ability to make conversation. You block-out your naturally powerful personality when you feel inhibited by your attempts to read people’s mind. If you make the shift to act boldly, build internal sources of validation, gain acceptance (instead of approval), and live in the present moment by not anticipating people’s judgments, you will be unconcerned what people think of you as your powerful self releases into the conversation.

(Learn to become authentic, confident, and people-magnetic without worrying what people think of you with the Big Talk Training Course, which will help you confidently socialize. Learn more about this breakthrough course available for download here.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. 101 Conversation Starters People Love
2. How to Start and Keep a Conversation Going with a Guy
3. Why Smart People Have Poor Communication Skills – and What to Do About It
4. Review of Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life by Brian Tracy
5. Why People Remain Quiet, Shy, and Non-Assertive: The Benefits of Passive Behavior and Communication