Each author has not written a ground-breaker. I think you can summarize 75% of all the books onto 1 page. You could say this post is a cliffs notes version of 158,000 books. Give yourself the lazy education of reading such an impossible number of words.

The 12 lessons are tips from the top self-help books covering topics from women, depression, relationships, and psychology. I have yet to read a popular self-help book that makes no mention of the below lessons. You may be surprised as you realize how frequently you hear the echoed advice.

1. You decide how you feel

People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.Abraham Lincoln

You are the one who can turn that frown upside down. No one else can do it for you. If you feel like trash right now because your dog bit you, you can make yourself feel great. But if you feel trashy a day after your dog bite, you might want to get checked for rabies…

2. Model the successful

Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating… too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life.John Wooden

Simple and effective. It just makes sense that by modelling a person’s actions you become like them. The self-help lesson became big in the 80s by Tony Robbins when he brought NLP to the common man. NLP breaks down what a successful leader in any field does into traits and steps for a layman to adopt.

3. Like attracts like

Our life is what our thoughts make it.Marcus Aurelius

If you want something, become what you want. Similarly, the law of attraction says we attract what we think about. Visualize your desired reality to bring it to fruition. The popular self-improvement tip has been around for centuries in various forms and books like Think and Grow Rich!.

4. Be present

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.Oprah Winfrey

Move your focus out of the past to stop worry and out of the future to stop anxiety. With presence comes a calm collection of thoughts and feelings. Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now is the authority piece on presence.

5. Leave your comfort zone

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.Confucius

…some lessons we need to hear over and over again.

Any lesson on fear, anxiety, growth, and human evolution teaches you to expand your comfort zone. I like to use my feelings of discomfort as a flag of growth. Do the same. Know that by stepping outside your zone as you become uncomfortable, you will not be who you were. Get good insight into fear by reading the 5 truths of fear.

6. Don’t procrastinate

You may delay, but time will not.Benjamin Franklin

So procrastination is bad. Hmm, really? Bet you never heard that before. Set goals, create a to-do list, skip activities that add no value, then work on what matters to get what you want.

7. Be responsible

If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it!Jonathan Winters

When you step up in your life by taking responsibility for what you potentially influence, great things happen. You are responsible for sitting at home on your computer wallowing in self-pity. You are the reason for not making that nervous-inducing phone call to get the job.

Some take responsibility too far always seeking to assign blame. A woman can be made to feel responsible, guilty, and ashamed for being raped. Dangerous. Take responsibility for what you can affect.

8. You are unique

Always remember you’re unique, just like everyone else.Alison Boulter

You are special. Sounds corny to me. I prefer to hear about pixies and unicorns. What I teach that you may find more helpful is to create self-to-self comparisons rather than self-to-other comparisons. This means compare who you are now to who you were. As a result you stop feeling worthless from not being that muscle head with millions in his pocket and babes hanging off his arms.

Your beginnings are too different to pit yourself against everyone. An inferiority complex happens when you compare yourself to others.

9. Enjoy yourself

Not what we have but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.Epicurus

Take a break, have fun. I don’t know how books can be written on this idea alone. I’ve said enough.

10. Appreciate life

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.Socrates

The self-help tip is also taught as being grateful for what you have. In every problem is an opportunity. When there is a crest, nearby is a peak. I doubt you can attribute that quote to me, but you’re welcome to.

11. Use positive self-talk

Self-suggestion makes you master of yourself.W. Clement Stone

Replace negative self-talk with chat that benefits you. Change “I can’t do this” to “I can do this”. Action then good feelings flow from empowering self-talk. I like Theodore Bryant’s take on positive self-talk in his book Self-Discipline in 10 Days. He calls them “Vitaminds” – vitamins for the mind. To benefit from vitaminds you need to take them regularly in conjunction with other useful tips revealed in this article.

12. Visualize what you want

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.Jonathan Swift

Visualization is a commonly recommended technique with positive self-talk. It is becoming increasingly popular in therapy as psychologists use imagery to not only work through problems, but change behavior. The basic aim is to see in your mind what you want. Advanced visualization incorporates sight with taste, smell, touch, and sound of having achieved your goal.

4 Warnings Before You Read Another Article

You now know what you’d remember from reading 158,000 self-help books. Should you never read one again?

Consider this: “People often say that motivation doesn’t last.” said the late motivational speaker Zig Ziglar. “Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

Not only is motivation temporary, but some lessons we need to hear over and over again. Take for example the lesson “you decide how you feel”. I need to remind myself that often – even when I teach it! If I feel like **** from a bad week, the circumstances can make me forget so hearing the lesson helps.

…this article is a generalization.

Think about this second point when improving yourself: understanding a topic makes you lose respect for it. Now, this is not always the case. Try learn how a CPU works and you will respect the technology. When you summarize something, its mysteries sink away. You may resent something that once seemed grand. Continue to love working on yourself even when you know the summary of top self-help books.

A third point to consider when taking in self-help is common knowledge often gets passed down generations because it has repeatedly benefited earlier generations. Then again, I could be wrong. It is possible we just believe the psychological equivalent of the world is flat.

Consider a fourth point: this article is a generalization. You may be filled with shock and anger at the concept of self-help. You then assume any such book described by these 12 pieces of advice is useless. Don’t get biased. There’s plenty of books I’ve reviewed and written that have changed my life and ToP subscribers.

What do you think of this summary of self-help books? Do they match your experiences?

For an insider look under the blanket of self-help and how it almost killed me, you can learn more about the myths of self-help.

Click to watch the video that corporate trainers and self-help gurus don’t want you to see as I uncover the industry-insider secrets which kill people. Learn the myths and dangers of self-help. What is shared in the video is not revealed below.

Self-help is an industry full of lies, myths, and dangers. It’s a community of experts and everyday consumers that have techniques and ways of living to heal anxiety, treat depression, and generally improve the quality of life.

Self-help is the act of improving yourself without reliance on others. It extends beyond motivation books and popular psychology to include other ways humans communicate. There’s forums, everyday conversations, seminars, webinars, and books.

The term “self-help junkie” was coined to describe someone who attends seminars and buys many books, DVDs, and CDs on the subject. Junkies fuel the $8 billion dollar industry in America alone.

Self-help addicts are sometimes like heroin addicts jumping between experts wanting their next fix. The educational sources become a source of comfort and security to avoid what really is going on as the junkies intellectualize lessons and never build the learning only possible from action. This article reveals the dangers of self-help some gurus wish you didn’t know and how it almost killed me.

The Two Dangers of Self-Help

Pennsylvania clinical psychologist Dr John Norcross says self-help can damage you in two ways. Both are costly, time-consuming, and energy-depleting.

The first general danger of self-help is the direct harm. This includes a misdiagnosis or ignorance of a declining condition. Think of it like a well-intended mother issuing aspirin to remove a headache when the cause is cancer.

The dangers are real except with personal development the issues are not physical, but often mental and emotional. Selection of the right material to cure is tricky. A wrong decision can leave you worse off.

There’s a lot going in your mind and body unknown to you. You can know your body is sick because you have a headache and feel weak, but you could have one of hundreds of potential health problems originating from poor eating, harmful drinking, disease, and so forth. Similarly, we are unaware of the hidden operations in the mind. It takes a humble attitude of acceptance to respect a lack of mental and emotional control over your life.

It takes a humble attitude of acceptance to respect a lack of mental and emotional control over your life.

The second general danger of self-help according to Dr Norcross is the indirect harm. You exhaust your physical, mental, and emotional efforts on something unsuccessful so you beat yourself up over an inability to change. Once you believe you cannot change, rarely do you change.

Think of self-help like a Do-It-Yourself job at home. You can probably do good landscaping, fix doors, place flooring, and paint. Books, television shows, and a few friends provide you with good advice. However, you would not remove the home’s foundations, redesign its shape, or relocate it by yourself. Attempts to solve unknown problems or create something entirely new leaves you frustrated believing it cannot be done. People try to redo their minds from the ground up then unfortunately fall short of what they want and believe failure is destiny.

How One Self-Help Myth Nearly Ended My Life

The empowerment given through self-help usually originates from improving how you think. The motto is “think better, live better”.

Thoughts are powerful, yet they are not everything contrary to what is preached by advocates of the law of attraction. To think your universe can form from thoughts alone is absurd.

An overt focus on thoughts ignores the side therapists attend to: emotions. Our thoughts influence our emotions and vice-a-versa, yet the influence is limited. You cannot think your way to emotional healing. Thoughts and rationalizations are “safe”. It is easy to intellectually process your problems and talk about them with complete emotional disconnect when you are afraid of vulnerability that reveals and heals your real self.

I’ll prove how intellectualizing and thinking stops emotional wealth. Dr Steven Hayes, founder of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), who I had the pleasure to work with for Big Talkers, has a nice technique. Give the label of “good” or “bad” to the follow emotions:

• Happiness
• Anger
• Guilt
• Joy
• Sadness
• Shame

Done? I’m guessing you labeled happiness and joy as “good” and anger, guilt, sadness, and shame as “bad”. Let’s analyze these labels. What if your mother died. Is sadness bad? What if you punched your child. Is guilt bad? When you put this into perspective, the thoughts you attach to “negative emotions” shift.

If you believe embarrassment is bad, you avoid embarrassing situations and never build the confident social life you want. You spend life running from what you don’t want.

How do you respond when something is bad? You avoid bad things because they represent pain. If you believe anger is bad, you avoid your anger, feel resentful, misunderstand people, and struggle to manage conflict. If you believe embarrassment is bad, you avoid embarrassing situations and never build the confident social life you want. You spend life running from what you don’t want.

I almost killed myself because of emotional avoidance. I lived in depression trying to avoid things like anger, shame, and embarrassment because these were “bad feelings”. Not letting feelings flow and trying to manipulate them increased their strength. (Watch the video shared at the top of this article filmed in my backyard for the dark truth about me.)

Dr Hayes says we have a dangerous habit of problem-solving with our mind. You need to stop critiquing the experiences in you and just let them flow. Observe them as they occur to you instead of worrying and trying to fix them. This is groundbreaking material I won’t go into further detail because it’s all covered in the Big Talk Training Course and Big Talkers, which I highly recommend you get if this article resonates with you.

Some self-help teachers encourage emotional expression. Students may practice poor expressions of anger and assertiveness, however, then kill themselves like Sydney resident Rebekah Lawrence. This is an extreme case. My point here is to make you value the messages sent by your emotions and acknowledge thoughts are not everything.

Positive Thinking Myth

Feeling down or thinking negatively? This self-help CD will cheer you up, but not in the way its creators intended.

Positive thinking is taught everywhere. Every mental health professional I’ve heard recommends positive thinking. I teach it as well. For example, assume friendship when approaching others for conversation. Think others are already your friend before you talk to them. This reduces anxiety, creates attractive body language, and makes talking easy. Positive thinking helps you better interact with people and them interact with you.

The danger with positive thinking that I see in many “pseudo-spiritual aka law of attraction” teachings is they take positive thinking beyond what psychologists believe is healthy. Dr Norcross says flamboyant claims are made.

Cancer, rape, and poor-wealth do not consistently originate from misaligned thoughts. Victims are made to feel they squandered their mind. They are blamed for environmental influences. Self-blame is unnecessary contrary to what self-help teaches because it perpetuates resistance and shame.

With excessive positive thinking you… may go to exorbitant lengths to avoid a problem by looking for the easy way out.

Your entire life is not a product of your thinking. With excessive positive thinking you risk building a life that excludes reality. You may go to exorbitant lengths to avoid a problem by looking for the easy way out. Positiveness becomes escapism.

Your comfort zone can stagnate along with the quality of your life through avoidance. Carl Jung says your dark-side (what you want to avoid) – not the light-side you probably love to focus on – contains the gold you seek. I look back on my life and see the areas where I took a step of courage to breach my comfort zone, transformed me. Look at your life and you will see the moments you acted in the face of fear created the greatest results. That is the core of transforming your social life with Big Talk and my coaching.

Self-Discipline Myth

Along similar lines as the exaggerated power of thoughts is the undue emphasis on self-discipline. Discipline is made to be the secret of change. We all know self-control and courage is important to help you confront what you prefer to avoid because it pushes you outside your comfort zone. The self-discipline myth depends on the definition of discipline.

Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled says, “With total discipline we can solve all problems.” The more I think about the statement, the more I see its truth. Again, though, it depends on what is meant by “discipline”.

When self-discipline is understood as willpower, self-discipline is overrated – even dangerous. I’ve heard many people express discouragement over their lack of discipline when it’s understood as willpower. They think something is wrong with themselves because they cannot change a habit like wake up early or quit smoking. Eventually they believe change is impossible because they have insufficient “discipline”. We’re made to feel as low-value humans for our innate habitual patterns.

Humans are autonomous creatures, not creatures of willpower. Studies prove 90% or more of your behavior is habitual. We think we are in conscious control of our lives, but we have behavioral and thought patterns repeating day-after-day. Your patterns simply vary in order.

This is not to say habits are permanent, yet they require focused effort and systems to assist change. How you use your limited willpower determines if you alter unwanted autonomy, remove a bad habit, and create the life you want.

It is sad most people waste their limited willpower on resisting people, thoughts, and feelings. Accepting a problem puts you in the game to fix or at least live with the problem. Acceptance means you humbly acknowledge your limited willpower, the degree you influence the problem, and the time it takes to stop what you don’t want and get what you do want.

What’s Really Going On with Self-Help and You?

Can you see the pattern of problems in most self-help? Thoughts are not everything, emotions are overlooked, positive thinking is taken too far, and self-discipline is overrated. There is a sinister amount of focus on intellectualizing. This is what drives the self-help junkie. Any self-help junkie will tell you he struggles to use what he knows.

Change can feel impossible by yourself. Years go by as you become a self-help junkie and question whether your dreams can become a reality. It’s okay to seek assistance from a therapist, counselor, or expert in your problematic area. Someone cannot drive you to change, but you cannot change without a drive to change.

How then do thousands of people around the globe change their life? Ad Bergsma in the Journal of Happiness Studies questioned whether self-help books help. Bergsma says hope is often what makes self-improvement programs effective. The downside of hope is it leaves you vulnerable to exaggerated claims and an empty wallet.

This post is not intended to degrade anyone or self-help. Authors and bloggers do their best to help, yet intention is not all that is needed to affect change.

Naming all self-help books bad or good is like saying all team leaders are bad or good. It is narrow-minded.

You can work on yourself with great results. Self-help empowers you to improve your relationships, move ahead in your career, make friends, and enjoy life more. You create your reality instead of feeling what is, will always be.

Personal development is key to my continuing growth. Self-help is just one part of it. I encourage it to be yours as well. Be aware the dangers of self-help and its myths shared in this article otherwise you risk wasting time, money, and effort – and ultimately believe something is inherently wrong with you.

If you read this to feel better about yourself, that was not my intent. Be honest about what you are avoiding. See the little control you have over your autonomous behavior. Invest in courses for your personal growth. Accepting these lessons could be your first-step towards change – and yes, I am giving you hope because there is hope.

I shook my head as I sat working on my computer at home, sipping a coffee. I felt frustrated for him. He did not need work – he needed a 180-degree shift in perspective with self-probing questions, tips, skills, and advice to get the work he wanted – not to get job interview advice or a job.

Whether you’re going for a retail, nursing, accounting, teacher, or government interview full-time or part-time over the phone, online, or in person, the following job interview advice will help you ace any interview to get the job of your dreams.

Why You Are Unemployed and Miserable Before Any Interview

I could catapult many job interview tips at you because I’m a conversation skills coach and company owner. You won’t get the tips now because that’s not what you need. What will help you the most in getting the job you want is looking at how you approach job hunting and interviews.

If you go into an interview wanting the job to solve your money worries – to help your life – you won’t get the job. Few employers hire out of pity. They suffer from their own problems and want to pay you to alleviate these dilemmas.

The guy at the start of this article who wanted a job didn’t care about me. He didn’t want to add value to my customers. He didn’t think about how he can increase my sales. He didn’t care about broken website code, business partnerships to be made, or traffic to be attracted. He didn’t want to relive my itches. He focused on himself.

Most self-absorbed communication harms you. You don’t make friends by bragging about yourself, listing your accomplishments, and ignoring another’s needs. Job seekers do exactly this at interviews. Narcissistic-like individuals talk about themselves, their skills, their past, and why they want the job.

You don’t make friends by bragging about yourself, listing your accomplishments, and ignoring another’s needs. Job seekers do this in job interviews.

The first and most important leap to take to nail the job interview you want or move ahead in your career is to solve the employer’s problems. Talk about your skills, experience, and why you want the job by relating it exactly to the employer’s wants and needs. Without that relation, your abilities are open to misinterpretation and ignorance. Forget your needs for the moment – once you provide value to others, they become determined to reciprocate your efforts and keep you.

Empathize with the interviewer by placing yourself in his or her shoes. Constantly ask yourself, “What is their need at the moment?” If you can answer this question in any communication, you’re in the top five percent of communicators in the world.

No one cares about your bachelor degree or your intelligence. It’s what your degree or intelligence does that gets you hired.

I speak for many companies by saying that what’s on paper gets you hired, but what happens between you and people gets you fired. Poor human resource managers deny or accept a job candidate merely on experiences and qualities (what’s seen on a resume), while great HR managers go beyond shallow resumes and cognitive tests and really see if the candidate is a determined winner. I recommend you get Topgrading, which was written for company owners, because it helps craft you into an A-player companies want.

My Secret to Communicate Great at Interviews and Work

In a fierce economy, today is more important than ever to master your communication skills. We will always need to talk, listen, and connect with one another.

Start developing your communication right now in everyday life. How you socialize shows in how you interact with customers and coworkers. I have a saying, “How you do something is how you do anything.”

Skills you think take time to see are apparent to good interviewers. Seemingly minor signals of unconscious skill show in your body language. If you’re not immediately friendly to strangers in everyday life, you won’t immediately befriend the interviewer who will then project that feeling into the future and assume you cannot quickly befriend customers.

The most attractive employees are good communicators and good communicators develop themselves in their own time. This is something I’ve never heard anywhere else that I believe makes or breaks critical moments in a career. Attractive skills, such as your honesty in being unable to answer a question or your calmness when someone is agitated, must be developed outside of the workplace. Unemployment and job-misery begins before the interview.

Little-Known Conversation Techniques to Seduce the Interviewer Then Get the Job

All principles of good conversation apply to the interview (from the introduction, small talk, humor, self-disclosure, interest, and open body language). Any time you feel lost or confused, think what makes up an enjoyable conversation. Interviews are a conversation between the candidate and interviewer.

Start by standing and introducing yourself to the interviewer instead of waiting for an introduction. Lean forward to give a solid, slow web-to-web handshake.

All principles of good conversation apply to the interview.

Next, initiate conversation. Talk about the person’s lovely office, a plant, or photo. Drop a comment about a worker you spotted or a sign you read on your way in. The conversation builds rapport and relaxes each of you – the interviewer can be nervous as well! My Big Talk course offers a complete training on how to effortlessly talk and make friends with strangers.

Show interest in the business. Study its history before the interview. If it’s a smaller business and you’re being interviewed by its owner, be curious behind the owner’s motives for starting the business. The person will become animated and talk about the business’ foundations! He or she will walk away from your interview thinking you were a great person. Ramit Sethi has bonus job interview advice on YouTube to research a company:

A good conversation skill that is also a way to show interest in the business is to ask questions during the interview. Walk into the interview with at least three solid questions planned. This gives you backup questions if the interviewer answers one or two before you.

Before I taught communication skills, I had a group interview for the position of a night-fill worker at a supermarket. The human resources manager running the interview talked for 10 minutes then asked, “Does anyone have any questions?” The room was silent. I could see the twinge in her lips indicating her disappointment in our non-responsiveness.

Just before she was about to move on, I asked how she got into her managerial position because I wanted to understand her and what it takes to be promoted. She smiled and talked for five minutes about the company’s internal way of promoting employees. I think I easily got the job because of my question and display of interest.

Good questions to ask in the interview include:

• “What happened to the previous person in this position?”
• “What results do you expect from the successful candidate’s first year?”
• “How does the company lead its teams? Like, are workers given independence to make their own decisions or is it highly determined by upper management?”
• “How would you describe the company’s culture?”
• “In your opinion, what’s the most important thing someone new to the company should know so they and the company benefit?”

There are three real subtle benefits of asking questions. Firstly, questions show curiosity and interest. Secondly, you look better than other interviewees. Most candidates are too busy talking about themselves, not curious or concerned about solving the company’s problems. Thirdly, you subtly qualify the company to match your own needs. A subtle seduction technique is to make the other party work for you. Humans value what they earn. Employers will value you more if you have job opportunities elsewhere and are a little picky over how they can fulfill your needs. How very counter-intuitive!

Once a question is answered or you learn an important point about the business, write a note for yourself even if you have good memory. The power in this technique comes from how it makes the other person feel. You’ll look well-prepared and trustworthy. It’s amazing how much your credibility increases by writing down what someone tells you.

How to Appear Confident in an Interview

Believe your words. If you don’t have confidence in yourself, others won’t have confidence in you.

One of the best ways to show others confidence is through your voice. Speak at a good volume with relaxation. Literally talk louder to make yourself feel confident. A louder voice is physiological confidence that boosts your psychological confidence.

Bodily stress and tension wrecks havoc on your vocals when you try to be perfect. Shift your focus from yourself to how you fill the company’s needs like I mentioned before. You will relax, communicate confidence through your voice, and show attractive warmth.

Another technique taken from my Big Talk that I recommend to quickly boost your confidence in an interview is to think the interviewer is an old friend. Try more absurd visualizations that reframes the person interviewing you into a strange situation. Imagine the person nervously being interviewed by another manager or lazily lounging in front of the television. That’s crazy and effective job interview advice!

Similar to what I said before about how to better your communication, the best way to have confidence in an interview is to work on it each day. What you do inside the interview is how you live.

Insider’s Secret Job Interview Advice to Get Hired

Go to the company beforehand and introduce yourself to a few employees saying you’re interested in working for the company. Ask the employees for their thoughts on the company, tips for the interview, recommended dress, and any insider secrets that could give you an edge. Use these people to see if the company is worth working for before you waste further time in the screening process.

Mention the names of the people you talked to in the interview. You subliminally make the hiring manager feel you already work for the company!

Compliment the hiring manager about those you talked to. We love people who love people. How do you think the hiring manager will feel hearing about the great workforce?

When the interview ends, reward yourself regardless of the outcome. Interviews can be scary so it helps to appreciate yourself. Job hunting is tough enough without self-criticism.

If your interview is a success and you get offered the job, know how to negotiate your salary. It’s key job interview advice. Watch the video below on YouTube as Justin Wilson negotiates his salary with Ramit Sethi as if you were listening in on the conversation. They then breakdown what to do step-by-step:

Have job interview advice to share with Tower of Power readers? Post a comment below.

So you want to be successful in life? Is that what you want? Then you better stop failing and become aware of these 10 ways to fail in life.

You see, I’ve been asked many times how to achieve success and weird enough, it seems like nobody takes the advice seriously. Then I realized one thing – most people are ALREADY failing before they even got started!

The article I wrote below is slightly controversy compare to the normal goodie-type personal development advice because this is the TRUTH. If I want to keep everyone happy and write about the colorful rainbow, birds chirping, flowers blooming, etc., then I should just open up a nursery home and take care of children. I want to tell you the truth straight to your face because I’ve been there and heard the garbage lies thrown everywhere.

Avoid these and you’ll automatically be on the right track (provided you want to be successful):

1. Mixing With Losers

It’s a guaranteed way to fail in life with this. Whatever you like to do, losers will just tell you it won’t work and after some time, you will also become a loser. High five, welcome to the losers’ club. Something about losers you should know: they like to “recruit” new people and are very comfortable in their shoes. They don’t welcome changes. So when you see someone with any of these two characteristics, you know what you should do.

2. Don’t Know What You Want

The most common goal I hear all of the time is, “I want to be rich”. I mean it’s fine with that generic goal but the problem is, how rich do you want to be? Or how rich is rich? Put it this way – the methods used to make a million and $3,000 are different. No wonder some people couldn’t experience breakthroughs in life because they are playing small for big goals. If you want to make a million, you better put in that level of commitment, bucko.

3. You Want Everything

It’s nice to have a lot of things but if you go chasing everything, you get nothing. Let me tell you why – you only have 24 hours a day and you’ve got to focus on your priorities. I know, I know, you can hire others and so on but the fact is, you’ve got to want “something” first to lead to another “something”, then to everything. Make sense?

4. Watching the “Secrets” Way Too Much

I’m not here to criticize Law Of Attractions (LOA) and don’t want to receive hate emails. As a matter of fact, I do believe in it and have friends who appeared in the Secrets. But it’s a surefire way to fail if you keep on watching the “Secrets” and doing attraction work by sitting down on your floor manifesting 3 hours a day. In my point of view, scientifically, the Law of Attraction runs on the concept of believing. When you believe your goal is achievable, you will take action to achieve it. If you don’t understand this basic element and think LOA is some sort of miracle remedy, oh boy, you’re in for a big surprise of failure.

5. You Don’t Truly Know Why You Want Success

Wanting everything is bad enough – but it gets worse if you don’t even know the reason why you’re trying to achieve your goal. What’s the deal? Without a solid reason, a compelling reason, where are you going to find the motivation and encouragement for you to overcome obstacles? You think it’s going to be fun ride to success? Then you haven’t been traveling – it’s a rocky road, my friend. Most people fail to achieve their goals because they never complete the journey – they give up halfway (or at the beginning) because they cannot see the worth of accomplishments.

6. You Don’t Remember Your Roots

…if you go chasing everything, you get nothing.

The thing I get most irritated about is people who achieved success and never felt gratitude towards those who helped them. Is it very hard to say, “Thank you”? The law of reciprocity is simple – you return favors to those who helped you in the past. And maybe, they’ll help you again in the future. Remember this: it takes more than just you to achieve success. Don’t be a jerk.

7. You Think You’re Smart

The day you stop learning is the day you stop improving yourself. If you don’t want to fail in life, make sure you stop acting as though you already know everything. The fact is, all successful people are people who continuously learn to be even more successful. They don’t stop. Let me put it in this perspective: you don’t know what you don’t know, you know?

8. You Listen To The Wrong People

I watched this funny movie called, “He Is Just Not That Into You” and it reaffirmed what I’m about to tell you. At the beginning of the movie, it shows a clip of a boy pushing a girl in the playground because he somehow doesn’t like her. He thinks she smells like dog poo. She cried and asked her mum why did the boy do that to her. And her mum replied, “It’s because boys do that to girls when they like you.” Do yourself a favor, don’t get wrong advice. It’ll stick in your brain and lead you to make stupid interpretations in life.

9. You Think Short Term

You’ll often hear this happening in many “successful” people’s stories: they make a lot of money to lose it all. This is probably because they became too comfortable and the other thing is, once you achieve success, you should ride on the wave when the momentum is there. When you think short term, you’re only going after the instant pleasure. You must learn to delay gratification to enjoy today’s labor.

10. You’re Blinded With What Is Important In Life

I believe there are only two things that are important in your life – control of time and experiencing happiness. Money, love, big cars, diamonds, etc., are the things that contribute to these two benchmarks of success. For instance, if you have money, you don’t need to work so you can have more time to do the things you like. It’s not the money that you’re trying to get, but what the money CAN DO FOR YOU. I know this topic is bigger than one sentence explanation, but I guess you get the point. You’re a smart fella.

So now you know the 10 ways to fail in life. Question is, are you doing any of these? I’ll be BS’ng you if I said I don’t. I’m human dude, flesh and blood – I do mistakes too.

But I was fortunate to experience my fair share of success today because I learn powerful lessons from other successful people…

It’s okay to fail and you should fail as many times as you can. That is how you learn but more importantly, you should never give up – each time you get dirt kicked in your face, wash your face and ‘fight’ back. Don’t go crying like a sissy because Mum’s not going to come cleaning your face.

Are you ready? Go get your goals.

NLP practitioners have a set of rules known as “NLP presuppositions” that form the foundations for the technology. They are beliefs that govern NLP. The presuppositions give you the foundation to understand how you perceive the world and presents you with the opportunity to change your reality. It is not that the presuppositions have been proven, but rather they give us opportunities and freedom to produce for effective living and better communication.

While few people agree on exact NLP presuppositions, the following presuppositions are ones I frequently stumble upon. They appear to be widely accepted. Though the presuppositions are simple, and hence can appear idealistic, think of how they can be applied to your life to change your reality:

1. The map is not the territory

This could be the most important presupposition to understand. “The map is not the territory” means we are separate from reality. The menu is not the food. The road map is not the city. The map of the world we have in our minds is not the real world.

We short-change ourselves of our full potential when we believe our mental map of the world is the territory we deal with everyday. If you take your assumptions of people’s behaviors, your position in the world, how people perceive you, or anything as reality – when it is merely your mental map painted from abstract understandings – you cheat yourself from what you can become.

Instead of interacting with the world, you interact with your map. How you treat people and yourself is dependent on the map you hold. Your map can be more quickly and easily changed than the world it attempts to describe.

2. Every behavior has its appropriate context

You may get angry in sporadic outbursts because it gives you the space you need from people. You may be a passive person because of its benefits such as the praise you receive from parents. You may be scared of snakes because when you were little a snake-bite hospitalized you for two days.

Unfortunately, the behaviors, phobias, and ways to communicate you learned from experience that served you well then limit your potential now. You let the past dictate your future. Instead of using old ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving that served their purpose in old contexts, you need to adapt new thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that are most beneficial for the present moment and aligned with who you want to become.

3. People already have their needed resources

If you take your assumptions of people, yourself, or anything as reality – when it is merely your mental map painted from abstract understandings – you cheat yourself out of what you can become.

This is the weakest of the presuppositions. It is has been reinterpreted and misused from its original intention given by Milton Erikson when he said patients in therapy have the resources to handle their present problems, not all problems.

Unfortunately, and fortunately, you are human. While you may have the resources to solve personal problems, it does not mean you are capable of solving them right now. You need to know the resources you have and how to use them. You need to learn the skills, go through the experiences, discover a book, or whatever it may be, to awaken these resources within you.

You already have the ability to visualize, feel, hear sounds, communicate, and experience other sensations. These innate human abilities are the framework for personal change. In this article, and anything I share with you, I hope to give you the ability to use your resources better to create the reality you want in your everyday awakening life by showing you how to put your frameworks to more effective use.

4. Experience has a structure

Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell create an experience for you. These five senses hold the potential to change your identity and reality. Each habit or skill is birthed from the five senses.

Pleasant-filled and pain-ridden experiences each have a structure that use the five senses. Recurrent painful memories typically are large, bright, and up close. Painless memories of previously painful moments are typically seen in black-and-white, a single frame, and at an objective distance like in a photo – or even possibly combined with humorous music. Knowing the experience you want and understanding the structures that gives the experience, helps you establish an empowering pattern.

5. If one person can do something, anyone can learn to do it

This presupposition is modeling, doing what someone else does. It forms the foundation of NLP where individuals observe successful persons then mimic what makes them successful. Someone who wants similar success to a person they admire are to learn and do what makes the person successful, which leads to their own success. Successful individuals for centuries have modeled successful predecessors.

6. Change what is not working

The old saying, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got” is so true. This presupposition encourages people to stop doing what is ineffective. If you want something new, start doing something new.

It is sick to see parents use unhealthy ways of disciplining their children. Every action by the child gets a consequence placed around it. To the parent’s disbelief, the child continues to push those consequences. The parent thinks it’s the child’s problem, but the parent is too ignorant and stuck in habitual behavior to realize that what he or she does is not working.

7. A positive intention exists beneath every behavior

You might yell to be heard. Fight to establish justice. Smoke to feel relaxation. Retreat to feel comfortable. Remain in bed to avoid the pain that awaits you. These are all positive intentions.

A positive intention does not mean the behavior is correct, healthy, or the best option. Rather, knowing a positive intention or fundamental human need exists behind behaviors and communication enables you to resourcefully act. When you see positive intentions, you are more able to separate the problem from the person and update your map.

8. You cannot not communicate

I have come across many people who think it is possible to not communicate. The idea that you cannot communicate is one of the top communication myths.

You always communicate and will always continue to communicate. Your nonverbal communication illustrates the thoughts and feelings inside of you. While your thoughts remain hidden, a snicker in your smile, a wink in your eye, or a sigh of relief communicates a message without you needing to verbalize a message.

9. The meaning of communication is the elicited response

You just gave a brilliant presentation to a board of directors about a new project. Or so you thought. They rejected your idea. Why? There could be many reasons, but the underlying concept I’m painting here is the message received differs to the message sent.

A person’s response shows you their meaning of your communication. When you understand the difference between sending communication and receiving communication, you open yourself to intimately understand people. You become aware that people need to verify their understanding of your message, which allows you to adjust future communication with them.

This presupposition encapsulates another NLP presupposition: failure does not exist, only feedback exists. Every piece of feedback you receive is treated as an achievement because it takes you one step closer to what you want. If something does not get you the results you want, it only means you need to correct what you are doing. You eventually create the reality you want by having the flexibility to change.

10. The more choices, the better

The better your map, the more choices you give yourself to create your desired reality.

The fewer options an individual has, the unhealthier the person. Individuals limited in behavior feel victimized by circumstances that “give no options”. You may consider yourself to be absent of any psychosomatic illness, but there will be unhealthy areas in your life where you feel limited and powerless.

People stuck in negotiations are limited by their constraining choice(s) because choice correlates to power, influence, and change. The more choices you have personally, socially, and professionally, the more control you have over your reality. The better your map, the more choices you give yourself to create your desired reality.

11. The mind and body are inseparable

It was previously believed the mind and body are separate entities. Today, researchers, medical experts, and philosophers discover evidence each day about the mind and body influencing one another. Your thoughts and emotions affect your body and vice-a-versa.

Do not underestimate the influence your mind has on your body and the influence your body has on your mind. There is endless amounts of research that proves the strength of the two-way communication between the mind and body. Fields of study now heavily integrate the two entities that once seemed separate.

Body psychotherapy deals with the subconscious mind and body. Your experiences show in parts of your body. One particular example is bottled emotions manifest themselves in pains throughout the body. Emotional pains arise in predictable places over the body. A sore left knee signifies a fear to move forward in life.

Last night, I purged my thoughts and emotions, which remained inside of me for years, to my parents. I woke up the following morning with my worst ever headache. 18 hours later as I write this, I still have a headache – something that has never lasted more than 30 minutes for me. Such a long-lasting headache means I still have stuff to work through.

12. Action develops understanding

Regardless of the number of books you read, people you talk to, or universities you attend, you will not understand what you seek to learn until you “do”. It is only when you “do” can you fully comprehend what you intellectualize.

There you have 12 neuro-linguistic programming presuppositions. These presuppositions are given to you as frameworks. They are rules to change your reality. Live by them and soon you will be in a reality that once seemed a dream.

He feels less than the executives who are dressed in suits while he wears a basic business shirt and slacks. He poorly knows the executives and finds it hard to socialize with them making him feel even less as a person. Regardless of the superficial reason for his difference, the real problem is his inferiority complex.

What is an Inferiority Complex?

A psychologist in 1912 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 others. It revolves around social status, power, ego, and dominance. You have an inferiority complex when you feel less than people. You think other people are better than you.

An inferiority complex can arise when you experience an imagined or conditioned feeling of inferiority. For most people it is a combination of imagination and subtle conditioning. You feel inferior when an event takes place. This makes you feel less than others (conditioning aspect). Your mind (imagination aspect) blows out your understanding of the event beyond what seems reasonable to another person.

Mitchell in our example feels inferior because he thinks the executives are better. His inferiority has nothing to do with not knowing the executives, being dressed differently, or having a less prestigious job. His interpretation of the situation makes him feel below standard and creates inferiority.

The conditioning aspect in Mitchell’s example is his actual differences to the executives. He is wearing different clothes to the executives and he is not “a part of the group” based on his employment status. The imagination aspect for Mitchell is his clothes fall below standards (if there was a dress code, it would be part of conditioning), the executives are better than him, the executives want nothing to do with him because of his difference, plus other irrationalities he thinks make him less of a human. The big difference between conditioning and imagination hold the answer to cure your inferiority complex.

How Your Inferiority Started: Conditioning

“The inferiority complex is all in the mind. Simply stop thinking you’re inferior because you’re not.” That is a lie. If it were that easy, millions of people at sometime would not experience feelings of inferiority. The inferiority complex is society’s psychological black plague that devours too many lives.

My main motivation for writing this article is to give you accurate information to overcome the problem based on what works. This is a collection of the most useful advice on the inferiority complex I synthesized over the years, along with specific lessons I developed to overcome my 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, you 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. It is unfortunate that people continue to teach positive self-talk to overcome feelings of inferiority. Positive self-talk is often nothing more than an attempt to live deliriously from reality, ignoring what really takes place.

When Doing Becomes Being – How Failure and Criticism Fuel Inferiority

Everyone has heard “you suck”. Some individuals are abused so much yet they are confident with high self-esteem. What makes high self-esteem people different to those who feel like others are better?

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.

Inferiority arises when doing becomes being.

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. This means 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 who gets poor results at school and does not feel inferior, dissociates himself from the result. He does not let his lack of study and effort over the school year make him feel he is the 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. Just criticism can be used as feedback to adjust what you do on the path of your success. Criticism can actually make you thrive.

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

The reason some people feel inferior from criticism and failure, while other people flourish, 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. If his criticism was delivered in an intense outburst, the criticism would make 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 remember one or several experiences, 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?

The thoughts and feelings you experience after the event determine whether your inferiority grows or dies.

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

When you believe criticism signals your unworthiness, your self-worth plummets. You train yourself to feel inferior through self-criticism. You become your 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 to evoke images of failure, misery, shame, unworthiness, and low self-esteem. All the negative messages you 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 poor use of your creative imagination.

How Your Inferiority Grows: Creative Imagination

Animals are preprogrammed with a set of functions for survival. I am amazed at the simple yet effective preprogramming given to birds. When the season changes, some birds fly thousands of miles straight to a destination they have never visited. Birds build nests without ever attending “Nest Building 101” or taking a course in materials engineering.

Like animals, we are preprogrammed with a set of functions that enable us to survive threats, gather food, and procreate. We have one huge difference to animals: we are goal-driven. Humans have the option to select goals while animals do not have this ability. Animals are preprogrammed from birth to live a certain life. They survive and procreate. Humans are different. We can create goals and set out to achieve them with our creative imagination.

I feel this to be the greatest part of all personal development. My creative imagination is something I get excited about. It gives me the ability to literally become who I want and so yours can with you.

The creative imagination is not so much about idea generation – though it is a wonderful technique to generate ideas. Your creative imagination gives you the ability to dream goals and visualize them so vividly that your nervous system cannot tell if the visualizations is fake or reality. You make your entire body think that intense visualization from your creative imagination is realism.

People unknowingly use their creative imagination to create their inferiority complex. They create scenarios and thoughts of inferiority from their imagination.

Unfortunately, many people waste their creative imagination. It is as if they have a billion-dollar check in their wallet and they do not cash it in at the bank. In fact, it is more like they have a billion-dollar gold nugget they do not convert to cash so they are burdened with the impossibility of getting through life by carrying it around. They let this great opportunity go to complete waste. Unless you awaken this inner giant, it will lie asleep, dormant, and do nothing productive.

The first common way your creative imagination is wasted is through aimless daydreaming and fantasizing. This lets it go to complete waste. Your mind aimlessly wanders off into a fantasy that cannot be created or which you have no desire to experience.

The second common way your creative imagination is wasted is using it to create bad events in your life. This is where the inferiority complex is derived. People unknowingly use their creative imagination to create their inferiority complex. They create scenarios and thoughts of inferiority from their imagination. They imagine rejection, failure, criticism, shame, hatred, scarcity, and loneliness; instead of acceptance, lessons, love, abundance, and togetherness. A huge difference exists here in the parallels of thinking.

The images you evoke of failure, unworthiness, and shame wastefully use your creative imagination to bring further bad events into your life. If you have fear, anxiety, or worry about what others think of you, you make this common mistake and waste your creative imagination.

There are three common ways psychologists say the creative imagination is wasted contributing to an inferiority complex: napoleon complex, cultural cringe, and superiority complex. Many more ways of waste exist yet these will help you understand the problem and how to better your self-image. Though a problem may not apply to you, learn from it.

1. Napoleon Complex (and a Sad Email)

A part of Alfred Alder’s work of the inferiority complex developed the Napoleon complex, which is a specific feeling of inferiority about one’s height. Alder named the Napoleon complex after the great military leader Napoleon Bonaparte who was said to be motivated in battle from insecurities about his height.

The images you evoke of failure, unworthiness, and shame wastefully use your creative imagination to bring further bad events into your life.

People with a Napoleon complex make up for their “inferiority” through aggressive behaviors. They feel handicapped because of their smaller stature and attempt to counter this perceived problem through aggressive behavior and a superficial layer of toughness. A smaller stature is not a true handicap as it just a perceived handicap made from the creative imagination.

Diagnosing this type of inferiority lies in identifying overcompensating behaviors from a perceived inferiority. You would have the Napoleon complex and demonstrate overcompensating behavior when you aim to put-down others who are taller than you. You would have that little extra desire to do better than those who are taller than you. You would try to make taller people look bad. The worst possible symptom of this feeling of inferiority is physically hurting taller people because of their stature. This specific Napoleon complex is derived from one’s personal feeling of inferiority and fear that taller people are better than shorter persons.

I received the below email in response to an earlier version of this article from a lady who lost her son to the Napoleon complex. The email is unchanged and used with her permission:

I am married to a wonderful man and I am a mother of three beautiful teenage children. Last October 31st, 2008, my 17 year old son committed suicide. It has been the most devastating experience of my entire life. I would like to stress first of all, that our home life was not what you would consider tumultuous. We had and still have a very loving home life. I would like to share with you my son’s story:

Jacob’s childhood was truly an awesome experience for a typical boy. He played hard and got dirty. He and Joel (our eldest son) with help from their father would pitch tents, dig tunnels, and build forts. As Jacob grew up, it became abundantly clear that he was very concerned over his spiritual affairs. I had the opportunity to teach him in Sunday-School classes and later on in his teens I would assist in teaching Confirmation classes. He was keenly aware of the many blessings we enjoyed being a Child of God. He wanted to understand the works of our Heavenly Father. When we would pray together as a family, he was very earnest and sincere for such a young man.

When Jacob turned 13, things started to change in him. He was unusually short for his age and it bothered him tremendously. I had initially thought that the “teenage idiot gene” had kicked in because he had become very short tempered, easily agitated, and extremely defensive. Because of his stature, Jacob had developed an inferiority complex. Because he was now attending middle school, I noticed he had also developed a chip on his shoulder and would easily get in anyone’s face if they picked on him. His coping methods made me uncomfortable and we constantly tried to coach him and teach him to accept himself for the talents he had. At one point, one person asked Jacob what was he worried about…many great men in history were short. He very quickly responded with the comment, “Yeah…that is because they all had to prove themselves.” In spite of his quick wit, Jacob dealt with the day to day stress of school by becoming a ghost. He rarely spoke to many kids and kept to himself most of the day.

Jacob went into the ninth grade at High School with the same issues he had in middle school. He was embarrassed at how short he was and the chip on his shoulder seemed to get bigger. Fist fights between Jacob and his brother seemed to be increasing in frequency too. The hardest part about those sibling fights was the fact that even though Jacob was considerably smaller than Joel, he would go into the fight with absolutely no fear of getting hurt. Ninth grade was very hard for us as parents to stand by and watch our son mentally mutilate his self-esteem. No matter how hard we tried to turn that tide, he would never allow himself to be consoled.

Eventually, Jacob did become taller. By the 11th grade he had filled out into a very good looking young man. He was extremely comical and made many people laugh. However, he never truly learned to like himself. He had a hard time talking to people unless he was using humor as his shield.

Ultimately, his low self-image got the better of him and he ended his life. He was more afraid of living than he was of dying.

I cried when I read the email. Inferiority is a real emotional problem not corrected by the physical defect or positive self-talk. People return to plastic surgery not to remove physical defects, but because they have emotional defects.

2. Cultural Cringe (a Worldwide Problem)

The cultural cringe is an area of the inferiority complex where people feel inferior due to their culture. Genetic appearance, pronunciation of words, or other factors of the human body vary between cultures that make the individual feel less than people in other cultures.

A few days ago I came across a lady who was experiencing the cultural cringe about her physical appearance. She had a poor self-image as she complained about the unusual features of her body. She loved how Asians looked. “If only I could look like an Asian lady,” she said. Her idea that other cultures are better than hers made her feel inferior.

Feelings of inferiority damage your communication with yourself and others. The cultural cringe makes you hate certain people, cultures, situations, and events. Your subconscious will be so poisoned with imaginary beliefs that are powerful enough to destroy your happiness and relationships.

3. Superiority Complex (and the Biggest Myth About Fixing an Inferiority Complex)

The superiority complex is a feeling of superiority over other people. Some experts and bloggers dangerously suggest it is the solution to an inferiority complex.

Let’s return to the scenario where Mitchell is in a room full of successful executives. If Mitchell had a superiority complex or attempted to feel superior, he would criticize the executives to pull down their status to feel better. Another form of the superiority complex is demonstrated when Mitchell tries to lift his status by portraying how better he is than the executives. Both of these techniques attempt to lift his status relative to the executives and fail to overcome his inferiority complex.

I was tricked to believe from books and blogs that feelings of superiority were the secret to overcome inferiority. After years of frustration, I can tell you feelings of superiority cause you more pain than what it removes.

You fail to overcome feelings of inferiority by becoming superior. You try to feel bigger, faster, smarter, wiser than peers. This only leads to frustration and inferiority. This solution is a temporary patch on a wound too big. It takes most people an experience of significant superiority, such as earning a million dollars or being popular with the opposite sex, to realize they still feel inferior.

If you try to feel superior, you still compare yourself to the false measurement stick that judged the inferior you.

If you try to feel superior, you still compare yourself to the false measurement stick that judged the inferior you. External validation is required to prove your superior self-image. If you are put out of place through ignorance or you are made to feel less superior, you attempt to grab back your non-existent podium of superiority by criticizing others and using similar behaviors to lift you status.

If a person’s need to compete against another is driven from insecurity to feel superior, does a superiority complex exist? I think it does exist, but an inferiority complex can be used to explain someone with a superiority complex.

What is Your Perception of People You Aspire To?

Everyone is superior to you in some way, but they are not superior in who they are. There is no question people are better looking, more popular, and wealthier than you. The problem is the transition from doing to being. Sufferers of the inferiority complex overcompensate for these differences.

Referring back to the Napoleon complex, most of us tend to be controlling or aggressive beyond height. All of us have our own – often strange reasons – for feeling inferior that we dare not share with anyone.

A common example of overcompensating behavior is when an attractive lady feels insulted purely because of another woman’s looks. Women are very competitive in dating and can feel inferior to a more attractive lady so they criticize, tease, and display other insecure behaviors. A shallow woman tries to raise her self-esteem by being better than other women.

It disgusts me to hear both men and women pull another person down. I too often see unsuccessful, unhappy people criticize a successful, happy person. These critics are no better or inferior than the people they criticize.

What is your attitude towards people who are better than you in certain areas of your life? How do you feel towards people who are more attractive than you? How do you feel towards people who are your superiors at work? Do you feel inferior? Do you feel they are better than you? Do you need to pull them down from their podium by criticizing? Are you inspired, excited, and thrilled to see others succeed?

Take your time to think of and relive relevant experiences. Your recollections hold important understandings of your inferiority complex.

How to Accept Yourself No Matter How Much You Suck

A secret to overcoming the inferiority complex is accepting who you are as a person. When you accept your uniqueness, you no longer compare yourself to mystical standards. I estimate 50% of people have the inferiority complex. Our perceived standard is a joke! You are not inferior or superior to anyone nor is anyone inferior or superior to you. We are ourselves. You are you. Mitchell is Mitchell.

People say, “Just be yourself”. That is awful advice. If you continue to be yourself, you continue to have poor habits, thoughts, feelings, and results.

Being yourself is different than accepting your uniqueness. A guy who knows he is unique can grow as a person and “not be himself”. He accepts his uniqueness and still becomes more than he was yesterday. He becomes his best self. No matter what he does, he will always be unique. When he accepts his uniqueness, he does not compare himself to other people.

Next time you feel inferior, challenge those thoughts by investigating why you feel inferior. You will realize your comparison is based on a mystical benchmark. The people you measure yourself against are not the true measurement stick. They are not you. You are your true measurement. Compare yourself with the person you were instead of contrasting you with other people. Neuro-linguistic programming calls this technique a “self-to-self comparison”.

If you are shy in conversations, do not compare yourself to the extrovert, blabbermouth, social butterfly. Compare your present shyness to your shyness one month ago. Get satisfaction from knowing you’re becoming a better person. Many variables make you unique – your family, friends, co-workers, upbringing – the list goes on. It is foolish to compare yourself to others.

You can enjoy your journey of personal development without realizing your ultimate goal by seeing progression in bettering yourself. When you make your past the benchmark, you begin to heal. (Read Anthony Robbins’ Awaken the Giant Within to learn more about enjoying your journey. Robbins teaches you how to adjust your values so you become happier and self-motivated on your journey instead of relying on an end result to be happy.)

Self-Image: The Human Thermostat

The core secret to overcome your inferiority complex is changing your self-image. The self-image is how you perceive yourself. It is a mental picture of who you are. It does not have to be truth as you have seen in the inferiority complex where you are not inferior. The self-image is your image of yourself.

The great Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of Psycho-cybernetics, was a plastic surgeon in the mid 1900s. He operated on many individuals who felt inferior due to their “unusual” looks. Most of the individuals did not look unusual; it was their self-image that blew their looks out of proportion. They had used their creative imagination to create a dangerous false image of their physical appearance.

Dr. Maltz operated on many who despite successful plastic surgery remained feeling inferior. They returned to him requesting more surgery as they sought to look like famous individuals. He would again operate on them only to have the clients still dissatisfied with their appearance.

For some of his patients, this was not the case. Some individuals’ feeling of inferiority disappeared after plastic surgery while others even had their emotional scars cured without ever going under the knife. This made Dr. Maltz curious. Why did some people with healed “outer scars” like facial deformations that were successfully operated on still have “inner scars” of inferiority? From his research emerged modern self-help psychology. He is the founder of visualization, creative imagination, self-talk, and changing the self-image.

Your self-image… controls what you can and cannot do. If you see yourself as inferior to others, this self-image ensures you remain inferior.

Dr. Maltz discovered that each hurtful word, thought, and experience over a person’s lifetime accumulated to form a poor self-image. He began to teach people how their self-image was shaped and how they can be more careful with their own words in shaping another person’s self-image. What mattered most was what he called the “creative imagination” that contained the self-image. He discovered a person’s creative imagination shaped one’s self-image to determine feelings of inferiority. We have been working on yours throughout the article.

Your self-image has tremendous powers. Your self-image controls what you can achieve. It controls what you can and cannot do. If you see yourself as inferior to others, this self-image ensures you remain inferior. No amount of positive thinking, willpower, or self-determination cures a feeling of inferiority when an inferior self-image exists. Dr. Maltz in The New Psycho-cybernetics, profoundly explains the power of the self-image to shape our behavior and achieve what we desire:

The self-image 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.

A person that weighs 250 pounds can drop to 210 pounds through willpower and determination. If the weight-loss took place out of willpower, however, the person will return to his true self-image weight of 250 pounds. You can decrease the girth of your stomach through grunt force, but if your self-image has not adjusted to your new weight, your old weight will return. The room temperature can fluctuate a few degrees depending on who enters and leaves the room, yet the thermostat always returns the room to its set temperature. (For more discoveries on this fluctuating problem, read this article titled “Why Problem Solving Doesn’t Solve the Problem and the Real Solution to Permanent Change”.)

The same rule holds true to become more muscular. If your self-image is a thin-body, you will have a tough time packing on muscle. Arnold Schwarzenegger at 15-years was thin. What set him apart from other bodybuilders was his self-image. He would visualize his new muscular body each time he performed a rep at the gym while other bodybuilders would fantasize over bikini models. In 1980, Schwarzenegger claimed his seventh Mr. Olympia title and become the icon of bodybuilders.

A person that aims to lose weight through willpower uses forward goal-setting. If you use forward goal-setting, where you set a goal to achieve and work towards it, you will fail. As I have repeatedly said, positive willpower cannot overcome a negative creative imagination. Your creative imagination will always win.

Apply this to other areas of your life. Stop trying to use willpower to overcome your inferiority complex or to achieve some other goal. It cannot be done for permanent results. What you need to do for all your goals is use backward goal-setting where you set a goal to achieve and begin doing the things now that you would do upon achieving that goal.

To do this you need to awaken your creative imagination by immersing yourself in an imaginary environment where you achieved your goal. Your aim is to visualize yourself immersed in an environment so real that it feels like you achieved it.

I will run through a complete exercise you can do right now to overcome your inferiority complex. You are to primarily rely on this technique to overcome feelings of inferiority. When the technique is used over time on a frequent basis, your inferiority complex will evaporate.

Exercise to Cure Your Inferiority Complex and Boost Your Self-Image

The exercise is an intense visualization. The nervous system cannot tell a real event from a fake event. Studies have repeatedly shown that when we visualize, the body experiences physiological responses that mimic action. The mirror neurons in the premotor cortex of the brain become activated from visualizations in the same manner as doing the action.

This is not the exercise, but imagine you are in a real fight. Hear the yelling, swearing, and abuse. Feel the air. Taste the blood. See the people gather around you. Look at your angry opponent. By immersing yourself in the environment your physiology will appropriately respond. Your body will release doses of adrenaline as your heart rate increases along with a heightened awareness. The more real your visualization is, the more your body responds as if it were a real experience.

To demonstrate the exercise I encourage you to use on a daily basis, I will walk you through what I would do in Mitchell’s situation.

I firstly slow down my breathing. Notice present tensions in my body and make a conscious decision to relax that part of the body. Next, I visualize myself walking confidently into the room full of executives. Shoulders are back, posture is erect, neck is straight, and my strides are slow. I make strong eye contact when others look at me. I smell the champagne and hear the chatter and smile at hearing the occasional loud laugh. I see the gray walls and people’s black shoes.

I feel the wrinkles around my mouth as I smile when greeting an executive. I feel a person’s hand as I give them a firm handshake. People are warming up to me as I communicate complete comfort with myself. I am poised. I love myself and have no need to compare myself to other’s standards. I am proud in knowing that I am becoming a better person. I am a unique individual.

That is a brief example of what I would feel and see in my mind’s eye. I encourage you to go into more depth. Create more details. Visualize what it is like to not worry what people think of you. Smell the air and touch the surfaces that are around the non-inferior you. Thorough details are extremely important. Make it so vivid that it becomes real. Use your five senses: taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing. These focused visualizations will give you a new self-image.

Run through constructive visualizations everyday. It may seem like a lot of effort, but this is your life we are talking about. You are important. You run through visualizations everyday. The exercise has you control imagery you would otherwise waste.

I also encourage you to use positive thinking, which I earlier “bashed”. Positive thinking is a valuable tool when used in conjunction with your creative imagination. Combine these two great tools together with the many other tips in this article and you will soon overcome your inferiority complex. After all, your inferiority complex developed by using these tools in a negative fashion.

You will never eliminate all thoughts of inferiority because it is human nature to think the occasional demeaning thought. You do not need to feel inferior, however. The difference is whether you let the occasional thought and feeling grow.

If you still feel helpless from feelings of inferiority, please book an appointment with a therapist. I don’t want you to end up like Jacob.

(Please post a comment or story about your inferiority along with how this article has changed your life. You are by far from alone in experiencing inferiority. I could have easily charged for this report, but decided not to. I want as many people to read this as possible. This can be more easily accomplished with your help by telling your friends, family, and co-workers about the article. You do not know the feelings of inferiority someone could have that is damaging their life. Do them a favor. They could be forever thankful for your thoughtfulness. Email them by clicking the social media buttons below.)

(I have reposted people’s comments below from an older version of the article.)

Covey’s book has sold over 15 million copies for a reason: It ignores trends and popular psychology, and sticks with enduring principles of lasting change. His seven principles build a lasting foundation for truth, openness, and integrity. The principles are timeless – unchanging to events – that make the book the personal development favorite of many self-help experts.

The first three principles are: 1) be proactive, 2) begin with the end in mind, and 3) put first things first. These first three principles deal with dependence as the author moves you through new paradigms.

The first principle moves you from blame and victimization to responsibility. The second principle moves you from destructive centeredness and obsessions to a healthy focus and clear values. While the third principles deals with the “fourth generation” of time management where you learn to do what matters most instead of following to-do lists and doing frivolous tasks that contribute little to your life and other’s lives.

The second lot of three principles (four to six) deal with interdependency. The second triplet of principles are self-explanatory: 4) think win/win, 5) seek first to understand, then to be understood, and 6) synergize. These three principles are more like communication skills as the first three principles provide you the foundation to use them.

It is sad to see many people ignore these principles. As a result, their relationships suffer and people resent them. Any success they get is short-term, unsatisfactory, and often lonely.

Covey emphasizes that effective people are interdependent on others. While they are independent and strong in their own right, when they use the three principles for interdependence, the sum of people’s work is more than the individual parts.

Many personal development public speakers, authors, life coaches, and organizational trainers say the book is the best they ever read.

The last principle is called “sharpen the saw”. It deals with renewal in the physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Just as a blunt saw becomes tiresome for a woodcutter, a failure to renew in these four dimensions result in unproductive and sometimes destructive living for the exasperated individual. When the four dimensions are renewed, the seventh principle of “sharpen the saw” is followed to encapsulate the other six principles. It is in such ways that all the principles feed from one another.

The last point I want to emphasize to encourage you to invest in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People if you have not already done so is the character ethic Covey focuses on. Most books today focus on the personality ethic. A personality ethic deals with attitudes, behaviors, skills, and the techniques for human interaction. While the personality ethic is important, without the character ethic that offers courage, patience, and integrity, long-term success is inhibited. The establishment of a strong character ethic creates change from the inside-out.

You must get the book. Many personal development public speakers, authors, life coaches, and organizational trainers say the book is the best they ever read. I highly encourage you to grab your copy of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People now from Amazon right now by clicking here today.

Sexual arousal has some of the greatest lessons to become self-motivated. Arousal begins by thinking about someone you find attractive. Thoughts create vivid images that lead to a growing intensity of feelings. As your feelings intensify, blood flow increases to certain body parts, breathing heightens, and your skin becomes sensitive. If you continue to immerse yourself in such imagery, eventually you need to act on those feelings.

The enduring desire and process to goal achievement is the same as arousal. Thoughts lead to vivid imagery, which creates intense feelings. Soon enough you must act on those feelings because it becomes too much for you to not chase your goal. You can create an equivalent – if not more intense – desire as physical arousal to achieve what you want by continuing to read below.

All The Keys You Ever Need to Be Self-Motivated

The starting point of all achievement is desire.Napoleon Hill

You can have anything you want – if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.Abraham Lincoln

Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emotions play a vital role in goal-attainment. Nelissen, Dijker, and de Vries in their 2007 study titled Emotions and Goals: Assessing Relations Between Values and Emotions emphasize the importance of emotions in achieving goals:

An emotional state is characterized by a motivational tendency to the attainment or maintenance of a particular, emotion-specific end-state. Some [studies] have further proposed that the goal-directed nature of behavioral consequences of emotions is adaptive, thus portraying emotions as solutions to obstacles and opportunities of physical and social survival.

As a basic example of the importance of emotions in goal-attainment, let’s say you are on holidays visiting beautiful landmarks and you drive up a steep mountain. You get to the top and make your way to an eye-grabbing location that borders the mountain’s edge. There is no fences or boundaries placed that control where you can walk. As you approach the mountain’s edge, you see the steep fall and quickly take a few steps back to feel safe.

The emotion in this example is fear. It is a fear of danger to ensure you achieve your goal of safety. If you had zero fear of falling off the cliff, the chances of you falling – and failing your goal of safety – increase because you are closer to danger than if you stepped away from the cliff. Your emotions help you obtain goals.

Behind each goal you have, there exists an emotional void you seek to fulfill. Aristotle said the desire for happiness is the void behind all actions. Happiness is the void every human pursues. Nobody can be happy enough. Knowing you desire happiness, however, is not much help when motivating yourself. There is little benefit in knowing you want to make small talk with anyone to be happy. This is where the pain-pleasure theory of motivation comes in.

Goal achievement is no different to arousal… Soon enough you have to act on those feelings because it becomes too much for you to not chase your goal.

Anthony Robbins, author of Awaken the Giant Within, made famous the pain-pleasure theory of motivation. The theory states that in anything we do we seek to gain pleasure or avoid pain. Pleasure has you in pursuit of something. Pain has you run away from something. “The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you,” says Robbins. “If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.”

By understanding how to use pain and pleasure, instead of having pain and pleasure use you, I believe you give yourself unlimited opportunities to be self-motivated. When you learn to build as much pleasure in something as possible, while building pain in something you do not want, you become self-motivated. Manipulate pain and pleasure to build an intense emotional craving to achieve your desires.

We associate so much pleasure with physical arousal that it strongly drives our behavior to fulfill the emotional void whenever possible. Likewise, you can associate extreme amounts of pleasure with your goal, in becoming confident, for example, that you work towards better confidence under any circumstance. In fearful situations you normally avoid, extreme amounts of pleasure can be associated with fighting fear so it becomes exhilarating to be courageous and act in the face of fear. (This is a core secret of how you can become confident in social situations that I reveal in my conversation skills program Big Talk.)

The Four Emotions to Self-Motivation

Well-known motivational speaker Jim Rohn expands on the pain-pleasure theory. Rohn summarizes the primary emotions and desires that bring about change, like the pain-pleasure theory of motivation, into four categories:

1. Disgust – This is the pain component of the pain-pleasure theory. Disgust can occur when you have had enough. You’re sick of something from occurring, which motivates you to not let it occur again. Your pain leads to change.
2. Decision – There comes times in our lives that make or break us. These are fork roads where we need to choose the path on which to travel. Fork roads often arise from external circumstances that force us to make a decision, such as a partner questioning whether you want to continue in the relationship. Make a decision and move forward in life. A wrong choice can be corrected at a later time.
3. Desire – We’re influenced by outside circumstances, but we must have an internal desire – a purpose that originates from within. You are shown throughout this article how to build a desire and increase pleasure with your desired pursuits.
4. Resolve – This state is defined by the decision to commit to a circumstance no matter what. “When confronted with such iron-will determination,” says Rohn, “I can see Time, Fate and Circumstance calling a hasty conference and deciding, ‘We might as well let him have his dream. He’s said he’s going to get there or die trying.’” Nothing can replace commitment. When you know what it is you clearly want, resolve will make it happen.

Pain, pleasure, disgust, decision, desire, and resolve – these are all powerful states you need to control or they will control you. The question remains: How do you control these mental and emotional states to become self-motivated? How do you build the emotional strength for endurance through the complete journey to attain your goals?

A Simple Exercise to Get You Self-Motivated

I believe an awareness of either pain, pleasure, disgust, decision, desire, and resolve is sometimes enough to create the respective emotion. Knowing about disgust, for example, can help you create disgust to change your behavior and achieve a goal. Even so, there is one technique I am about to share with you that’s amazing for building a burning desire to achieve your goals. With this technique you will remove lack luster efforts and reluctance to pursue what you want. It is one of the best goal-setting techniques you will ever use. The technique is simple, but very powerful.

On the piece of paper you started the exercise from the first article, you will now fill in the second column. Label the second column as “Why I Want It”. In this column, list 20 reasons why you want what you do to trigger, spark, and amplify your emotional desires to hunger for what you want. Come up with 20 or more reasons why you want what you listed in the first column.

Take your time in coming up with the list. 20 reasons or benefits is a lot of work, but the list created from the hours of work in this exercise will be your psychological fuel for achieving your communication and personal development goals in the weeks, months, and years to come. For me, it is my source of inspiration. If there is one method that I frequently depend upon for stimulating a hot passion so that I can pursue my goals with vigor, it is this technique. No other technique injects so much enthusiasm into me.

If you have troubles coming up with good reasons for your goals, expand on ideas and ask other people for ideas. You can also try to think in themes like: feelings you will experience, how others will see you, physical outcomes, reducing pain, and increasing resolve.

Let’s say your goal is to avoid destructively erupting in anger at family members during family conflict. Here are 10 starter points you could use in the “Why I Want It” column:

1. I want to be a good role model for my children.
2. I want my family to feel safe.
3. I want to ensure we have open communication and that no one is scared of talking about certain issues because of my anger. (Prevent other people being demotivated to talk to me because of the pain they will experience.)
4. I am sick of fighting with my family.
5. I want my family to love me as much as possible.
6. I want my family to be relaxed and calm when talking to me; instead of being provoked by my anger.
7. I hate feeling the shame when people in public see my anger.
8. I want to increase intimacy with my partner.
9. I want other parents to look up to me with how I manage my emotions towards my children.
10. I want my children to think back 10 years from now and be grateful about my emotional management towards their difficult behaviors.

The above is a great example of a list of reasons to achieve the goal of anger management. Once you have listed at least 20 reasons, I guarantee you’ll be filled with fiery emotions to help you achieve what you want. I encourage you to look at your list on a daily basis because of its emotional power in hooking you to achieve your communication and personal development goals. Look at the list frequently and you’ll remain focused and persistent with your goals.

The exercise works because you create a list that summarizes the sale points to make you “buy into” pursuing your goals. It taps into the four emotions of self-motivation. The list builds your pleasure and intensifies pain to make you persist until your goals arrive. The exercise builds the amount of pleasure you get by changing and builds the amount of pain you get by not changing.

I believe this one technique by itself is enough to create a burning desire.

8 Bonus Tips to Be Self-Motivated

I really want you to achieve your goals. I know what it is like to have a down-day where you don’t feel motivated. Don’t beat yourself up over down-days thinking you will never achieve what you want. Down-days are natural. Here are some quick-fire pieces of advice to help you stimulate an emotional craving for your goals:

1. Dress for Success – How often do you see yourself in a mirror or reflection, or look down at what you’re wearing that day? Let’s say 5 times a day. 5 times a day is 1825 times a year. That’s a lot of subtle mental programming. The power of clothing on your mood is amazing. Wear clothing that makes you feel confident and other areas of your life will improve accordingly.
2. Be Aggressive – An important goal should stimulate aggression because you badly want it. If you want to be a public speaker, you must be assertive at the time allocated to improve your public speaking. Should something interfere with your practice, you stamped down on what happened to keep on track. Do not create another problem with your aggression. Channel your aggression towards a productive goal – what it is intended for – and watch the steam condense into hard results.
3. Relive Past Success – Think to past successes and relive the experiences in your mind. Past successes are not only stored in your mind, but at the cellular level in your body. Linked to the successes are winning feelings you can tap into for success. On the contrary, think of past failures and you stimulate feelings of failure. The technique builds the pleasure of getting what you want. For a more in-depth teaching of this method and other mental reprogramming techniques, I highly recommend Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s The New Psycho-cybernetics.
4. Here and Now – Focus on what you can do in the present to allow your creative imagination the potential to develop solutions. When you are obsessed with the past and the future, anxiety rids you of your ability to achieve results in the present moment.
5. Details – Defining what you want pulls you in the right direction with specific details. Visualize, feel, smell, taste, and hear the intrinsic details of your desired state to put yourself in that winning state. Just as it is with the process of arousal, you can become aroused by experiencing the details of your goals. This technique is similar to reliving your past successes except you are free from the past to create what you want.
6. Feed Your Mind – You’ll be surprised at how uplifted you get by reading about other people’s passions and successes. Consume at least 15-minutes a day of motivational material from the likes of Zig Ziglar, Jack Canfield, and Anthony Robbins. “People often say that motivation doesn’t last,” said Ziglar. “Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
7. Create an Ultimatum – Use the desire of resolve that Rohn explains to create change in your life. Make an absolute condition that if something doesn’t happen, so-and-so consequences will occur. Tell others about this to hold yourself accountable. Sun Tzu in the Art of War knew soldiers fought their hardest when it was a matter of life or death. Soldiers with an escape route had an option to winning or dying so they did not fight their hardest. Alternatives and exit strategies make it okay to fail. Do everything in your power to create an ultimatum such that you must succeed or suffer severe consequences. This technique increases the pain of not changing.
8. Teamwork – Team up with someone who wants a similar goal as you. This technique is frequently used in exercising where trainers encourage newcomers to workout with a friend. When you make your goals known to others – and when they have the same goals – the two of you work towards a common cause. You become more accountable for your actions because you don’t want to let the other person down. It’s vital the person is supportive or they could demotivate you from setting and achieving your goal.

…if you must rely on techniques to provide you with motivation, question whether you want the goal.

A word of warning though, if you must rely on these techniques to provide motivation, question whether you want the goal. You can stimulate passion using the various techniques provided above, but your goal must be what you want (what you defined in the first stage of the article). An intense desire to pursue your goal will come naturally if it is what you truly want.

You pursue goals with a passion by learning how to create a desire for what you clearly define. Once you are passionate and persistent towards a goal, zero events can stop you from achieving it. Outside circumstances may delay achievement, but passion with action guarantees your desires ultimately manifest into the results you want.

Be careful with what you wish for because you can get it by following the advice shared in this article. Know exactly what you want, why you want it, and how to stimulate a passion to get it. This is the mysterious state of success philosophers have described for centuries. (If you are yet to do the exercise, you are only cheating yourself. Go back to do it now.)

Straight off, you must follow Brain Tracy, bestselling author of Create Your Own Future. Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life needs to be in your personal library. It has been hailed by many people as one of Tracy’s top books (from over 30 books), if not his best book.

The basis of the book is about improving the way you think to get stronger relationships, become better at your career, increase your happiness, and generally achieve more success. From having role models, goals, dreams, and developing excellence in your chosen field, to listening, strategic thinking, time management, getting “the edge”, and earning more, it all stems from changing the way you think. This is all covered in the book.

One characteristic about this book that makes it better than Tracy’s other books are the references to several university studies and other types of research that back up the principles he provides and to explain his lessons. The research gives great insight and sets the book apart from the others he has written.

People with personal development experience will know most of the principles mentioned in this book. If you know the principles and have not achieved the goals you want in life, then you don’t really “know”. Knowing is doing. Therefore, you need to read this book and follow it up with action. Reading and re-reading this book yearly will remind you of the principles you may already know, but have yet to implement.

…the first personal development book I read.

Like his other books, this book is one with simple, easy-to-understand, to-the-point lessons. You will find yourself repeatedly reading powerful lessons instead of stories and filler.

Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life is the first personal development book I read after I picked up my father’s copy of it in the year 2000. I’m unsure if the book hooked me into becoming more than I am, but it at least put me on the path where I now teach thousands of people worldwide. It is a significant book in my life because of its impact on me. Who knows the impact it could have on you? I highly recommend it. You can grab your copy from Amazon right now by clicking here.

Brian Tracy is known for his concise and easy-to-understand books on self-help classics. Create Your Own Future is no exception. Tracy has included materials from his other works and the likes of Napoleon Hill and Dale Carnegie for one reason: it works. I know several people who have read this book and experienced a wonderful life-change.

There are five chapters of interest to people who want to improve their communication: chapter 1 (Success Is Predictable), chapter 5 (Attitude Is Everything), chapter 7 (Relationships Are Essential), and chapter 13 (Fortune Favors the Brave).

In chapter 7, Tracy shares effective principles on how you can successfully network with the big players in your career and industry. You learn how to get influential people on your side to help career success. If you don’t already know, networking is key to most people’s success. Having the people and resources available to you at your request helps you overcome problems they can solve.

Create Your Own Future appears to focus on succeeding in your career, though the principles like attitude, clarity, and knowledge are useful in many situations. Tracy provides interesting insight into the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious mind and how you can use each mind to improve various areas of your life.

…you must read it if you want to better yourself.

If you have read several of Brian Tracy’s books on personal development, you’ll find a lot of teachings in this book overlap with his other books. Even so, I think you will learn a few life-changing principles from the many in this book. You can probably skip the book if you have studied personal development for years.

With the vast amount of easy-to-understand personal development principles in Create Your Own Future, you must read it if you want to better yourself. A simple principle like transforming your car into a mobile university by listening to CDs, instead of wasting hundreds of hours listening to the radio, is extremely valuable. You can grab your copy of Create Your Own Future from Amazon by
clicking here today.