Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement (3 page)

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THE NEED TO BE LOVED

The second major fear that holds us back, undermines our confidence, and destroys our desire for a happy life is the fear of
rejection
, and its expression,
criticism
. This emotion is learned in early childhood as the result of our parents expressing disapproval of us whenever we do something they don’t like, or don’t do something that they expect. As a result of our displeasing them, they ccc_tracy_1_1-17.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 5

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become angry and withdraw the love and approval we need so much as children.

The fear of being unloved and alone is so traumatic for a child that she soon conforms her behavior to do whatever she thinks her parents will approve of. She loses her spontaneity and uniqueness.

She begins to think, “I have to! I have to! I have to!” She concludes,

“I have to do whatever Mommy and Daddy want me to, or they won’t love me, and I’ll be all alone!”

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CONDITIONAL LOVE

As an adult, a child raised with what is called “conditional love” (as opposed to unconditional love, the greatest gift one person can give to another) becomes hypersensitive to the opinions of others. In its extreme form, he cannot do anything if there is the slightest chance that someone else may not approve. He projects his childhood relationship with his parents onto the important people in his adult life—spouse, boss, relatives, friends, authority figures—and tries desperately to earn their approval, or at least not lose it.

The fears of failure and rejection, caused by destructive criticism in early childhood, are the root causes of most of our unhappiness and anxiety as adults. We feel, “I can’t!” or “I have to!” continually. The worst feeling is when we feel, “I can’t, but I have to!” or “I have to, but I can’t!”

We want to do something, but we are afraid of failure or loss, or if we are not afraid of loss, we are afraid of disapproval. We want to do something to improve our lives, at work or at home, but we are afraid that we may fail, or that someone else may criticize us, or both.

For most people, their fears govern their lives. Everything they do is organized around avoiding failure or criticism. They think continually about playing it safe, rather than striving for their goals.

They seek security rather than opportunity.

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DOUBLE YOUR RATE OF FAILURE

The author Arthur Gordon once approached Thomas J. Watson Sr., the founder of IBM, and asked him how he could succeed faster as ccc_tracy_1_1-17.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 6

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a writer. Thomas J. Watson, one of the giants of American business, replied with these profound words: “If you want to be successful faster, you must double your rate of failure. Success lies on the far side of failure.”

The fact is that the more you have already failed, the more likely it is you are on the verge of great success. Your failures have prepared you to succeed. This is why a streak of good luck seems to follow a streak of bad luck. When in doubt, “double your rate of failure.” The more things you
try
, the more likely you are to
triumph
.

You overcome your fears only by doing the thing you fear until the fear has no more control over you.

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YOUR MENTAL HARD DRIVE

Everything you know about yourself, all your beliefs, are recorded on the hard drive of your personality, in your self-concept. Your self-concept precedes and predicts your levels of performance and effectiveness in everything you do. Because of the law of correspondence, you always behave on the outside in a manner consistent with your self-concept on the inside. All improvement in your life therefore begins with an improvement in your self-concept.

You have an
overall
self-concept that is made up of all your beliefs about yourself and your abilities. This bundle of beliefs includes all the experiences, decisions, successes, failures, ideas, information, emotions, and opinions of your life up to now. This general self-concept determines how and what you think and feel about yourself, and measures how well you are doing in general.

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YOUR MINI-SELF-CONCEPTS

You have a series of “mini-self-concepts” as well. These mini-self-concepts combine to make up your overall self-concept. You have a self-concept for every area of your life that you consider important.

This mini-self-concept determines how you think, feel, and perform in that area.

For example, you have a self-concept for how healthy and fit you are, and how much you eat or exercise. You have a self-concept ccc_tracy_1_1-17.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 7

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for how likable and popular you are with others, especially with members of the opposite sex. You have a self-concept for what kind of a spouse or parent you are, for how good a friend you are to your friends, how smart you are, and how well you learn.You have a self-concept for every sport you play, and for every activity you engage in, including how well you drive your car.

You have a self-concept for how well you do your work, and for how well you do each part of your work. You have a self-concept for how much money you make and how well you save and invest it. This is a critical area. The fact is that you can never earn much more or less than your self-concept level of income. If you want to make more money, you have to change your beliefs about yourself relative to income and money. This is an important part of this book.

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CHANGE YOUR BELIEFS

In every case, if you want to change your performance and your results in any area of your life, you have to change your self-concept—or your beliefs about yourself—for that area. Fortunately, your beliefs are largely subjective. They are not always based on facts. Instead, they are based largely on information you have taken in and accepted as true, sometimes with very little evidence or proof.

The very worst beliefs you can have are
self-limiting beliefs
of any kind. These are beliefs about yourself that cause you to feel somehow limited or deficient in a particular area. These beliefs are seldom true, but if you accept them as valid estimates of your ability, they become true for you, exactly as if they were correct.

The starting point of unlocking your potential, and accomplishing more than you ever have before, is for you to
challenge
your self-limiting beliefs. You begin this process of freeing yourself from self-limiting beliefs by imagining that, whatever they are, they are completely untrue. Imagine for the moment that you have no limitations on your abilities at all. Imagine that you could be, do, or have anything you really wanted in life. Imagine that your potential is unlimited in any way.

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For example, imagine that you could be earning twice as much as you are earning today. Imagine that you could be living in a bigger house, driving a better car, and enjoying a more expensive lifestyle.

Imagine that you have the ability to be one of the top people in your field. Imagine that you are one of the most popular, powerful, and persuasive personalities in your social and business world.

Imagine that you are calm, confident, and unafraid of anything.

Imagine that you could set and achieve any goal you put your mind to. This is how you begin changing your thinking and changing your life.

The starting point of eliminating your fears, and releasing your potential, is to reprogram your mental hard drive with new, positive, constructive, and courageous beliefs about yourself and your future.

Throughout this book, you will learn how to do this.

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THREE PARTS OF

YOUR SELF-CONCEPT

Your self-concept has three parts, like a pie divided into three wedges. Each is linked with each of the others. All three elements together make up your personality. They largely determine what you think, feel, and do, and everything that happens to you.

Your
self-ideal
is the first part of your personality and your self-concept. Your self-ideal is made up of all of your hopes, dreams, visions, and ideals. Your self-ideal is composed of the virtues, values, and qualities that you most admire in yourself and others.

Your self-ideal is the person you would most like to become, if you could be a perfect person in every way. These ideals guide and shape your behavior.

Great men and women, leaders, and people of character are very clear about their values, visions, and ideals. They know who they are and what they believe in. They set high standards for themselves, and they don’t compromise those standards. They are men and women that others can look up to and depend on. They are definite and distinct in their interactions with others. In everything they do, they strive to live up to their ideals.

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THE WAY YOU SEE YOURSELF

The second part of your self-concept is your
self-image
. This is the way you see yourself and think about yourself. It is often called your

“inner mirror.” It is where you look internally to see how you should behave in a particular situation. Because of the power of your self-image, you always perform on the
outside
consistent with the picture you have of yourself on the
inside
.

The discovery of the self-image, pioneered by Maxwell Maltz, is a major breakthrough in understanding human performance and effectiveness. By visualizing and imagining yourself performing at your best in an upcoming situation, you send a message to your subconscious mind.Your subconscious mind accepts this message as a command, and then coordinates your thoughts, words, and actions so that they fit a pattern consistent with the picture you created.

All improvement in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures.Your internal images influence your emotions, your behaviors, your attitudes, and even the way other people respond to you. The development of a positive self-image is a vital part of changing your thinking and changing your life.

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HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT YOURSELF

The third part of your self-concept is your
self-esteem
. This is the emotional component of your personality, and is the most important factor in determining how you think, feel, and behave. Your level of self-esteem largely determines much of what happens to you in life.

Your self-esteem is best defined as
how much you like yourself
.

The more you like yourself, the better you perform at anything you attempt. And by the law of reversibility, the better you perform, the more you like yourself.

Your self-esteem is the “reactor core” of your personality. It is the energy source that determines your levels of confidence and enthusiasm. The more you like yourself, the higher will be the standards you will set for yourself. The more you like yourself, the bigger the goals you will set for yourself and the longer you will ccc_tracy_1_1-17.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 10

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persist in achieving them. People with high self-esteem are virtually unstoppable.

Your level of self-esteem determines the quality of your relationships with others. The more you like and respect yourself, the more you like and respect others and the better they feel toward you. In your business life and career, your personal level of self-esteem will be the critical factor that determines whether or not people will buy from you, hire you, enter into business dealings with you, and even lend you money.

The better your self-esteem, the better you will be as a spouse and parent. High self-esteem parents raise high self-esteem children. These children develop high levels of self-confidence and associate with other high self-esteem children. High self-esteem homes are characterized by love, laughter, and happiness for everyone who lives there.

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THE DETERMINANT OF SELF-ESTEEM

Your level of self-esteem is largely determined by how closely your self-image—your current performance and behavior—matches your self-ideal—your picture of how you would perform if you were at your very best. You are always comparing your actual performance with your ideal performance at an unconscious level. Whenever you feel that you are living up to your very best, you feel terrific about yourself.Your self-esteem soars.You feel happy and fulfilled.

Whenever you do or say something that is
not
in keeping with your ideals or the best of which you feel you are capable, your self-esteem goes down. Whenever there is a wide separation between the person you are in the moment and the ideal person you want very much to be in the future, you feel badly about yourself. This is why you get angry with yourself whenever you fail at something, or behave badly in a situation with other people. Your self-ideal continually reminds you of how much better a person you can be.

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THE CORE OF PERSONALITY

Psychologists agree today that your self-esteem lies at the core of your self-concept and your personality. Every improvement in any ccc_tracy_1_1-17.qxd 6/23/03 2:46 PM Page 11

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part of your personality or performance boosts your self-esteem, and causes you to like and respect yourself even more. The more you like yourself, the better will be your self-image and subsequent performance, and the faster you will move toward becoming more like your self-ideal.

The best news of all is that there is an
inverse relationship
between your level of self-esteem and your fears of failure and rejection. The more you like yourself, the less you fear failure.

The more you like yourself, the less concerned you are with the opinions of others, and the less you fear criticism. The more you like yourself, the more you make your decisions based on your own goals and standards, and the less you care what others think or say.