So said Maxwell Maltz, author of the classic visualization book, Psycho-Cybernetics.

One proven technique for overcoming low self-esteem, and other defeatist thoughts that inhibit our success in life, like identification with failure, or poverty mentality, is a tool known as visualization.

The visualization techniques I’m about to describe were developed by a Jewish holocaust survivor and physician, Dr. Victor Frankl. Living in concentration camps during World War II, he watched his entire family perish. He credits these visualization tools to his own survival.

In the 1960s, the techniques were further refined by Maxwell Maltz. Maltz was a plastic surgeon specializing in corrective surgery for birth defects. He found that, after surgery, many of his patients still saw themselves negatively. Teaching these people visualization techniques became part of his practice.

These techniques laid the groundwork for self-improvement teachers such as Tony Robbins.

The object of visualization is to adapt old learned behaviors to behaviors better suited to the present.

For example, say your first experiences driving a car were in the summer. You get your license, and have become a very good driver. Now, it’s winter, and you suddenly find yourself driving in a snow storm on ice, and skidding into a tree. What happened? The breaking techniques that worked in the summer don’t work in slippery conditions. So you hit the tree. Now, you can keep hitting a tree every time it snows, or you can adjust your braking technique to better navigate the ice, by incorporating what you have learned. And, of course you do.

Unfortunately, not all behavioral changes are so simple. Many thought processes have become not just habitual, but totally entrenched in our minds through repetitive stimulation of specific neuronal synaptic paths.

To undo this learning, you need to combat these habitual patterns with equally powerful habitual thinking.

Since you can’t do this in real life, you imagine these new behaviors in your mind.

Through repetitively imagining what you want, you readjust your habitual thought patterns to better relate to the present.

You do this by:

• Creative Mental Picturing,
• Creatively experiencing success through your imagination, and
• Formation of new automatic reaction patterns.

I find the process relatively simple, and, once mastered, it can be practiced easily, while falling asleep, or even exercising.

Practice your visualizations in the morning and in the evening. Forget about them during the day. The changes, when they occur, should feel effortless, a newly incorporated part of you.

To describe how the techniques work, here’s an example:

Think of Tiger Woods. Tiger will play an entire golf course in his mind, hole by hole, before a tournament. He’ll imagine every shot in vivid detail, successfully moving through his virtual golf course a winner. Each evening, after play has completed, he’ll re-play his bad shots over successfully in his mind on his virtual golf course. He’ll adjust for all of his mistakes - how he’s positioned his feet, or turned his wrist - and also recreate as much detail in his visualization as possible - the color of the grass and sky, the texture of the handle of his club.

This technique has proven so powerful that it is part of many professional team regimens.

I have a library of self-help books that would knock your socks off. Some books stay, some books go, but Maxwell Maltz’s Psycho Cybernetics - is at the heart of it. It’s rated #34 in the Top 50 Classic Self Help Books.

We all want to be successful.

Your mind is the most powerful tool you have to create your success.

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