SELF IMAGE

Let’s explore the concept of self-image, and start to understand it a little better. Your entire life evolves around images. Just as every company has a corporate image, every individual also has their own self-image.

Think of your home for a moment. As you think of your home, be aware that an image of your home comes on the screen of your mind. Or think of your automobile and an image of it comes on the screen of your mind. And so it does every time you think of yourself.

Science and psychology have isolated the one prime cause for success or failure in life. It is the hidden self-image that you have of yourself. It controls your mind, just as surely as your mind controls your heartbeat. To remake your hidden self-image for success and fulfillment is to remake your entire life.

Your success in any undertaking will never be greater than the image you have of yourself. Your self-image is your own conception of the sort of person you are. It determines what you believe you are able to accomplish. Your self-image was very likely unconsciously formed from past experiences: your successes and failures, your humiliations and triumphs. This image or opinion you have of yourself will determine how you interpret other people’s reactions to you and significantly affect your success in everything you’re ever going to do.

If you’re wondering what kind of self-image you have it’s not difficult to figure it out. All that’s required is for you to take a look at the various aspects of your life. Take a look at the results you’re getting. Possibly your relationships, your income, and the position you hold at work or the type of business you’re operating. Take a look at your own personal appearance. These are all the results; they’re the outer expression of the inner image. As we alter this inner image everything outside begins to change.

One of the great errors that almost everyone makes is they’re attempting to change their income, they’re attempting to change their position, they’re attempting to change their business, they’re attempting to change something outside of themselves without changing what’s going on inside. For me to try and change the results in my life, in other words, what’s going on outside of me, without changing what’s going on inside, would be just about as foolish as for me to try to change my reflection in a mirror without changing my physical appearance. It’s never going to happen. But that’s what people are doing, they’re trying to change something outside without changing what’s going on inside.

Here’s a point that most people don’t understand, and I want you to read this paragraph over and over again until it’s firmly burned into your mind:

No person and no circumstance on earth can prevent you from improving your self-image. The degree to which you improve the image of yourself will be in exact proportion to the amount of truth that you can honestly accept and the amount of positive change you put into engineering your new self-image – A WINNER’S IMAGE.

George Bernard Shaw once pointed out that people are always blaming circumstances for what they are. He said, “I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up, look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, they make them.” That’s what this book is going to help you do. I like the way Napoleon put it one time, “Circumstances – hell, I make them.”

At the bottom of page seven in the workbook there is a diagram that I have become very familiar with and I’ve shared with hundreds of thousands of people on all corners of the earth.

When we think, we think in images – we’ve already covered that fact. When you thought of your home an image came in your mind and when you thought of your car an image came to your mind. Now think of your mind. When most people think of their mind, if they get a picture at all, it’s a picture of their brain. But their brain isn’t their mind, any more than their fingernail is their mind. We’re going to have to build a picture of the mind. It’s like the little kid in school who was doodling away, drawing a picture and the teacher asked him what he was drawing. When he told her it was a picture of God, she told him no one knows what God looks like. Then he told her they would when he finished the picture. We’re going to have to do what the little kid did; we’re going to build a picture of the mind.

Mind is movement and body is the manifestation of that movement. I often mention that the brain cannot think. We think with the brain, but the brain cannot think. To clarify that, I point out that it’s reported that we have Albert Einstein’s brain in a jar in New Jersey, but it’s not doing anyone any good, because Albert is not with it. You see, you are a non-physical being – it’s that perfection within you, and you activate brain cells and that’s what brings pictures on your mind.

So, since no one has ever seen the mind, we’re going to use a diagram of two circles. The larger one will represent the mind, and the smaller circle will represent the body. The body is an instrument of the mind. We’re going to separate the mind into two parts. Now, see your head as being your mind and put an imaginary line right across the center of your head. Everything from that line to the top of your head will represent your conscious mind, and then from line to the bottom of your head will represent your sub-conscious mind.

It’s your sub-conscious mind that’s literally controlling your body, not your conscious mind. Most people don’t know that, but you’re going to understand that very clearly by the time you’ve finished this book. In the conscious mind we think, and we can have all kinds of beautiful thoughts and we can gather all kinds of marvelous information and we can repeat it. We can say, “I know that.” But have you ever noticed that most people know how to do a better job than they’re already doing? Their actions and what they know are not in sync. Sales people know how to sell, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to sell. Students know how to study, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to study.

What we know is one thing, and what we’re doing is another thing. Our actions are being controlled by the self-image, which is lodged deep in our sub-conscious mind. It’s made up of all kinds of habit patterns. That’s the part we’re going to focus on changing.

Now we will emphasize a common error – it’s one I make and I’ve been studying this for 35 years. It’s one you probably make many times every day. Some people are always making this error. As a matter of fact, they constantly live with the error. Look back at our mind picture on page seven and notice how our actions determine our results and our self-image controls our actions.

You may know people who are continually struggling to improve. It could be the salesperson whose sales are low and they’re always struggling to raise the sales, but without success. They may be a student whose marks are always at a “C” level or even drop when the student is pushed to study harder. It’s a strange thing, the sales person knows how to sell more, but they don’t seem to be able to do it. The student knows how to get a higher mark, but they don’t seem to be able to do it. It seems like they’re wired to these results they’re getting.

Many of these people are always broke; they never look overly happy; they are constantly in debt. Why? Why can’t they improve? Well, let’s analyze this situation and discover this common error.

These people are trying desperately to change their end results. What do we mean by end results? Well, it could be relationships, or a state of health, or a position at work, or the amount of money you’re earning. The people are trying desperately to change that. What they don’t understand is the results in their lives are being determined by their actions and their actions are continually being motivated by their self-image.

They have not yet come to understand that their results are a direct reflection of this image that’s lodged deep in their sub-conscious mind. It’s got nothing to do with what they know.

You’re well aware that some of the smartest people in the world are also some of the poorest and some of the unhappiest. It’s got nothing to do with the amount of knowledge they have. Unfortunately, in our society we award degrees to people based on what they know, not on what they do. That’s unfortunate, but it’s true. Well, we’re going to change that in your life, and in my life.

An unseen enemy clutches these people, because there is no understanding of self-image, which is the actual cause of their results. The whole universe operates in an orderly way, and one of the laws of the universe is the law of cause and effect. Dr. Wernher Von Braun, the great rocket scientist, pointed out one time that the natural laws of this universe are so precise that we don’t have any difficulty today sending a person to the moon and we can time the landing with the precision of a fraction of a second. He also mentioned that someone must have set these laws, but we’ll save that for another book.

As we said, one of the laws is the law of cause and effect - results are effects. The cause is in the self-image. Most people’s error is a common one. They are identifying with their present results because it’s in harmony with their present self-image. They do not have a winner’s image. Mind is the master power that molds and makes. James Allen wrote that back in 1903 in a little book called As A Man Thinketh. Here’s a quote from that book:

“Mind is the Master power that molds and makes,

And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes

The tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills,

Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills,

He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass,

Environment is but his looking-glass.”

It’s pretty foolish for us to try to hide what’s going on inside because our results advertise to the whole world what’s going on inside of us. To the aware person, we hide nothing. We’re going to change that image, and in changing it, we’re going to change the end results.

Way back in 1960, Maxwell Maltz, a cosmetic surgeon, made a phenomenal breakthrough. And he wrote about it in a marvelous book called Psycho Cybernetics. I recommend you add that book to your library. As a matter of fact, your library is not complete without it. Cybernetics is the science of control and communication in the animal and some machines. It’s actually like the automatic pilot in an airplane.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said something beautiful: “Of what use to make heroic vows of amendment if the same old lawbreaker is to keep them?” How many times have you said, “I’m going to change that – I’m never going to do that again.” But you never change the self-image. It’s the self-image that’s the lawbreaker, and that’s what we want to change.

As we’ve illustrated on page eleven of the workbook, look at the plane flying from point one in New York to point two in Hawaii. After the plane leaves the vicinity of LaGuardia airport, the pilot flips on something called a cybernetic mechanism; of course you and I refer to it as an automatic pilot. That plane is on course flying directly to Hawaii. The pilot can get up and walk around and even watch a movie with the passengers if he wanted to. The pilot is not flying the plane; the automatic pilot is flying the plane, the cybernetic mechanism. Now, should that plane veer off course, the cybernetic mechanism picks up the deviation from the set course, which is Hawaii, and feeds it into a coordinating mechanism and the thrust of the engines or the flaps on the wings are altered until that plane is brought right back on course again.

Did you know that your self-image is exactly the same? I want to suggest that on page eleven you draw a straight line going straight across the body circle the same as the line going from New York to Hawaii. At the end of the line, put your present results. You attempt to change your behavior, you really do, and you give it everything you’ve got. You’re going to put more energy into it, and you may move off course. However, you’re going to find that you come back on course again because you’re trying to force it, and force won’t work. It’s the self-image that’s controlling the behavior.

Let’s suppose a person is selling a million dollars a year of their product. And they go out because they’re all wound up, they’ve been to a sales meeting or listened to a good tape. And they may sell three hundred thousand dollars of whatever it is that they’re selling, in just one week. Now, they’re way off course. The self-image picks up the deviation from the set goal, it feeds it into a coordinating mechanism, which is the nervous system; and that behavior starts to change until they’re back on course again. At the end of the year all they’ve sold is the one million. They may have had a week at three hundred thousand, but they’ve still just sold a million.

Now, what we have to do is take responsibility for the results we’re getting. You’ve got to take total, personal responsibility for your results. The cause of your present results is the self-image, which is resident in your sub-conscious mind. This book does not cover how your present self-image was formed. Our only focus is on how to improve the self-image. We’ve explained in detail how and why you hold your present self-image in another book titled You Were Born Rich. If you haven’t read it, I would recommend you get into it because there is a lot of deep information in there that will really help you understand yourself better. But for the time being: you can change your results by improving your self-image.

Starting right now you must forget the past and take responsibility for the present. Let the past go. Now, that’s not the easiest thing to do, but mentally release it. Begin immediately to plant a beautiful, new self-image, a winner’s image in your sub-conscious mind. Just follow the instructions in this book and your results will improve immediately, and forever. As long as you operate with a winner’s image.