Broderick Boyd Speaks: The Psychology of Winning - Positve Self Image Summary and Review

   The following is my review and summary of the chapter "Positive Self Image" from the book "The Psychology of Winning" published in 1979 by psychologist Dr. Dennis Waitley. Positive Self Image is all about how you see yourself. Winners see themselves as winners. They have programed their subconscious through affirmation, imagination and visualization to believe that they really are true winners and that they will succeed in their goals and purposes in life. Use your imagination and visualize yourself winning. See and feel the images and emotions that will come from that success. This chapter of the book is probably my favorite because of how powerful and how valuable it can be to understand the concept of the self image. Enjoy.

   Your self image is either you life handicap or your auto pilot for winning.

   Winners act like winners, imagining with pictures, feelings and words the roles they want to play.

   What you "see and feel" about yourself is what you get.

   Individuals behave, not in accordance with reality, but in accordance with their perception of reality. How the individual feels about themselves is everything, for all that they ever do or aspire to do, will be predicated on that all important concept which is the self image.

   The self image is the fundamental key to understanding human behavior. Dr. Maxwell Maltz, the great plastic surgeon and author of the best seller Psycho Cybernetics, said that "The most important psychological discover of this century is the discovery of the self image."

The Blue Eyed vs. the Brown Eyed School Children Experiment

   With approval from their parents, a young primary grade school teacher revealed to her students that "a recent scientific report has verified that children with blue eyes have greater natural learning abilities than children with brown eyes." She then had them make up little signs designating them as either "Blue Eyes" or "Brown Eyes" which were hung around their necks. After a week or so, the achievement level of the "Brown Eyes" group fell measurably, while the performance of the "Blue Eyed" group improved significantly. She then made a startling announcement to the class. It was actually the "blue or lighter eyes" who were the less intelligent, and the "brown or dark eyes" who were the more intelligent, and the pattern reversed itself.

   Each of us are controlled by the mental pictures that we have formed of ourselves.

   Your subconscious strives to meet the objectives and goals that you set for it, regardless of whether they are positive or negative. Furthermore, it cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and an experience that is imagined vividly, emotionally and in detail. Many of your everyday decisions are based upon information about yourself that has been stored as truth, but is really just a creation of your imagination shaded by reality.

   A change in your conscious mind, through willpower, will only be temporary, but a change in your subconscious is much longer lasting.

   Whenever your conscious and subconscious minds come into conflict, your subconscious will most likely win the battle, unless any newly acquired fears or desires are strong enough to override it.

   Any permanent change in your personality or behavior, should first involve a change in your self image, reinforced by a change in lifestyle.

   Your behavior, personality or achievement level is usually consistent with your self image.

   Your self image is your homeostatic pull.

   A positive self image is your achievement mechanism.

   You can't escape from your self image.

   Winners control their self image and change it as they desire.

   Winners dwell on and hold the self image of the person that they would like to become. They get a vivid, clear, emotional, sensory picture of themselves as if they had already achieved their goal. Like children playing "Let's Pretend," they play the role of whomever they want to be. They know that their subconscious can't tell the difference between "the real me" and "the one I see".

   They see themselves standing in the Winner's Circle. They feel that solid weight of the gold medal around their necks. They hear the approval of the crowd. They smell the roses in the Rose Bowl. They touch the diploma in their hand. They feel the self esteem of their personal achievement in advance.

   Winners feel like winners. Winners "see" through the eyes of winners.

Review

   Winners are especially aware of the tremendous importance of their self image, and of the role that their imagination can play in the creation and upgrading of their self image. They know the self image acts as a subconscious life governing device, that if in your self image, you can't possibly see yourself doing something, or achieving something, you literally cannot do it.

   They also know that the self image can be changed since the subconscious is incapable of differentiating between a real success and a success imagined again and again vividly and in full detail. A winners' self talk is "I see myself changing , growing, achieving, winning!"

   Your behavior and performance usually are consistent with your self image. Your self image is an intricately woven concept made up of all of your feelings, fears and emotional responses to each and every personal experience up to the present. What you imagine as being real, with frequency, becomes your version of reality. Winners imagine and fantasize about the person that they would like to become, and their subconscious self image reads that script, memorizes it, and acts accordingly.

Techniques for More Positive Self Image:

Go for a walk on the beach, in the country or at a park and recall your childhood play time

This will help you dust off an oil your imagination

Set aside 20 to 30 minutes a day for relaxed imagination, whether commuting somewhere, at lunch or in the morning or evening

As you relax during this time, imagine yourself achieving and enjoying your most personal desires

See them as if you were previewing them on a movie screen

Read a biography every month of someone who has reached the top in your career or passion or just someone that you admire

As you read, imagine yourself as the person you are reading about

If you spend time around young children, become a storyteller, this will boost your imagination power
Limit your television viewing to stimulating, special shows

Watching too much television can lead to tunnel vision which will limit your imagination

Take a deep relaxation, meditation, auto suggestion, or biofeedback training program
Develop the habit of listening to educational and motivational audio programs
Write a two page resume of your professional and personal assets as if you were going to apply for the job of a lifetime

List your maximum current potential and ultimate future growth potential instead of your past experience

Read it every week and revise it every two months

Improve your external image to help improve your internal image, take stock of your clothes, car, home, garage, closet, dresser drawers, desk, photos, lawn, garden etc