Maxwell Maltz
Maxwell Maltz
Maxwell Maltzwas an American cosmetic surgeon and author of Psycho-Cybernetics, which was a system of ideas that he claimed could improve one's self-image. In turn, the person would lead a more successful and fulfilling life. He wrote several books, among which Psycho-Cybernetics was a long-time bestseller — influencing many subsequent self-help teachers. His orientation towards a system of ideas that would provide self-help is considered the forerunner of the now popular self-help books...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth10 March 1899
CountryUnited States of America
Live in the present. The past is gone; the future is unknown -- but the present is real, and your opportunities are now. You must see these opportunities; they must be real for you. The catch is that they can't seem real if your mind is buried in past failures, if you keep reliving old mistakes, old guilts, old tragedies. Fight your way above the many inevitable Traumatizations of your ego, escape damnation by the past, and look to the opportunities of the present. I don't mean some vague moment in the present -- next week or next month, perhaps. I mean today, this minute.
Loneliness is caused by an alienation from life. It is a loneliness from your real self.
To really 'live,' that is to find life reasonably satisfying, you must have an adequate and realistic self-image that you can life with. You must find yourself acceptable to 'you.'
It was as if personality itself had a 'face'. This non-physical face of personality seemed to be the real key to personality change. It remained scarred, distorted, 'ugly' or inferior the person himself acted out this role in his behaviour regardless of the changes in physical appearance. If this 'face of personality' could be reconstructed, if old emotional scars could be removed, then the person himself changed, even without facial plastic surgery.
Your nervous system can't tell real failure from imagined failure.
Live in the present. The past is gone; the future is unknown - but the present is real, and your opportunities are now.
We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.
Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a 'real' experience. In either case, it reacts automatically to information which you give to it from your forebrain. Your nervous system reacts appropriately to what you THINK or IMAGINE to be 'true.
The ''self-image'' is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the behavior.
Emptiness is a symptom that you are not living creatively. You either have no goal that is important enough to you, or you are not using your talents and efforts in a striving toward an important goal.
Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you just as you can change your beliefs.
For imagination sets the goal ''picture'' which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of ''will,'' as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.
When you see a thing clearly in your mind, your creative ''success mechanism'' within you takes over and does the job much better than you could do it by conscious effort or ''willpower.''
Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-brake on.