Psycho-Cybernetics - See Yourself at Your Best

Matt Furey's Super Human Success Blog

Start small and you can have it all

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There’s a saying, “Beginning is half-done.” Yes, getting started is often half the battle, if not more.

Yet, we tend to ignore the power of getting started.

We often overlook the fact that walking through the door, or showing up, is of monumental value.

Instead of being taught to win the small battles first, we are admonished to “get out of your comfort zone,” to tackle the big goal. This is clearly bad advice as most people who say they “believe” you must get out of your comfort zone, seldom do so.

The counterintuitive reality is that we are at our best when we begin from within our comfort zone and effortlessly, organically allow ourselves to expand beyond all expectations.

Years ago I figured this out when I kept procrastinating on tidying up and reorganizing my office. Realizing that this was going to take quite a while, I put the chore off. For weeks.

Then one evening I set a ridiculously small goal. Instead of focusing on the job being completed, I put my attention on getting started. I gave myself a simple action goal to “clean my office for five minutes.”

It was a ludicrous goal in comparison to the many hours that were required. But something surreal took place when I set this tiny goal.

First, I had zero resistance to getting started. I began immediately.

Second, once I engaged, five minutes turned into a quick 30.

Third, once I got to 30 minutes, I had so much momentum that I kept going for several hours. I began at 7 PM and continued until 3 AM.

Oddly enough, I had no fatigue. Despite the late hour I wanted to continue. I was waaaay beyond my so-called “comfort zone,” and was totally comfortable being there. I didn’t have a shread of fight, flight or freeze

I stopped myself, though, and went to sleep.

The next evening i employed the same gambit. I set another five-minute goal to see if the same thing would happen. And sure as the sheets of paper I was shredding, five minutes became 30, and 30 minutes turned into hours. Once again, I called it a day at 3 AM.

Incredible, I thought.

On the third day I could smell the finish. I was within range to taste victory. Even so, I began with another tiny goal, and the same thing happened again. The only difference was that instead of retiring at 3 AM, the job was completed by midnight.

There was no dread as I worked. I was in the ZONE, living in the NOW for a grand total of 21 hours. If you had told me I would enjoy spending 21 hours organizing my office, I would have scoffed. There’s no way that could happen, yet it did.

If, on the other hand, I pushed myself to get out of my comfort zone, there is no way I would have had the same zero resistance experience. No way at all..

This story illustrates why I teach people to begin with small daily goals that you can spontaneously upgrade on the fly. You might think the big, hairy goal is better, but nothing favorably compares to eating the elephant one morsel at a time.

Matt Furey

By the way, I have much more to reveal to you on this subject in Zero Resistance Living and Theatre of the Mind. Both products are available at psycho-cybernetics.com

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Almost 60

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There’s this idea that you only live once. YOLO for short.

Then there’s the notion that we have lived many lifetimes; that we pass away and come back, ad infinitum.

But what about having multiple lifetimes in one lifetime? As I ponder this dream-reality existence I am living, it makes sense. Maybe not a ton of sense, but a fair amount, especially as a creator.

Why limit yourself to one idea over another? Why not be both simultaneously?

You live multiple times in one lifetime. Yet, you can look back and learn from your experiences, if you’ll take the time to remember.

Back in 2012, while staying in a hotel in Los Angeles, I saw a vertical banner outside a conference room. The banner showcased a man who was having a seminar. I looked at the guy on the banner and thought to myself, “I used to do that, too.”

The reality was that I still did seminars, occasionally, yet in my mind, I didn’t do them anymore.

‘Twas a strange insight for el Furecat.

The question that arose from this interlude was not, “Who am I?”

It was, “Who the hell was I?”

Then there are the mode changes throughout the course of a single day. In one moment, I am practicing martial arts, in another I am reading a book, in yet another I am writing. Who am I in each of these whirlds? The same person?

Yesterday, I was reading the words of Henry Miller. To paraphrase, he wrote that he gave up the idea of enjoying his life, opting instead to focus on expressing himself. A novel idea that only a novelist could put into words.

To enjoy your life or to express yourself? Now that is a million-dollar question.

Last week, a friend asked me how I overcome feelings of burnout or fatigue. In response I told him, “If you’re feeling fatigued, you aren’t creating anything new. But as soon as you begin creating something new, you instantly feel energized with new life.”

“That’s pure gold,” he exclaimed. “I am writing that one down.”

“Maybe I will cover that in my next seminar,” I quipped. “Come to think of it, I am contemplating the idea of having a belated birthday bash seminar later this year.”

As soon as I got the idea of holding another seminar, guess what happened? New life flowed into my veins.

What a novel idea.

Another potential lifetime inside of this one.

You only live once?

No way. At least not in this lifetime.

Matt Furey

How to Whoop an 11,000-Pound Elephant

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Over the past few days I have talked with several people who are frustrated because they haven’t been taking action to accomplish what they’ve set out to do.

It’s a common predicament that many people find themselves in, especially after crafting a list of big goals that initially “got them excited.”

I refer to this as the “Going to Bed Excited and Waking Up Anxious” realm of reality.

Feelings of overwhelm quickly set in when you cannot get your butt off the coach to do what you supposedly claimed you wanted to do.

Why does this happen to so many well-intentioned people?

The reason is simple: You’ve bought into the wrongness of Thinking Big when you really ought to be focused on the “small stuff.”

As a writer, if I have a big project to tackle, I cannot get myself going if I think too much about the enormity of the task. This causes the Resistance Reflex to manifest. But if I think only about warming up my index finger with a few strokes of my pen (or on a keyboard), I forget about myself and my feelings, and I get on with the simplest of tasks.

There is usually zero resistance to simple tasks and small goals. The key is finding out how you can woo the elephant into submission.

Picture an 11,000 pound elephant. Even if you’re a leviathan, you’ll probably have trouble tackling it. The elephant can fling you away with a light movement of its trunk. It can also latch onto you and remove your limbs, or stomp you into the ground. And yes, this does happen on occasion.

But if you are wise, you figure out how to coax the elephant and remain out of harms way.

Imagine that your big goal is an elephant. In order to subdue it you must figure out and utilize the simplest approach; an approach wherein you do not spook or startle the elephant, because if you do it will resist and retaliate.

This resistance is what happens when people set big goals before their subconscious mind is ready for them. You can attempt to overpower your subconscious with positive thinking, but this is unlikely to work as you’re dealing with an 11,000-pound animal.

So you chunk that elephant into much smaller goals to make it ridiculously easy for you to take your first step. Once you’ve taken your first step, the next ones come easier.

When you focus on getting started, you begin to realize the value of the saying, “Beginning is half-done.”

Consider this: When you take your first step, even if you have a long road ahead of you, you’re half-done.

Why? Because beginning is the hardest part. Beginning is when you show that you’ve reduced and overcome the resistance, which is far greater before you begin than it is in the middle.

Once you’re in the middle, chances are that you’re no longer concerned with how long it will take or how hard it is. You’re so busy doing that you’re no longer thinking.

Last night I spoke with a man who is flustered, who cannot get himself going. After he answered a few easy questions, he realized that all his goals are too big and too far off I explained to him that he doesn’t need to drop his big goals, but he could benefit from having some bite-sized goals that do not activate resistance.

I told him:

“When you focus on goals for today,
you move resistance out of the way.”

Then I added one of my all-time favorite Fureyisms:

“When you think too big, you stumble on every twig.
When you think small, you realize you can have it all.”

The man exhaled. It was an exhale of relief.

Now he’s taking action and gaining traction.

He’s going to conquer that elephant by focusing on its tail instead of its trunk.

Here endeth the lesson.

Matt Furey

By the way, you can remove your resistance to success by utilizing the techniques in Zero Resistance Living, available at psycho-cybernetics.com

What’s Up With “Massive Action”

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Ever think there’s something missing in the way people are taught to set goals?

In most cases, you’re taught to think big, set goals that scare you, get out of your comfort zone, take massive action, change all your limiting beliefs and eliminate your negative self-talk. 

Meanwhile, a much easier and far less time consuming approach is possible for you. 

Consider the Principle of Momentum. 

When you have momentum flowing for you, you’re almost impossible to stop.

It begins with something as simple as a positive daily habit that you stick with. Next thing you realize is that this positive habit is bearing fruit. It’s working wonders in your life that you might not have imagined when you began. 

You established momentum when you took your first step forward, which made it easier to take the next step, and the next and the next. 

When you’re not doing anything on a daily basis to achieve a goal, you have no momentum… no energy. When you’re creating a positive result every day, it’s hard to stop yourself. 

So the principle of Momentum is activated with small steps, with daily habits and daily goals. It is NOT activated by the idea of ‘massive action,’ as there is no such thing in the universe. You only get to take one step a time. You only get one breath at a time. You can desire more steps and more breaths at the same time, but sorry, that’s not how nature works.

Here what does work: If you nail at least one goal per day, after a month, you’ve “met” 30 goals and your confidence grows. After a year, you have 365 successes you can bank on. And now you can easily tackle bigger goals because you have Momentum on your side. 

Meanwhile, so many of those with the big goals (not daily) feel as though they aren’t any closer than when they started.  In short, they have no momentum.

As I frequently say, “Start small and you can have it all. Start too big and you’ll stumble on every twig.”

Here endeth the lesson.

Matt Furey

Take a Rest Several Times a Day

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“It is my belief that each personality does already have a quiet center within, which is never disturbed, and is unmoved, like the mathematical point in the very center of a wheel or axle that remains stationary. What we need to do is to find this quiet center within us and retreat to it periodically for rest, recuperation, and renewed vigor.”

Maxwell Maltz, M.D. – Psycho-Cybernetics: Updated and Expanded 

In Asian martial arts, this center within that Dr. Maltz referred to is called the dan tian or “sea of energy.” 

In fact, there are three of these centers. The first center is located behind the navel. The second is in the center of the chest and the third is in the center of your brain.

When you put your focus and concentration on the navel or heart center, you begin to feel calmer and more peaceful, almost immediately, especially when you are paying attention to your breathing.  

Each day, between activities, you can clear the cobwebs from your thinking, or refresh your energy by focusing on your retreat center.

Once you feel centered, you clear the screen of your mind. By doing this you eliminate any residue from a previous activity that you don’t want spilling into or interfering with the next one. 

More on this later…

Matt Furey

Taming the Dog Inside Your Mind

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“When the phone rings, I ignore it. I conditioned my mind a long time ago to realize that I don’t have to react to the phone.”
– el Furecat

All of us have Pavlovian responses inside our minds. It could be a knock on the door, the phone ringing, a text message coming in or the notification of a new post on social media.

Boom. We feel we must immediately respond. 

The truth is that we have been conditioned to believe that we must respond to every ding we hear. In many ways, we’re no different than the dog in Pavlov’s experiments.

Pavlov rung the bell to let the dog know that food was being served. After doing this a few times, the dog began to salivate as soon as it heard the bell.

But there’s more to the story…

Because even when Pavlov rang the bell and food was not given, the dog still salivated. The dog expected food every time the bell rang, and its nervous system reacted the same way every time.

The dog never caught on.

Human beings respond to all sorts of bells in their environment in much the same way. We see or hear something and we react in a predictable manner. And this continues  for our entire lives… unless we take the time to make our minds quiet and change our conditioned response to something better.

I have two dogs. And they bark every time anyone comes near our house. It doesn’t matter who it is, they respond by barking. 

For quite some time, when I was reading, I used to respond to the dogs barking by closing the book, getting out of my chair and going to the door as I told the dogs to be quiet. 

I responded in a Pavlovian way to the dogs. I didn’t salivate, but I did react in a similar way to their barking.

One day I decided to change my response to the dogs. I entered the quiet room of my mind and imagined the dogs barking. As I heard them sounding off, I introduced a new mental picture of what I would do in the future. 

Instead of getting up and going to the door, I would remain calm and continue reading. And I wouldn’t say a word to the dogs. 

To my delight, the next time the dogs went nuts, I was unaffected. I continued reading. Quietly. 

All I did was change the mental imagery playing inside my head, and my response completely changed.

This situation gave me deep insight into the meaning of the phrase, “Act without doing.”

It doesn’t mean that you don’t do anything. Instead, you picture yourself doing something different, in advance of the bell being rung.

And when the bell rings (or the dogs bark), you end up doing what you pictured.

Instead of “obeying” the conditioned response inside your mind, you act in accord with the new image you are installing in your mind.

It’s easy to do, if you’re willing to stop trying. 

Picture what you want to be doing, and be amazed when you automatically begin doing it, without effort.

Let the dogs bark. Let the phone ring.

Here endeth the lesson.

Matt Furey

How to Build a Quiet Room Inside Your Mind

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“Each person needs a quiet room inside his own mind-a quiet center within him, like the deep of the ocean that is never disturbed, no matter how rough the waves may become on the surface.”

“This quiet room within, which is built in imagination, works as a mental and emotional decompression chamber. It depressurizes you from tensions, worry, pressures, stresses, and strains, refreshes you, and enables you to return to your workday world better prepared to cope with it.”

– Maxwell Maltz, M.D. – Psycho-Cybernetics, Updated and Expanded

The emotional decompression chamber mentioned above is something that every human being has within, yet few take the time to use it. We spend an inordinate amount of time pondering the issues of the day, and almost no time on retreat to the quiet center within. 

Take an emotional vacation each and every day. Turn off the tee-vee, the radio and all your devices. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Begin to let the steam out. 

Build a room in your mind where nothing can get to you, where nothing can disturb you.

Relax, unwind your mind, recharge and renew.

When you go on a daily retreat to this quiet place within your mind, you will realize that your life begins to blossom and bear fruit in ways unforeseen to you before.

See it. Feel it. Be it.

Matt Furey

Positive Change Happens After Doing This

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“A human being all acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment. This is a basic and fundamental law of mind. It is the way we are built.”
– Maxwell Maltz, M.D. – Psycho-Cybernetics, Updated and Expanded – page 36

In the above passage, you can see that I underlined and emphasized the word “imagines.”

I have done so because so many self-development coaches automatically associate the word “imagines” with the word “believes.”

Can you imagine something and bring it about without believing it in a deep and significant way?

Yes, you can.

This is what we refer to as “testing” something to see what happens. You’re not really sure as to whether something will make a difference or not, so you give it a whirl and take note of your results.

Here’s a simple example:

One evening, not so long ago, I was observing a baseball player who wanted to throw the ball 90 miles per hour. He was stuck and struggling, maxing out around 87. The coach who was working with him kept giving him mechanical fixes, none of which added an iota of extra velocity.

After several minutes I asked the coach if I could make a suggestion. He agreed. I pulled the athlete to the side and gave him a different mental picture, one of him effortlessly throwing the ball. It was an exaggerated, hyperbolic and nonsensical mental picture, one that could NOT be turned into reality, one that the athlete could NOT possibly believe was true. I made no comment to this athlete whatsoever about his existing beliefs, or what I thought they should be.

On the next pitch the athlete threw the ball 89 miles per hour. This got him excited. He grabbed another ball and hit 89.9. And on his next throw, using the ridiculous mental imagery I gave him, he topped 90 miles per hour for the first time in his life.

When the radar gun showed 90, he looked at me and exclaimed, “Oh my, God. I can’t believe it. This is incredible. What you teach really works.”

“You didn’t need to believe it,” I replied. “All you needed to do was imagine it – and then it happened. Remember this as it applies in every area of your life, not just baseball.”

I realize the above flies in the face of those who think you need to change your limiting beliefs before any change takes place in your life.

I have not found that to be true.

On the other hand, I have found that once a person begins to change his or her limiting mental pictures into positive, broad and expansive images, a whole lot of positive change is forthcoming… and oftentimes, at a speed that defies logic.

Here endeth the lesson.

Matt Furey

The Best Way to Focus

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“Picture yourself vividly as defeated and that alone will make victory impossible. Picture yourself vividly as winning and that alone with contribute immeasurably to success. Great living starts with a picture, held in your imagination, of what you would like to do or be.” – Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick

It is not positive words or phrases that turn your life around. Rather, it is the mental pictures we form when we see, hear, recite or write positive words or phrases.

If you are trying to think positive with your words, and you’re not feeling a shift in how you feel (and you’re not getting positive results), then chances are beyond excellent that you are unconsciously and unintentionally picturing the opposite.

If you are feeling down, take note of what you are picturing that causes this feeling. You will discover it is NOT the words that do you in; it IS the images that ride along with the words.

When you change your negative mental pictures to ones that are positive, your emotional state will completely shift.. automatically, and almost regardless of the words you are using.

If you have a positive mental picture – you can express yourself with negative self-talk and it will be virtually irrelevant.

If you say, “I am going to flunk this exam,” but you are picturing yourself getting an A, the negative words are cancelled by the imagery.

If a boxer says, “I am going to win,” but he is picturing himself losing, he will probably lose.

This doesn’t mean you should pay zero attention to your words. It does mean that you will be better off when you are paying 99.9999 percent attention to your mental pictures.

Here endeth the lesson.

Matt Furey

What are Your Goals?

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“The goals that our own Creative Mechanism seeks to achieve are mental images, or mental pictures, which we create by the use of imagination.”

Maxwell Maltz, M.D. – Psycho-Cybernetics, Updated and Expanded

So there you have it, my friend.  

The goals that you achieve are not mere words or affirmations written on a sheet of paper.

The words you write (or speak), when turned into mental images or pictures, contain enormous power. These mental images generate positive feelings, and as a result, lead you toward what you want to accomplish. 

If you’re rewriting or reciting affirmations to no avail, turn your words into images and observe the difference it makes. 

A word without a mental image of what it represents is nothing but a collection of letters.

A word with an image attached to it is a catalyst that moves you closer to the target you want to reach.

Matt Furey
Psycho-Cybernetics.com

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Hello and welcome to Psycho-Cybernetics.com - the official site for the original (and expanded) teachings of Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of the 35 million copy best-seller, Psycho-Cybernetics. I’m Matt Furey, author of the best-selling Nightingale-Conant audio book, Maxwell Maltz’ Theatre of the Mind.

When you subscribe to our Psycho-Cybernetics emails, I will immediately send you an email containing a FREE PDF ($100 value) of my Theatre of the Mind Masters Newsletter called Defeating the Failure Mechanism, which also features a Dr. Maltz piece, When Positive Thinking Doesn't Work. This highly regarded newsletter will show you how to apply the suggestions contained within it into your own life… and make changes for the BETTER!

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Matt Furey
President, Psycho-Cybernetics Foundation

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