In Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz, he writes about how he started his career as a plastic surgeon and he noticed a very interesting thing that would go on. He noticed that, for some, a change in their appearance led to a new lease on life just as one might expect but, in others, there was no change at all, in fact these cases often couldn’t see any change in the area that was operated on.

This led Dr. Maltz to the postulate that there was an ‘interior’ self image and if a person’s  interior self image gave them the idea that they had an unattractive, too large nose then nothing could be done that would help them in the way of surgery.

He eventually came to the conclusion that self image becomes a ‘golden key,’ because;

“1. All your actions, feelings, behavior-even your abilities-are always consistent with this self inage.

2. The self image can be changed.”

Perhaps the first step in changing a self image is taking honest stock in just what that self image looks like. If you are often stopped from doing something by the belief that you just don’t have the ability or just aren’t good enough, you need to change your self image. A first step in this direction would be to change your ’self talk,’ all those things that you say to yourself which are mostly things others have said about you in your past.

How forgiving of yourself are you, when you percieve that you have made a mistake? Do you beat yourself up over it and call yourself abusive names? How often do you compliment yourself on a job well done and what are your thoughts before you set to a task? Do you encourage yourself and say you can do it, or do you tear yourself down before you even start and say you’ll probably mess it up?

Change the way you think, about yourself and change your results.