Success with Self-Improvement

The most important investment you can make is an investment in yourself...an investment which will empower you to be the person you would like to be; a person who can attain all your goals and desires; a person who is more relaxed, healthy, loving, confident, positive, successful, motivated, stable, attractive, creative, athletic, retentive, decisive, assertive, dynamic, organised, disciplined, efficient, influential and much more...it is only a question of the choices you make which truly creates the difference in your Quality of Life.

Much of the success and popular acceptance of the nutritional and exercise aspects of the self-help movement is due to our acceptance that by changing old habits, new behaviours would result and a healthier life could be achieved. And so, finding methods for changing behaviour has become the foundation stone for self-management.

A tremendous outpouring of positive thinking methods has erupted into the marketplace and is being met with enormous public acceptance. Among the more notable and recognisable figures to offer a success formula was Norman Vincent Peale, in his landmark book, The Power of Positive Thinking. Countless others continue to follow, all offering, in some form or fashion, a method or formula which, when implemented, will yield the results for which we are looking. Today, instructions or how to materials suggesting ways to make more money, be a better manager, lose weight, set goals or just generally be more successful and live a happier life have come to represent a $100 million industry. Unquestionably, tremendous personal and social benefits are arising out of this new consciousness and the message is clearly, “if you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel, get down there and light the jolly thing yourself”.

However, if there is a fly to be found in this ointment of self-help it is the realisation that, unfortunately, many methods have been unsuccessful in creating lasting changes and few people are actually successful at achieving goals. Although the allure of a successful life and a habit-free existence are promised, and we are given specific instructions and attractive ways to go about achieving this, the methods work for a time and then for one reason or another the light goes out and we revert to our old behaviour. Even the most promising methods found in the blockbuster best-sellers, work for a while and then, somehow we lose our focus and also lose their importance in our lives. Exciting ideas, great breakthroughs and inspirations, which at first seem like all we ever wanted, become once read or half read books sitting on a shelf.

If lasting benefits have been elusive one would have to question why we would collectively pour over $100 million annually into these deficient methods. Obviously, there is a tremendous need, which we share, to solve our problems in the easiest and most pain free manner possible. “If one method has not worked perhaps an alternative method would”, seems to be our psychology, and so the question then becomes, “what if some of the methods have not delivered the desired result?"

The answer is to be found in the method and in the individual. Something is missing from both.

Analysis of what has worked, and what has not, reveals three missing ingredients from almost all self-help methods.

PERMANENCE -- The solutions are temporary. Without constant attention, even the most exciting success breakthroughs wind up as only good ideas. Few, if any, offer built-in ways to keep them working.

KNOWLEDGE -- The second missing ingredient from most self-help methods is a knowledge of the physiological process of our brain. Without an understanding of the actual process by which our brain accepts information, and in turn, responds, directs and controls our behaviour, it would be difficult to create any self-help plan which works and keeps working indefinitely.

APPROACH -- In our approach to establishing a new behaviour, the third and also the most critical ingredient is a new frame of reference containing a new word-for-word set of directions for the control centre of our brain.

Our five senses recognise millions of bits of information every second, far more than our conscious awareness can register, but just because we cannot consciously register all this information does not mean it is gone forever; our subconscious awareness accepts the information instead, and stores it away in our data file, our library of values, memories, expectations, beliefs, skills, habits and patterns of behaviour. It is from this data file that our values, opinions, skills and personality and emotions are formed. And so the present us is the result of all the ideas, inputs and influences which we have stored since our conception.

Unfortunately, not all of the information we store is in our best interest. We have all been exposed to negative influences during our lifetime; in fact, researchers estimate that, as children, we receive twenty negative instructions for each positive, reassuring statement. Our subconscious is imbedded with self limiting information and it is the sum of all these influences and experiences, whether good or otherwise, which add up to what we are and how we see, think and feel about ourselves.

Negative conditioning, and positive conditioning, will stay with us for life, until we do something about it. When we lack the confidence to attempt to accomplish a worthwhile goal we now know that our frame of reference, our data file, contains information damaging to our self-confidence, self-esteem and self-worth. This information could also rob us of the creativity, imagination and even the vitality required to tackle projects which another would find easy to accomplish. The negative conditioning needs to be replaced with positive, helpful information which agrees with our conscious choice.

We live in a world of Quantum change and these changes require us, moment by moment, to use our most powerful assets, thought and choice. With the focus on learning and responsibility for self-management, a good tool-kit of realistic life skills is a wise investment. Subliminal learning has a role to play; it is a tool, a very valuable tool. The more diverse our capabilities the better prepared we will be, to move quickly and surely, as old opportunities fade and new ones arise.