Maximum Achievement

by Brian Tracy

  Rule number two is that you can never expect anyone else to like or love you more than you like, love or respect yourself.

  Your own level of self-liking and self-acceptance is the control valve on the quality of your human relationships. It is the problem or the solution in every human situation. Everything you do to build and reinforce your own self-esteem increases the amount of satisfaction and happiness you enjoy with the other people in your life.

  If your self-concept is the master program of your subconscious computer, where does it come from? How is it formed? What is it composed of? And most important, how can you reprogram it to improve yourself and increase your effectiveness in everything you do?

  SELF-CONCEPT FORMATION

  You were not born with a self-concept. Everything that you know and believe about yourself today, you have learned as the result of what has happened to you since you were an infant. Each child comes into the world as pure potential, with a particular temperament and certain inborn attributes but with no self-concept at all. Every attitude, behavior, value, opinion, belief and fear you have today has been learned. Therefore, if there are elements of your self-concept that do not serve your purposes, you can unlearn them.

  For example, I read recently about a thirty-two-year-old woman who was involved in an automobile accident. As a result of hitting her head, she experienced total amnesia. At the time of the accident, she was married, with two children, eight and ten years old. She was extremely shy, she had a stutter and she was very nervous around other people. She had a poor self-concept and a low level of self-esteem. To compound this problem, she did not work and she had a limited social circle.

  Because of her total amnesia, when she woke up in the hospital she did not remember a single thing about her past life. She did not remember her parents, and she did not remember her husband and her children. Her mind was a complete blank.

  This was so unusual that various specialists, neurosurgeons and psychologists were brought in to talk to her and to examine her.

  She was such a special case that she became very well known. When she recovered physically, she was interviewed on radio and television. She began studying her condition, and eventually she wrote articles and a book describing her experience.

  She began traveling and giving lectures to medical and professional groups. Ultimately she became a recognized authority on amnesia.

  With no memory of her previous experiences, her childhood and her upbringing, and as a result of being the center of attention and being treated as though she were a very important person, she developed a totally new personality. She became positive, selfconfident and outgoing. She became gregarious and extremely friendly, and she developed an excellent sense of humor. She became popular and met and moved in an entirely new social circle. In effect, she developed a brand-new self-concept that was completely consistent with high performance, happiness and life satisfaction. She substituted one mental program for another. And you can do the same thing.

  Once you understand how your self-concept was formed, you will be able to bring about changes that make you into the kind of person you admire and want to be like. You will learn how to become the kind of person who can accomplish the goals and dreams that are most important to you.

  Children come into the world with no self-concept. Children learn who they are, and how important and valuable they are (or aren’t) by the way they are treated from infancy onward. Infants have a tremendous need for love and touching. The love in their environment is like their emotional oxygen. You cannot give children too much love and affection in their formative years. Children need love like roses need rain, almost as much as they need food and drink and shelter for healthy growth.

  The foundation of personality is laid down in the first three to five years of life. The healthiness of the adult will be largely determined by the quality and quantity of unbroken love and affection that the child receives from parents and others during this time.

  A child who is raised with an abundance of love, affection and encouragement will tend to develop a positive and stable personality early in life. A child who is raised with criticism and punishment will tend to grow up fearful, suspicious, and distrustful, with the potential for a variety of personality problems that manifest themselves later in life. Adults with low self-esteem and negative mental attitudes were invariably children who were deprived of the love and security they needed during their formative years.

  THE QUALITIES OF CHILDREN

  Children are born with two remarkable qualities. The first is that they are born largely unafraid. They come into the world with only two physical fears, the fear of loud noises and the fear of falling. All other fears have to be taught to the child through repetition and reinforcement while the child is growing up.

  Anyone who has ever tried to raise a small child to the age of five or six knows that they are not afraid of anything. They will climb up on ladders, run out into traffic, grab sharp instruments, and generally do things that appear suicidal to an adult. They have no fears at all until those fears are instilled in them by their parents and others.

  The second remarkable quality of children is that they are completely uninhibited. They laugh, they cry, they wet their pants. They say and do exactly what they feel like with no concern whatever for the opinions of others. They are completely spontaneous and express themselves easily and naturally with no inhibitions at all. Have you ever seen a self-conscious baby?

  Wonderfully enough, this is your natural state, the way you come into the world, unafraid and uninhibited, completely fearless and able to express yourself freely and easily in all situations. You know this is true because, years later, whenever you are in a safe situation, with people you trust, you often revert to this natural state of fearlessness and spontaneity. You feel relaxed and comfortable, completely free to let your hair down and be yourself. These are some of the best moments of your life, your peak experiences, when you are truly happy. And they are your normal, natural condition.

  HOW CHILDREN LEARN

  Children learn in two primary ways. First, they learn by imitation of one or both parents. Many of your adult habit patterns, including your values, your attitudes, your beliefs and your behaviors, were formed by watching and by listening to your parents when you were growing up. The sayings “Like father, like son” or “Like mother, like daughter” are certainly true. Often the child will identify strongly with one parent and will be more influenced by that parent than by the other.

  The second way children learn is by moving away from discomfort toward comfort, or away from pain toward pleasure. Sigmund Freud called this the “pleasure principle.” His conclusion, and that of most psychologists, is that this striving toward pleasure or happiness is the basic motivation for all human behavior. The child’s development, from toilet training to eating habits, to every aspect of his or her socialization, is shaped by this continual drive or motivation toward comfort or personal pleasure, toward what feels good and away from what feels bad.

  Of all the discomforts that a child can suffer, the withdrawal of the love and approval of the parent is the most traumatic and frightening. Children have an intense need for emotional security, for their parents’ love, support and protection. When the parent withdraws his or her love in an attempt to discipline, control or punish the child, the child becomes extremely uncomfortable and insecure. The child becomes afraid.

  The perception of the child is everything. It is not what the parents meant or intended that counts, it is what the child perceives that affects the child’s feelings and actions. When the child perceives that love has been withdrawn, the child immediately changes his or her behavior in an attempt to win back the parent’s love and approval. The child feels like a drowning person reaching for a life preserver.

  Without a continuous and unbroken flow of unconditional love, the child’s security is threatened. Frustrated, the child loses his or her fearlessness and spontaneity.

  Mo
st personality problems in life are the result of “love withheld.” Probably much of what we do in life, from childhood onward, is done either to get love or to compensate for the lack of love. Most of our unhappy memories of childhood are associated with a perceived lack of love. Most of our problems in adult relationships are rooted in these earlier experiences of love deprivation.

  At an early age, as a result of mistakes parents make in raising their children, especially when they use destructive criticism and physical punishment, the child begins to lose his or her natural fearlessness and spontaneity. He or she begins to develop negative habit patterns, negative ways of reacting to life. All habits, positive or negative, are conditioned responses to stimuli. They are learned as the result of repetition, over and over, until they are firmly ingrained in the subconscious mind. Then they function automatically, whenever they’re triggered by some stimulus.

  Negative habits become customary behavior, parts of our self-concept. They become our comfort zones. Once they are programmed in and become part of our psychological makeup, we only feel comfortable when we’re behaving or reacting in a particular negative way. We become fear-driven rather than desire-driven.

  THE SABOTEUR OF SUCCESS

  Destructive criticism is one of the most harmful of all human behavior. It lowers self-esteem, creates poor self-image, and undermines the individual’s performance in everything he or she attempts. Destructive criticism shakes the individual’s self-confidence so that he or she feels inferior, tenses up and makes mistakes whenever he or she attempts anything for which he or she has been criticized in the past. The individual may give up trying at all and simply avoid the area of endeavor altogether.

  The average parent criticizes his or her children as many as eight times for every time he or she praises them. Parents criticize their children unthinkingly in an attempt to get them to improve their behavior. But exactly the opposite occurs. Because destructive criticism undermines the child’s self-esteem and weakens his or her self-concept, effectiveness decreases rather than increases. The child’s performance gets worse, not better.

  Destructive criticism makes the individual feel incompetent and inadequate. He or she feels angry and defensive and wants to strike back or escape. Performance nosedives. All sorts of negative consequences occur. Especially, the relationship between the parent and child deteriorates.

  Children who are criticized for their schoolwork soon develop a negative association between schoolwork and how they feel about themselves. They begin to hate it and avoid it whenever possible. They see schoolwork as a source of pain and frustration. And because of the Laws of Attraction and Correspondence, they begin to associate with other children with the same attitudes.

  Often people make the mistake of thinking they are giving “constructive criticism” when they are really just tearing the other person down—and calling it “constructive” to rationalize their behavior. True constructive criticism leaves the person feeling better and more capable of doing a better job in the future. If criticism doesn’t improve performance, by increasing the individual’s feelings of self-esteem and self-efficacy, then it has merely been a destructive act of self-expression carried out against someone who is not in a position to resist.

  Destructive criticism lies at the root of many personality problems and of much hostility between individuals. It leaves a trail of broken spirits, demoralization, anger, resentment, self-doubt and a host of negative emotions.

  When children are criticized at an early age, they soon learn to criticize themselves. They run themselves down, sell themselves short and interpret their experiences in a negative way. They continually feel, “I’m not good enough,” no matter how hard they work or how well they do.

  The whole purpose of criticism, if you must give it, is “performance improvement.” It is to help the other person to be better as a result. Constructive criticism is not done for revenge. It is not a vehicle to express your displeasure or anger. Its purpose is to help, not hurt, or you should refrain from using it at all.

  Here are seven steps you can follow to ensure that what you are giving is “constructive feedback” rather than destructive criticism.

  First, protect the individual’s self-esteem at all costs. Treat it like a balloon, with your words as potential needles. Be gentle. With my children, I always begin the process of correction with the words “I love you very much,” and then I go on to give them the feedback and guidance they require to be better.

  Second, focus on the future, not the past. Don’t cry over spilled milk. Talk about “What do we do from here?” Use words like “Next time, why don’t you . . .”

  Third, focus on the behavior or the performance, not the person. Replace the word “you” with a description of the problem.

  Instead of saying, “You are not selling enough,” instead say, “Your sales figures are below what we expect. What can we do to get them up?”

  Fourth, use “I” messages to retain ownership of your feelings. Instead of saying, “You make me very angry,” instead say, “I feel very angry when you do that,” or, “I am not happy about this situation and I would like to discuss how we could change it.”

  Fifth, get clear agreement on what is to change, and when, and by how much. Be specific as well as future-oriented and solution-oriented. Say things like, “In the future, it’s important that you keep accurate notes and double check before you make shipments final.”

  Sixth, offer to help. Ask, “What can I do to help you in this situation?” Be prepared to show the person what to do and how to do it. As a parent, or if you are in a position of authority, one of your key jobs is to be a teacher. You can’t expect another to do something different without instructing that person how it is to be done.

  Seventh, assume that the other person wants to do a good job and that, if he or she has done a poor job or made a mistake, it was not deliberate. The problem is limited skill, incomplete information or a misunderstanding of some kind.

  Be calm, patient, supportive, sensitive, clear and constructive rather than angry or destructive. Build the person up rather than tearing him or her down. There’s probably no faster way for you to build self-esteem and self-efficacy in others than by immediately ceasing all destructive criticism. You will notice the difference at once in all your relationships.

  NEGATIVE HABIT PATTERNS

  There are two major negative habit patterns that we all learn in childhood. There are those that push you forward and those that hold you back. They affect everything you think, feel and do. They control and determine your destiny in life, and you are only vaguely aware of them. They are called the inhibitive and the compulsive. Understanding their impact in your life and learning how to counteract their influence on your behavior is absolutely indispensable to your achieving the kind of success and happiness that is possible for you.

  The inhibitive negative habit pattern is learned when the child is told over and over again, “Don’t! Get away from that! Stop that! Don’t touch! Watch out!” The child’s natural impulse is to touch, taste, smell, feel and explore every part of his or her world. When the parents react to the child’s exploratory behavior by shouting, by becoming upset, by spanking the child or with some other form of disapproval, the child is not old enough to understand what is going on. Instead, the child internalizes the message that “every time I try something new or different, Mommy or Daddy gets mad at me and stops loving me. It must be because I’m too small, I’m incompetent, I’m incapable, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

  This feeling that “I can’t” soon crystallizes into the “fear of failure.” And the fear of failure is the greatest single obstacle to success in adult life. The fear of failure wells up inside you whenever you think of taking any kind of risk, or doing anything new or different involving any risk of loss of time, money or emotion.

  In my own case, because I had done poorly in school, I feared that I wasn’t smart enough to do much better than I was doing. When
I saw other people around me wheeling and dealing and taking risks and getting into and out of jobs and business deals, I just looked away. I assumed they had attributes of intelligence and daring that I lacked.

  When I was a child, because I had been brought up to fear whippings from my father, I was afraid of bullies on the playground. When I got into selling, I was afraid of cold calls. When I got into management, I was afraid of asserting myself. When I made a little money, I was afraid of investing, and when I had the chance, I was afraid of starting my own business, for fear I would fail and lose my investment.

  My parents had been fearful and they brought me up fearful. They did a good job. It was only later when I learned that my fears were all in my mind, that there was nothing to be afraid of, that my real life began.

  You experience all negative habit patterns in your body. When you are in the grip of a negative habit pattern, you feel and react exactly as if you were in danger of physical harm. And the place you feel the inhibitive negative habit pattern, the fear of failure, is down the front of your body, starting in your solar plexus and spreading from there.

  If, for example, you were afraid of public speaking, and you were told that you were going to be called up in front of a large audience, your first reaction would be a feeling of weakness, of fright in your solar plexus, the emotional center of your body. And the more you thought about the upcoming event, the more the fear would spread. Your heart would start beating faster. You would begin breathing more rapidly and with shallower breaths.

  Your throat might go dry, and you might get a pounding in the front part of your head, similar to a migraine headache. Your bladder might also fill up, and you would have an irresistible urge to run to the bathroom. You would react as if you were about to get a spanking. All these physical manifestations of the inhibitive negative habit pattern are usually programmed into your subconscious mind before you are six years old.