Maximum Achievement

by Brian Tracy

  The longer your anger continues, the more all-consuming it becomes, like a brush fire burning out of control. It can rob you of sleep, of friends and of employment. It can cause you to behave irrationally and to act in ways that make you feel ashamed and embarrassed.

  Does anything good ever come from anger, or any other negative emotion? The answer is a definite no. Negative emotions, rooted in irresponsibility, serve no useful purpose at all. Why, then, do people experience so many negative emotions? Let’s answer that by starting off with the main causes of negative emotions in the first place.

  WHAT CAUSES NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

  There are four main causes of negative emotions. The first cause is justification. Justification occurs when you attempt to justify and explain, to yourself and others, why you should feel this negative emotion, why you are entitled to feel angry or upset for some reason. Justification and self-righteousness feed on each other, and are flip sides of the same reasoning process.

  Whenever you feel badly used for any reason, your first reaction is to flare up in anger. Your second reaction will be to marshal all the reasons anger is a justifiable reaction. You need to be able to say, “I have every right to be angry.” You look for people who will agree with your reasoning and your feelings. You lay out the situation for them in great detail so they will see clearly that you are obviously the wronged party in this situation. In fact, without being able to justify yourself and your anger, you can’t keep your anger going.

  You can begin the process of eliminating negative emotions by simply refusing to justify them. Refuse to allow yourself to create all kinds of reasons you are entitled to feel as bad as you do. Refuse to pass judgment on the other person. You will find that all judging of others eventually leads to some form of condemnation, and the negative emotions of intolerance and anger that go with that condemnation. But when you withhold judgment, which is an act of mental control, it is often sufficient to stop the negative emotion from starting in the first place.

  When someone does or says something that causes you to react, neutralize your tendency to flare up by excusing the other person for some reason. What I say to control my emotions is something like, “God bless him; he’s probably having a bad day.”

  Have you ever been driving along in traffic and been cut off by another driver? Did you notice how you instantly became angry? Even though you had never seen the other driver before, and the other driver has never seen you, you reacted exactly as if that driver had carefully plotted and planned, and then waited to ambush you as you came driving innocently along. But, the instant you stop telling yourself what a terrible driver he or she is and just laugh it off, your anger quickly dissipates and disappears. Refusing to set yourself up as a judge and jury removes the trigger that starts the anger and allows you to calm down and take control of your emotions.

  The second main cause of negative emotions is identification, or taking things personally. You can only become angry about something to the degree to which you can personally identify with it and see it as affecting or harming you in some way.

  The minute you stop taking things personally, you get your emotions back under your own control. The way to do this is to practice detachment, standing back from the situation and forcing yourself to look at it objectively. Be philosophical; try to see it from the other person’s point of view. Your ability to “disidentify” with what has happened gives you greater calmness and clarity and makes you much more effective in dealing with the problem, whatever it is.

  This need for detachment and objectivity in dealing with difficulties is why it is said that “a man who acts as his own lawyer has a fool for a client.” Perhaps the most valuable quality of a senior executive is his or her ability to function well in a crisis. This ability is solely a result of refusing to get caught up in the emotionality of the moment.

  The third major cause of negative emotions is lack of consideration. You become angry when you feel that people are not giving you your just due, that people are not respecting you the way you feel you deserve to be. If someone is rude to you, or slights you, or does not acknowledge you properly in a social situation, your ego becomes involved and you feel hurt, angry and defensive. This is why a wise man once said, “You should not worry so much about what other people think of you, because if you knew how seldom they did, you would probably be insulted.”

  You must starve your negative emotions. You must withdraw the energy from them by refusing to justify them, by refusing to identify with them and by refusing to let the behavior of others toward you get under your skin. But the very fastest way to eliminate negative emotions, virtually in an instant, is to go right to the root of them and cut them off.

  Blaming is the fourth and final cause of negative emotions and it lies at the root of almost all of them. Probably 99 percent of your negative emotions depend for their very existence on your ability to blame someone or something else for something that is making you unhappy. The instant you stop blaming, the instant you refuse to blame anyone or anything else for anything, your negative emotions cease, just as if the power to them was suddenly cut off, just as unplugging the Christmas tree lights causes all the lights to go off at once.

  THE LAW OF SUBSTITUTION REVISITED

  The simple switch you can throw to short-circuit any negative emotion is explained by the Law of Substitution. This law states that the conscious mind can only hold one thought at a time, positive or negative, and you can deliberately choose that thought. You can substitute a positive, constructive thought for a negative, destructive thought, and in so doing, you can push the negative thought out of your mind.

  Whenever you feel negative or angry for any reason, you can immediately cancel the thought that is causing the negative emotion by saying, very firmly, “I am responsible.”

  This is the most powerful of all affirmations for mental control. These words put you back in the emotional driver’s seat. The words “I am responsible!” switch your mind immediately from negative to positive. They enable you to assert complete control over your emotions. They make you feel calm and relaxed, and enable you to see the situation with greater clarity. The words “I am responsible” put you in charge of yourself and enable you to deal with the situation more effectively.

  You can develop no further than you have up to this moment with your negative emotions intact. It is not possible for you to grow and evolve to higher levels of understanding and effectiveness except to the degree to which you free yourself from them. Your negative emotions are like forces of mental gravity that are holding you in your current reality. You must leave them behind.

  MANDATORY, NOT OPTIONAL

  This acceptance of responsibility, and the accompanying elimination of negative emotions, is not optional. It is mandatory. It is central to your health, happiness and personal effectiveness. The development of a positive mental attitude toward yourself and your life, characterized by the elimination of negative emotions, is essential if you want to develop your higher mental powers. Positive, constructive emotions are the foundations of all happiness, achievement and long life.

  To begin the process of clearing your mind, pause for a moment and think over your entire life, past and present. Analyze each memory or situation that makes you feel negative in any way, as if you were holding it up to the light. Then neutralize any negativity associated with it by simply saying, “I am responsible,” over and over.

  The fact is that you are responsible. Whatever your difficulty or problem, you probably got yourself into it. You were free to choose. And you are still free. You probably knew at the time that you should not be doing it, but you went ahead anyway. So you are absolutely, completely, 100 percent responsible for your situation, for the consequences of your decisions.

  Often people ask, “Isn’t accepting responsibility the same as accepting blame?” The answer to that is that responsibility always looks forward, always to the future. Blame always looks backward, to the past, for someone who is
guilty.

  Responsibility says “next time” or “in the future” or “what do I do from here?” Blame always says “he did” or “she did” or “if only.” Responsibility gives you a sense of control, of self-reliance, of pro-activity. Blame makes you feel angry and frustrated and vengeful.

  Someone runs into your car at a stoplight. Legally, you are not at fault. But you are responsible for the way you react to the situation. You are responsible for your conduct and your behavior. You can respond either by becoming angry, upset and emotional, or by being mature, calm and controlled. The choice is yours. And how you feel is determined by how you decide to respond, not by the situation. Responsibility or irresponsibility; the choice is yours. It always has been.

  RELEASE YOUR BRAKES

  Usually when you think about responsibility in these terms, you decide that, from this point forward, you are going to accept complete responsibility for your life. However, almost every person is still carrying around at least one negative experience for which there is no way that he or she is going to accept responsibility. Each person has a favorite negative emotion that he or she is not going to part with by accepting responsibility for his or her emotions, or for what happened.

  You say, “If you only knew what that other person did to me, you could not ask me to accept responsibility.” But here is a key point. The continued existence of even one negative emotion in your conscious or subconscious mind is in itself enough to sabotage all your chances for happiness. A single negative emotion of blame or anger can interfere with your peace of mind indefinitely.

  To illustrate this critical point, imagine that you have just purchased a brand new Mercedes 600 SEL, from the factory, beautifully engineered and mechanically perfect in every detail. There is only one problem with this car. A mistake was made in assembling the braking system and one front wheel brake is locked. The wheel will not turn. Now, let us say that you decide to take your beautifully engineered car for a drive. You get in, you start the engine, you shift it into gear and you step on the gas. If everything in this car is perfect except for that one front wheel brake which is locked on, what would happen when you stepped on the gas?

  The answer is that you would spin around that locked wheel. The car would go around and around. No matter how hard you stepped on the gas or how much you twisted the wheel, you would simply go in a circle.

  Your world is full of people who are just like that new car. You may be one of them. They may be intelligent, good-looking and well-educated, and may seem to have everything going for them, but their lives just seem to go around in circles. Almost invariably this is because they are holding on to at least one key experience from their past for which they are refusing to accept responsibility. They are still blaming someone or something for a hurt they have suffered.

  I have spoken to men and women fifty years old who are still angry and resentful over something that happened to them in childhood. This unresolved bitterness affects their relationships with their spouses, their children, their coworkers and their friends. It manifests itself in psychosomatic illnesses, and in extreme cases, it can even lead to early death.

  The field of psychotherapy is built around helping people to deal with these unresolved feelings of anger, guilt and resentment. The patient is cured when he or she can identify what is holding him or her back, face it honestly and let go of it. You can accomplish very much the same thing by identifying any feelings of negativity you have toward anyone, accepting responsibility for the situation and then letting it go. You will discover that you are cured as soon as you do.

  PASS IT ON

  You become what you teach. Once you have begun accepting responsibility for every part of your life, encourage your friends and associates to do the same thing. When people tell you about their problems and their frustrations, empathize with them and then remind them, “You are responsible.”

  Perhaps one of the kindest things that you can do for a true friend is to put that person back in touch with his or her own good sense by reminding him or her that he or she is responsible. When a person complains, respond by saying, “You are responsible, what are you going to do about it?” Don’t try to give advice. It’s probably not wanted and will be ignored anyway. Just listen. Be sympathetic. Then encourage the person to accept responsibility and get busy doing something about the situation.

  At one time, my wife, Barbara, wanted to be a guidance counselor and eventually a psychologist or psychotherapist. She wanted to help people through their problems. She would practice by spending many hours listening to her friends and counseling them the very best way that she could. She would give them her very best guidance and advice to help them deal with their difficulties.

  Whenever I was involved in one of these “counseling sessions,” especially with her friends and coworkers, I would avoid all the hours of going back and forth dissecting the problem and simply cut to the core of the matter by saying “You are responsible, what are you going to do about it?”

  Barbara felt this was too simplistic. She told me that I was not giving sufficient consideration to the complexities of the various situations these people were facing. She was then astonished to see how many of her friends, after endless counseling sessions, actually went out and got themselves together. They took action shortly after they had been told, in no uncertain terms, that they were responsible, and that it was up to them to do something about their situations.

  Barbara and I now have a standing joke around the house. When Barbara has lunch with a friend who has a problem, or some kind of personal difficulty, I will ask her what she told the person to do. She replies by saying, “I just gave her ‘the advice.’”

  It is much simpler, it works much better, and it is much easier on everyone involved. The advice is, “You are responsible, what are you going to do about it?”

  Become your own psychotherapist by repeating to yourself over and over, “I am responsible, I am responsible, I am responsible.” Then, give “the advice” to others who have problems. Just say, “You are responsible, what are you going to do about it?” Let them get on with the rest of their lives so you can get on with yours.

  ACTION EXERCISE

  Take a pad of paper and draw a line down the center. On the left side, make a list of every person or situation about which you harbor any negative feelings at all. Number each one.

  On the right side of the page, write out a series of sentences that begin with “I am responsible for this because . . .” and complete this sentence. Do this for each item and be as hard on yourself as you possibly can. Be brutally frank and honest. Write out every reason why you might be responsible for what happened. Do the same for every negative situation in your past or present.

  When you have completed this exercise, you will be amazed at how much more positive and in control you feel. You will be free from the mental burdens you’ve been carrying for so long.

  GETTING OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY

  The golden key to inner peace and outer success, especially in your relationships with other people, is contained within yourself and your responses to the world around you. There is a principle that is indispensable for the development of higher consciousness and for the full use of all your mental powers. It will enable you to largely eliminate negative emotions of all kinds and to take full responsibility in everything you do. This principle will liberate you from the burden of countless problems in your past, going back to your earliest childhood. It will develop in you a fine and noble character and make you the kind of person that people want to be around and be like. Thousands of our graduates have reported to us that the practice of this principle has revolutionized their lives, as it will yours. You will learn this principle in this chapter.

  Everything that you are today is a result of your habitual ways of thinking. As the Law of Correspondence states, your outer world is a physical manifestation of your inner world. Everything you see around you—your health, your relationships, your career, your f
amily and your worldly accomplishments—is an expression of the workings of your mind.

  Your behavior, attitudes, values and habits of thought are learned. You did not have them when you came into the world. You have learned them as the result of input and repetition, over many years. And because they have been learned, they can be unlearned. You can unlearn the habits of thought you have acquired that are not consistent with the person you want to be or the goals you want to achieve.

  A feeling of optimism is a prerequisite for success and happiness. Yet most of us are plagued by negative emotions of all kinds, especially anger, fear, doubt, envy, resentment, irritability, impatience, intolerance and jealousy. In spite of our best intentions, these negative emotions tend to arise unexpectedly, often at the worst possible moments, and cause us to act in ways that we later regret.

  Negative emotions are feelings and responses that have been learned like any habits. They can be unlearned as well, if you have the key to the lock that holds them in place. To unlearn them, however, you must understand the psychological factors that create a fertile breeding ground for negative emotions in the first place.

  Fortunately, there is no permanent place for negative emotions in your subconscious mind. If negative emotions could become permanent, there would be no hope for you to improve your temperament or your personality through your own efforts. They are vagabond emotions, which can be chased away with the correct procedure.