Maxwell Maltz Quotes

“A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment.

For imagination sets the goal ‘picture’ which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of ‘will’, as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.”

“A step in the wrong direction is better than staying on the spot all our life. Once you're moving forward you can correct your course as you go. Your automatic guidance system cannot guide you when you're standing still.”

“Adopt the motto 'It doesn't matter who's right, but what's right'.”

“Change your mental imagery, and the feelings will take care of themselves.”

“Conscious effort inhibits and jams the automatic creative mechanism.”

“Do not say to yourself, 'I am going to act this way tomorrow.' Just say to yourself - 'I am going to imagine myself acting this way now - for 30 minutes - today.'”

“Do not tolerate for a minute the idea that you are prohibited from any achievement by the absence of in-born talent or ability.

This is a lie of the grandest order, an excuse of the saddest kind.”

“Dr. Norton L. Williams, a psychiatrist, addressing a medical convention, said that modern man’s anxiety and insecurity stemmed from a lack of self-realization.

And that inner security can only be found 'in finding in oneself an individuality, uniqueness, and distinctiveness that is akin to the idea of being created in the image of God'.

He also said that self-realization is gained by 'a simple belief in one’s own uniqueness as a human being, a sense of deep and wide awareness of all people and all things, and a feeling of constructive influencing of others through one’s own personality'.”

“Functionally, a man is somewhat like a bicycle. A bicycle maintains its poise and equilibrium only so long as it is going forward towards something.

You have a good bicycle. Your trouble is you are trying to maintain your balance sitting still, with no place to go. It’s no wonder you feel shaky.”

“Get yourself a goal worth working for.”

“Happiness is a mental habit, a mental attitude, and if it is not learned and practiced in the present it is never experienced. It cannot be made contingent upon solving some external problem.

When one problem is solved, another appears to take its place. Life is a series of problems. If you are to be happy at all, you must be happy – period! Not happy 'because of'.”

“He must have a burning desire to solve the problem. But after he has defined the problem sees in his imagination the desired end result secured all the information and facts that he can then additional struggling fretting and worrying over it does not help but seems to hinder the solution.”

“I am a firm believer in 'negative thinking' when used correctly. We need to be aware of negatives so that we can steer clear of them.

A golfer needs to know where the bunkers and sand traps are – but he doesn't think continuously about the bunker – where he doesn't want to go. His mind glances at the bunker, but he dwells upon the green.”

“I have found that one of the commonest causes of unhappiness among my patients is that they are attempting to live their lives on the deferred payment plan. They do not live, or enjoy life now, but wait for some future event or occurrence.

They will be happy when they get married, when they get a better job, when they get the house paid for, when they get the children through college, when they have completed some task or won some victory. Invariably, they are disappointed.”

“If you can remember, worry, or tie your shoe, you can succeed with Psycho-Cybernetics!”

“If you intend to insist on justice in order to live a successful and happy life, you will not do so in this lifetime, on this planet.”

“If you wait until circumstances justify your thinking pleasant thoughts, you are likely to wait forever.”

“It is common knowledge among psychologists that most of us underrate ourselves, short-change ourselves, sell ourselves short. Actually, there is no such thing as a superiority complex. People who seem to have one are actually suffering from feelings of inferiority; their superior self is a fiction, a coverup, to hide from themselves and others their deep-down feelings of inferiority and insecurity.”

“It is no exaggeration to say that every human being is hypnotized to some extent either by ideas he has uncritically accepted from others or ideas he has repeated to himself or convinced himself are true.

These negative ideas have exactly the same effect upon our behavior as the negative ideas implanted into the mind of a hypnotized subject by a professional hypnotist.”

“Our errors, mistakes, failures, and sometimes even our humiliations, were necessary steps in the learning process. However, they were meant to be means to an end – and not an end in themselves. When they have served their purpose, they should be forgotten.

If we consciously dwell on the error, or consciously feel guilty about the error and keep berating ourselves because of it, then – unwittingly – the error or failure itself becomes the 'goal' that is consciously held in imagination and memory.”

“Our present state of self-confidence and poise is the result of what we have experienced rather than what we have learned intellectually.”

“Our self-image and our habits tend to go together. Change one and you will automatically change the other.”

“Remember that both behavior and feeling spring from belief. To root out the belief that is responsible for your feeling and behavior — ask yourself, 'Why?'

Is there some task that you would like to do, some channel in which you would like to express yourself, but you hang back feeling that 'I can’t'? Ask yourself, 'Why?'. 'Why do I believe that I can’t?'

Then ask yourself, 'Is this belief based on an actual fact or on an assumption – or a false conclusion?'

Then ask yourself the questions:
1. Is there any rational reason for such a belief?
2. Could it be that I am mistaken in this belief?
3. Would I come to the same conclusion about some other person in a similar situation?
4. Why should I continue to act and feel as if this were true if there is no good reason to believe it?”

“See yourself reacting to threats, not by running away or evading them, but by meeting them, dealing with them, grappling with them in an aggressive intelligent manner.”

“Self-esteem is as necessary to the spirit as food is to the body.”

“Skill in any performance whether it be in sports in playing the piano in conversation or in selling merchandise consists not in painfully and consciously thinking out each action as it is performed but in relaxing and letting the job do itself through you.

Creative performance is spontaneous and ‘natural’ as opposed to self-conscious and studied.”

“Stop measuring yourself against 'their' standards. You are not 'them' and can never measure up. Neither can 'they' measure up to yours — nor should they.

Once you see this simple, rather self-evident truth, accept it, and believe it, your inferior feelings will vanish.”

“The 'Success-type' personality is composed of: S-ense of direction, U—nderstanding, C-ourage, C-harity, E-steem, S-elf-Confidence and S-elf-Acceptance.”

“The biggest secret of self-esteem is this: Begin to appreciate other people more; show respect for any human being merely because he is a child of God and therefore a thing of value.”

“The clay or putty-like material stays soft and malleable enough to do so many, many times.

In his infinite wisdom, God manufactured the self-image of similar material, so it remains malleable throughout our entire lives.

No one is ever too old, too jaded, too frightened, or too traumatized to 'wet the clay' and begin remaking it as they imagine and desire.”