Psycho-Cybernetics is a self-help book written by Maxwell Maltz in 1960. The term “Psycho-Cybernetics” means steering the mind to productive, valuable goals so you can reach the most significant point in the world of peace of mind. Happiness and success are habits, and so are failure and misery. But negative patterns can be changed, and Psycho-Cybernetics will show you how.
HOW THIS BOOK HELPED US?
Psycho-cybernetics helped us realise that you always act, perform and feel in line with what you imagine to be true about yourself and your environment. If we see ourselves as failures, we’ll be failures, and if when also perceive ourselves as successful, then we’ll be successful. Remember that the nervous system can’t differentiate between what’s real and not and responds appropriately to what we imagine. Therefore, if we can alter the vision and imagination of ourselves and our surroundings, we can rise to success and be better.
EXPLAIN THE BOOK IN UNDER 60 SECONDS
The book integrates the cognitive-behavioural technique of teaching individuals how to regulate self-concept, using theories created by Prescott Lecky, With the cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and John Von Neumann. Psycho-Cybernetics defines the mind-body connection as the core of succeeding in attaining personal goals.
TOP THREE QUOTES
- “Do not tolerate for a minute that you’re 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.”
- “If you intend to insist on justice to live a successful and happy life, you’ll not do so in this lifetime, on this planet.”
- “Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between a real experience and one that is vividly imagined.”
BOOK SUMMARIES AND NOTES
Chapter one: The Self-Image: Your Key To a Better Life
The most important discovery of this century is the discovery of the “self-image”. Whether you realise it or not, each carries a mental blueprint of ourselves. It may be blurry and indeterminate to our conscious observance. It may not be mindfully recognisable at all. This self-image is your conception of the sort of person you’re. It’s usually built from your beliefs about yourself. Most of these beliefs have been formed based on past experiences, successes and failures and how people react to you, especially in early childhood. The self-image is essential to living a better life because of two critical discoveries: first, all your actions, feelings, behaviour and abilities are always consistent with this self-image. The self-image is a premise or a foundation upon which your personality, behaviour and circumstances are built. Second, your self-image can be changed regardless of your age. One of the reasons self-image is hard to change that almost all efforts at change have been directed to the circumference of the self. Rather than to the centre. Most people’s attempts at changing their self-image are external. Some tried positive thinking without addressing their beliefs about their self-image.
Favourite quote of the chapter: “Understanding the psychology of the self can mean the difierence between success and failure, love and hate, bitterness and happiness. The discovery of the real self can rescue a crumbling marriage, recreate a faltering career, and transform victims of ‘personality failure.’ On another plane, discovering your real self means the difference between freedom and the compulsions of conformity.”
Chapter two: Discovering the Success Mechanism Within You
Every living thing has a built-in guidance mechanism or goal-striving device to help it achieve its goal, which is to live in broad terms. Man’s success mechanism is a broader scope compared to other animals. Man’s built-in success mechanism can help him find solutions to problems, invent stuff, run a business and develop a better personality.
Man possesses something that other creatures don’t—creative imagination. Man is not only a creature, but he’s also a creator. With his creative vision, he can put together a variety of goals. Man alone can control his success mechanism by using imagination or imaging ability. Your brain and nervous system constitute
a goal-striving mechanism which operates automatically to achieve a specific goal, as a self-aiming torpedo or missile seeks out its target and steers its way to it. Your built-in servo-mechanism functions both as a “guidance system” to automatically steer you in the right direction to achieve certain goals or make correct responses to the environment and also as an “electronic brain” which can function automatically to solve problems, give you needed answers, and provide new ideas or “inspirations.” These are the five fundamentals for creating effective success mechanisms
- Your built-in success mechanism must have a goal or target.
- The success mechanism must be end-result-oriented.
- Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. The success mechanism achieves a goal through negative feedback.
- Forget past errors, move on, and focus on your final successful choice to drive you to your goal.
- Learn to trust your creative mechanism. Trust the process without worrying about adjusting it.
Favourite quote of the chapter: “When we conceive of the human brain and nervous system as a form of servo-mechanism, operating in accordance with Cybernetic principles, we gain a new insight into the why and wherefore of human behaviour.”
Chapter three: Imagination—The First Key to Your Success Mechanism
Imagination plays a much more essential role in our lives than we realise. It is a fundamental law of the mind. It’s how we’re built. Imagination is responsible for setting the goal picture, which the automatic mechanism works on. You act or fail to act not because of will but because of imagination. Your thoughts and actions are usually based on what you imagine as the truth. You have specific mental images of yourself, your world, and the people around you, and you behave as though these images were the· truth, the reality, rather than the things they represent.
You frequently retaliate involuntarily against your environment or surrounding. You’ll usually automatically react to the atmosphere based on what your nervous system tells you, whether the information it gives is accurate. Usually, what you believe to be true gives rise to this reaction.
Imagination allows you to practice new traits and attitudes, which you otherwise could not do. This is possible because the nervous system cannot distinguish between an experience and a vividly imagined one. If you imagine yourself performing in a particular manner, it is almost the same as the actual performance. Mental practice helps to make it perfect. Therefore, there are high chance that your imagination will become a reality when you stick to it.
Favourite quote of the chapter: “Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between a real experience and one that is vividly imagined.”
Chapter four: Dehypnotise Yourself From False Beliefs
Hypnotic subjects can do surprising things only when convinced that the hypnotist’s words are factual statements. When the hypnotist has guided the subject to the point where he is confident that the hypnotist’s words are accurate statements, the subject then behaves differently because he thinks and believes differently.” The critical thing to remember is that it does not matter how you got the idea or where it came from. You may never have met a professional hypnotist. It could be your friend, teacher or parent. If you choose to accept the idea, you will start acting regarding the concept. It is no exaggeration to say that every human being is hypnotised. Either by thoughts he has uncritically accepted from others or ideas he has repeated to himself or convinced himself are actual. These negative ideas have the same effect on our behaviour as the negative ideas implanted into the mind of a hypnotised subject by a professional hypnotist.
There is a possibility of being hypnotised into negative beliefs or ideas. People have been hypnotised and conducted far beyond what their conscious would allow them. But you can dehypnotise yourself to achieve what you’re capable of. There is the power to do things you never dreamed of within you. This power can only be available when you’ve changed your beliefs.
Favourite quote of the chapter: “The power of hypnosis is the power of belief.”
Chapter five: How to Utilise The Power of Rational Thinking
Rational thinking is effective for changing your beliefs and behaviours. It lets you notice that negative unconscious thoughts do not always have to reappear to move. But instead, it’s more reasonable to focus on the mistakes that will assist you in achieving your goals. These mistakes can be forgotten as you practice moving in the right direction toward achieving your goals. People who’re successfully hypnotised do surprising things. They have simply had antagonistic memories swept out so they can achieve success. When you start getting negative thoughts, look for the cause and eliminate this cause as soon as possible. Ensure that this illogical will does not control you. Repeat this process every time negative thoughts arise and get new, rational beliefs that resonate with you.
The main reason that the power of rational thinking goes unnoticed is that it is hardly used. Track down your belief about yourself, the world, or other people behind your negative behaviour. To be effective in changing belief and behavior, rational thought must be accompanied by deep feelings and desires. Imagine what you would like to be and have, and assume for the moment that such things might be possible. Arouse a deep desire for these things. Become enthusiastic about them. Dwell upon them and keep going over them in your mind. Your present negative beliefs were formed by thoughts plus feelings. Generate enough emotion or deep feelings; your new thoughts and ideas will cancel them out.
Favourite quote of the chapter: “There is a widely accepted fallacy that rational, logical, conscious thinking has no power over unconscious processes or mechanisms and that to change negative beliefs, feelings or behaviour, it is necessary to dig down and dredge up material from the unconscious.”
Chapter six: Relax and Let Your Success Mechanism Work for You
Stress has become a common thing in the modern world. We have accepted symptoms like anxiety, insomnia, or worry to be part of our world. Yet, it doesn’t have to be that way; we can relieve ourselves of a huge load of anxiety or worry if we utilise our built-in creative mechanism. We often disregard the automatic creative mechanism and try to do everything and decipher problems by conscious thought. Since you depend almost entirely on your conscious thought, you become too anxious, careful, and fearful of the results. Prudence, self-esteem, emotions of ambition and feelings of anxiety have an essential part to play in our lives. But confine them as far as possible to the occasions when you are making your available resolutions and deciding on your campaign plans, and keep them out of the details. Once you’ve reached a decision and execution is the order of the day, get rid of all responsibility and care about the out come.
Stop sometimes during the day, take a moment and recall the sensations of relaxation in detail. Practice this, remembering faithfully multiple times each day. You’ll be surprised at how much it minimises fatigue and improves how you handle situations.
Favourite quote of the chapter: “Do Your worrying before you place your bet, not after the wheel starts turning.”
Chapter seven: You Can Acquire The Habit of Happiness
Happiness is native to the human mind and its physical body. You perform better, think better, feel better and be healthier when you’re happy. Even your physical and sensory organs function better when you’re so glad. Happiness is a state of mind in which your thinking is pleasant a good share of the time or being free from the habit of responding negatively to external things in your environment. Happiness is not something earned or deserved but instead practised and learnt. Happiness is learned behaviour and thoughts. It has to be practised in the present moment and cannot be made contingent upon solving external problems. If you’re waiting until you deserve to think pleasant thoughts, you’re likely to think unpleasant thoughts concerning your own unworthiness. Happiness is not being selfish. Selfishness does not make for happiness. The happiness gets our minds directed outward from ourselves and our introspection, our faults, sins, troubles (unpleasant thoughts), or pride in our “goodness.” Still, it also enables us to express ourselves creatively and fulfil ourselves by helping others.
Favourite quote of the chapter: “Happy people are never wicked.”
Chapter eight: Ingredients of the Success-Type Personality And How to Acquire Them
You don’t simply find success or come to failure. Usually, you carry their seeds around in your personality and character. The most effective approach to helping someone gain a successful personality is to first illustrate a graphic picture of the successful nature. To use the creative guidance mechanism within you, you must have a clear-cut goal or target to aim at. Yet many are looking for a successful personality without a clear-cut goal. People with a high self-image or good self-esteem don’t become emotionally damaged quickly. The same applies to one with an independent attitude. Make sure you’re always accountable for your life emotionally. The success-type personality comprises a sense of direction, Understanding, Courage, Charity, self-esteem, Self-confidence and Self-acceptance.
Usually, the difference between a successful man and a failure is not because one possesses better abilities and ideas but the courage to bet on their ideas to go for calculated risk and act.
Self-acceptance means accepting and coming to terms with yourself, just as you’re with all your faults, weaknesses and shortcomings and sour assets and strengths. Self-acceptance is much easier if you understand that these negatives belong to you, but they’re not you.
Favourite quote of the chapter: “Accept yourself. Be yourself. You cannot realise the potentialities and possibilities inherent in that unique and special something which is “YOU” if you keep turning your back upon it, feeling ashamed of it, hating it, refusing to recognise it.”
Chapter nine: The Failure Mechanism: How to Make It Work For You Instead of Against You
The failure-type personality has its symptoms. Therefore, you need to be able to acknowledge these symptoms in yourself so you can do something about them. When you master to recognise particular personality traits as signals to failure, these symptoms begin to act automatically as negative feedback and help you down the road to creative accomplishment. The negative feedback symptoms include Frustration, Aggression, Insecurity, Loneliness, Uncertainty, Resentment and Anxiety. No one sits down and deliberately, with malice aforethought, decides to develop these negative traits just to be perverse. They do not “just happen.” Nor are they an indication of the imperfection of human nature. Each of these negatives was initially adopted as a “way” to solve a difficulty or a problem. We embrace them because we mistakenly see them as a “way” out of some difficulty.
Favourite quote of the chapter: “We need to be aware of negatives so that we can steer clear of them.”
HOW THIS BOOK CAN HELP SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS
“Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz is a self-help book that emphasises the power of the mind in achieving personal and professional success. It outlines practical techniques to overcome self-limiting beliefs, increase self-confidence, and improve overall performance. Software developers can benefit from this book by learning to use visualisation and positive self-talk to improve their programming skills, overcome imposter syndrome, and achieve their career goals. The book emphasises the importance of developing a growth mindset and continuously improving oneself to succeed. By adopting the principles of Psycho-Cybernetics, developers can learn to overcome mental blocks, boost their confidence, and increase their creativity, leading to better software development outcomes.
