If you are frustrated with how fast your business is growing, take a look at how you are using your mind.
Have a think about how you think.
Specifically, examine your self image – and whether it is putting a limit to the level of success you are reaching.
In 1960 a plastic surgeon, Dr Maxwell Maltz, published a book that was a total breakthrough at the time: ‘Psycho Cybernetics’.
As a plastic surgeon, Maltz noticed that many people’s issues with their looks were really just indications of how they thought about themselves inside.
From this discovery came a boom in studies about self image psychology, which is still prevalent today.
The essence of the studies is as follows:
1. You have an image of yourself.
2. You will usually perform in line with that self image.
3. If you start to perform above your self image for awhile, you will unconsciously sabotage that to return to the level of your self image.
4. Likewise, if you perform below your self image for awhile, you will soon take actions that bring your results back up in line with the person you believe yourself to be.
5. Therefore the key to higher levels of success is to develop a higher, better self image.
So how could this be applied to business success?
Well, Maltz would suggest that if you want to achieve much more at work, you should do two things.
First, you should design a new image of yourself. For example, more driven, more focused, more confident, more organised, more daring, more of a learner, unstoppable.
Second, you should practice mentally ‘seeing’ yourself as that person, again and again, daily.
Now some may view this technique as dubious, but it is precisely this method that forms the core of today’s sports psychology training. The same mental training that has been shown in countless research studies to dramatically improve many athlete’s performances.
So if you’ve hit a wall with your company’s growth, give it a try. Develop a new version of you – with the personality traits that you would most like to have. Then twice a day, morning and night, spend 5 minutes imagining yourself to be that person. See and feel it as if it’s reality.
If you follow these business coaching tips sincerely for a month, you will likely be astounded by how your performance and results improve. It borders on magic.
There’s a reason that Dr Maltz’s book is still in print 57 years later.
It works.
