One of the reasons it has seemed so difficult for a person to change his habits, his personality, or his way of life, has been that heretofore nearly all efforts at change have been directed to the circumference of the self, so to speak, rather than to the center.

Numerous patients have said to me something like the following: "If you are talking about positive thinking, I've tried that before, and it just doesn't work for me." However, a little questioning invariably brings out that these individuals have employed "positive thinking," or attempted to employ it, either upon particular external circumstances, or upon some particular habit or character defect ("I will get that job." "I will be more calm and relaxed in the future." "This business venture will turn out right for me," etc.) But they had never thought to change their thinking of the "self" which was to accomplish these things.

Self-image is our own conception of the "sort of person I am." It has been built up from our own beliefs about ourselves. But most of these beliefs about ourselves have unconsciously been formed from our past experiences, our successes and failures, our humiliations, our triumphs, and the way other people have reacted to us, especially in early childhood. From all these we mentally construct a "self" (or a picture of a self).

Once an idea or belief about ourselves goes into this picture it becomes "true," as far as we personally are concerned. We do not question its validity, but proceed to act upon it just as if it were true.

A pronoun is word that replaces a noun in a sentence. Every time you write a pronoun-he, his, she, her, it, its, they, that, or which be sure there can be absolutely no doubt what its antecedent is. (An antecedent is the particular noun a pronoun refers to or stands for). Careless use of pronouns can obscure your intended meaning.

Since I use the words "success" and "successful" throughout this text, I think it is important at the outset that I define those terms.

As I use it, "success" has nothing to do with prestige symbols, but with creative accomplishment. Rightly speaking no man should attempt to be "a success," but every man can and should attempt to be "successful." Trying to be "a success" in terms of acquiring prestige symbols and wearing certain badges leads to neuroticism, and frustration and unhappiness. Striving to be "successful" brings not only material success, but satisfaction, fulfillment and happiness. Noah Webster defined success as "the satisfactory accomplishment of a goal sought for." Creative striving for a goal that is important to you as a result of your own deep-felt needs, aspirations and talents (and not the symbols which the "Joneses" expect you to display) brings happiness as well as success because you will be functioning as you were meant to function. Man is by nature a goal-striving being. And because man is "built that way" he is not happy unless he is functioning as he was made to function as a goal-striver. Thus true success and true happiness not only go together but each enhances the other.

Modifiers should be placed as close as possible to what they modify. In English, the position of the word within a sentence often establishes the word's relationship to other words in the sentence. If a modifier is placed too far from the word it modifies, the meaning may be lost or obscured. Notice, in the following sentences, the ambiguity that results when the modifying phrases are misplaced in the sentence.

Acquiring information itself is passive. Experiencing is active. When you "experience," something happens inside your nervous system and your mid-brain. New "engrams" and "neural" patterns are recorded in the gray matter of your brain.

Do not allow yourself to become discouraged if nothing seems to happen when you set about practicing the various techniques for changing your self-image. Instead reserve judgment and go on practicing for a minimum period of 21 days. It usually requires a minimum of about 21 days to effect any perceptible change in a mental image. Following plastic surgery it takes about 21 days for the average patient to get used to his new face. People must live in a new house for about three weeks before it begins to "seem like home." These, and may other commonly observed phenomena tend to show that it requires a minimum of about 21 days for an old mental image to dissolve and a new one to jell.