Success Mechanism

The unhappy, failure-type personality cannot develop a new self-image by pure will power, or by arbitrarily deciding to. There must be some grounds, some justification, some reason for deciding that the old picture of self is in error, and that a new picture is appropriate. You cannot merely imagine a new self-image; unless you feel that it is based upon truth. Experience has shown that when a person does change his self-image, he has the feeling that for one reason or another, he "sees," or realizes the truth about himself.

Science has now confirmed what philosophers, mystics, and other intuitive people have long declared: every human being has been literally "engineered for success" by his Creator. Every human being has access to a power greater than himself.

This means "YOU"

As Emerson has said, "There are no great and no small."

If you were engineered for success and happiness, then the old picture of yourself as unworthy of happiness, of a person who was "meant" to fail, must be in error.

Memorize the following basic principles by which your success mechanism operates. You do need to be familiar with the following, however, because having memorized them, they will throw "new light" on what is to follow:

1. Your built-in success mechanism must have a goal or "target." This goal, or target, must be conceived of as "already in existence—now" either in actual or potential form. It operates by either (1) steering you to a goal already in existence or by (2) "discovering" something already in existence.
2. The automatic mechanism is teleological, that is, operates, or must be oriented to "end results," goals. Do not be discouraged because the "means whereby" may not be apparent. It is the function of the automatic mechanism to supply the "means whereby" when you supply the goal. Think in terms of the end result, and the means whereby will often take care of themselves.
3. Do not be afraid of making mistakes, or of temporary failures. All servo-mechanisms achieve a goal by negative feedback, or by going forward, making mistakes, and immediately correcting course.
4. Skill learning of any kind is accomplished by trial and error, mentally correcting aim after an error, until a "successful" motion, movement or performance has been achieved. After that, further learning, and continued success, is accomplished by forgetting the past errors, and remembering the successful response, so that it can be "imitated."
5. You must learn to trust your creative mechanism to do its work and not "jam it" by becoming too concerned or too anxious as to whether it will work or not, or by attempting to force it by too much conscious effort. You must "let it" work, rather than "make it" work.

This trust is necessary because your creative mechanism operates below the level of consciousness, and you cannot "know" what is going on beneath the surface. Moreover, its nature is to operate spontaneously according to present need. Therefore, you have no guarantees in advance. It comes into operation as you act and as you place a demand upon it by your actions. You must not wait to act until you have proof—you must act as if it is there, and it will come through. "Do the thing and you will have the power," said Emerson.