“Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.” Bruce Barton.
Three years ago, I started a brand-new career in writing. It was a 180 from forty years in finance. The change was made official by a short stack of shiny new business cards that said “Writer.” Excited about my new venture, I shared my news and plans with everybody I met. As the list of ‘informed people’ grew, I began to feel a greater duty for completion to them that I did to myself.
But there was something even more powerful going on that I had not consciously intended at the time. Years earlier, I’d read a book with an intimidating title Psycho Cybernetics, by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. Published in 1960, his book changed the way psychologists, self-help authorities, athletic trainers, behavioral experts, and the rest of us understood the way our imagination works with our central nervous systems to accomplish great things.
The first and most important step in Maltz’s process is to conceive an important goal as “already in existence,” either in actual or potential form. Sharing my goals with more people had the incremental effect of marketing my book ‘already in existence,’ even while it was a mere idea.
Maltz says that our imagination is creative in all of us, not just poets and inventors. Scottish philosopher Dugold Stewart said “The faculty of imagination is the great spring of human activity, and the principal source of human improvement . . . Destroy this facility, and the condition of man will become as stationary as that of the brutes.”
Maltz demonstrated that our brain and nervous system work together with our imagination as a “Success Mechanism” (SM), like a guided missile, to automatically to make corrections as needed to meet any goal we set before it. It works as follows:
- Imagine a goal or target as “already in existence now,” either in actual or potential form.
- Don’t be discouraged if the means to your solution are not readily apparent. The sub-conscious works automatically in the background to supply the necessary steps and resources for achieving the goals we set. It is tempting to interfere with the process by getting caught up in the how, before a goal is clearly established. But once the mental image of the goal is clearly established, the how comes to you in time. For instance, I once used the technique to eliminate a nettlesome business debt. When the goal was imagined as real and embraced, creative ways of eliminating it began tumbling into my conscious mind. Progress in paying it off was remarkable, you could say automatic.
- Don’t be afraid of mistakes or temporary failures. Your guided missile works on negative feedback, by going forward, making mistakes and immediately correcting course.
- Skill learning is accomplished by trial and error, mentally correcting aim after errors, until a ‘successful’ motion, movement, or performance is achieved. After that, continued success is accomplished by forgetting past errors, and remembering successful responses, so they can be imitated continually.
- Trust your Creative Mechanism to do much of the work automatically in the background without “jamming it” with too much conscious effort. “Let it” work rather than “make it” work. Maltz encourages. There’s a Creative Mechanism operating below the level of consciousness, so we cannot ‘know’ what is going on beneath the surface. Moreover, its nature is to operate spontaneously according to present need. There are no guarantees in advance. It comes into action as we act, and place demands on it by those actions.
“You must not wait to act until you have proof – you must act as if it is there, and it will come through,” says Maltz. He goes on to say, “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.” Maxwell Maltz.
I’ve found that my creative process works best when I simply trust and assume it is working and be ready when the tide rushes in. Routines, places, and conditions are important, but they don’t guarantee results. When the creative tide ebbs, I leave specific mental notes, imaginings if you will, at the doorstep of my subconsciousness and let it work out the questions and problems. More times than not, the solutions are soon delivered in the shower, on a bike ride, even in conversation. It is truly amazing. We simply have to trust or act as though the goal is achieved, move forward to make it so, correcting for mistakes, and let our creative mechanism do the work to provide the solutions.
Maltz encourages, us saying, “in his infinite wisdom, God manufactured our self-image putty-like, so it remains malleable enough to work and rework 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 we imagine and desire.”
Whatever your aspirations or goals, the means to achieve them are inside you. Write as though your book is already published, and soon, it will be.