You Will Never Surpass

The Expectations You Set For Yourself

byJeph Maystruck/Jul 17, 2023/inAdvice, Blogging, Consumer Behaviour, Customer Service, Innovation, Leadership

Think about that. The only thing that holds us back are beliefs that aren’t true. Without a wild and crazy expectations, you will never achieve a wild and crazy outcome.

Written in 1960, Psycho Cybernetics is an instant classic. Basically explains the power of the mind, your brain’s plasticity, and how successful people make a habit out of success. 10/10 would recommend.

A friend mentioned he liked this book and I picked up immediately. Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon that noticed something funny every time he performed surgery on a patient’s face, once healed, they seem transformed. Different, better than their old selves. A changed person completely.

Changing the way they looked changed the way they thought about themselves. Because of that realization he had to write a book to share the secret with the world….you don’t need plastic surgery to look at yourself differently, you just need to believe.

“The self-image is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self-image and you change the personality and the behavior.” -Maxwell Maltz

The way you look at the person in the mirror matters A LOT in life. You just may not see it that way….yet. The way you live your life is a direct reflection of how you view yourself. The better you respect that person in the mirror, the more you’ll do things to help that person over the long run.

“The mind cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a real one. That is why the self-image can be changed by imagination.” -Maxwell Maltz

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine some dragging their sharp nails across the chalkboard. Did you just get goosebumps or the chills? You aren’t alone. What your mind experiences can’t be distinguished from reality or not, so your mind assumes it’s real. You can do this in a positive manner too, you can imagine yourself in a better place.

“Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward.” -Maxwell Maltz

Some days when I was at my worst I remembered telling myself, “just get one thing done today”. Once I completed that one thing I quickly moved on to the next. Consistency is a powerful force.

Be like Jerry!

Like Jerry Seinfeld once said to a young comedian that that told him”it must be nice now that your famous! You don’t have to write any more jokes!”, Seinfeld quickly snapped back, “not write any jokes? The only reason I got to this point was because I wrote jokes every day. That’s right, EVERY day for a year. At the end of 12 months you’ll have at least 365 jokes to choose from.”

The only reason Jerry was so funny was he practiced it daily. No you don’t have writers block, you need to write. No you aren’t waiting for inspiration, you need to write. No now is not a bad time, you need to write.

Write, write, write. Every day.

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” -Elbert Hubbard

With consistency comes mistakes from time to time and that’s okay. The ship is safest in the harbour but that’s not where ships are meant to stay. If you live your life scared you’re going to make a mistake, you aren’t really living, you’re tiptoeing around life.

As BenJamin Zander would say, “When you make a mistake, proudly throw up your arms and declare, “HOW FASCINATING!”. This is how we deal with mistakes now.

“Believe it can be done. When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find the ways to do it. Believing a solution paves the way to a solution.”

Whether you believe in the power of positive thinking, the “Secret” or any of the stuff Tony Robbins preaches, it’s true. You can be skeptical all you want but when you think about something enough, when you focus on something enough, you will put the work in to achieve what you want.

What are you struggling with?

When’s the last time you did something hard? Did you start with a belief that you wouldn’t accomplish it? Highly unlikely. Just like the year out of University, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life so I told myself I’d run a half marathon. Now, for some context, I’ve been overweight all my life. Running isn’t something that comes easy. But you know what? With the power of belief I crushed that half marathon!

Our minds’ are much more powerful than we think.

“We are all self-made, but only the successful will admit it.”

It’s hard to admit when you get fired from your job that “you’re self-made!”. But it makes you think. We are all self-made, whether you’re successful or not.

“The key to success is not to achieve a victory but to become the type of person who achieves victories.”

Success isn’t a one-off, it’s a habit. People who achieve victory generally do it over and over again. It becomes habitual. When you lose, it’s an anomaly, probably won’t happen again. When you win, it’s expected so it’s not out of the ordinary.

Nobel prize winners, on average, have more hobbies, compared to the general population. That means, if you’re great on one field, you’re probably pretty good in others too. Where are you testing your skill set? Where are you learning a new skill set?

“Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” -Napoleon Hill

The first truth of Buddhism identifies the presence of suffering. Without suffering, there is no victory. What are you struggling with? What mountain are you climbing? In our digital world of deliver everything to my door so I don’t ever have to leave is simply too easy for us. Humans need a challenge or else we get lazy. It reminds me of the Hugh MacLeod cartoon, “Choosing an easy life rarely ends up with much of either.”

“A goal properly set is halfway reached.”

What are you shooting for? What do you want to accomplish? Bonus points…did you write it down?

When I coached Volleyball, the most important practice of the year was when we set our goals. It laid out our expectation of the team, athletes and coaches from that point forward. It gave you something to measure against. It was a tangible reason to get better at the sport, be a better teammate, and always ask yourself, what can I do to make this team better?

Set goals, follow up on goals, set better goals, repeat.

Set goals. Follow-up and see if you made it or not. In the past, not hitting a goal isn’t a failure, NOT SETTING THE GOAL WOULD HAVE BEEN A FAILURE. Not hitting a goal is feedback we take it to set goals better next year, or assess whether a different approach needs to be taken.

“The more you act like a happy person, the more you will feel like one.”

Are you happy? Why not? What have you done to make yourself happy today? Nothing? Well then, therein lies the problem!

There should be a class in elementary and high school called “Happiness Class”. We’d discuss where happiness comes from, how some people are happier than others, peoples “baseline happiness”, and we’d go through books like the Happiness Advantage, the Happiness Equation and the Algebra of Happiness.

We wouldn’t “teach” the students how to be happy, we’d help facilitate experiences that would in turn increase their happiness and show them a way to manufacture an experience that will lead to happiness.

If you’ve made it this far my god, go buy the book already and stop reading my blog post! Sheesh!

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