It’s almost too simple to be believed, yet it’s true.
Whenever you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed or anxious, you are mentally picturing the wrong thing.
Most of the time, the “thing” you are picturing is yourself and the corresponding erroneous notions of not being good enough, smart enough, talented enough, and so on.
In short, you don’t believe in yourself – and you think you should.
Why?
Because that’s what everyone has told you.
“You need to believe in yourself. If you would just believe in yourself, you could do so much better.”
Today, I’m here to tell you that there’s a way out of the maze. And it’s not sitting around working on your personal beliefs.
This is a realization I arrived at one day when I watched my son and daughter accomplish feats that neither of them believed they could accomplish, beforehand. Yet, both of them did.
My son batted .506 his junior year in high school with a 24-game hitting streak. Did he believe he was going to do this ahead of time? Absolutely not.
My daughter’s involvement in ballet grew to the point where she wanted to learn pointe toe and eventually showcase her skills in The Nutcracker, even though she doesn’t have your typical ballet body.
How did the two of them accomplish these objectives if they didn’t believe they were going to?
It’s simple: They suspended their personal beliefs on the matter. They did not focus on whether or not they could or could not do it. Instead, they put their focus on the mental pictures that lead to the finish line. In short, they visualized and imagined being where they wanted to be.
I’m sure that if my son and daughter sat around thinking about their personal beliefs about their goals, they would have felt a sense of overwhelm.
Why do I say this? I say it because of all the people I have seen who are focused on themselves instead of the objective. And guess what happens to them? They get overwhelmed with negative emotions.
Their focus is on whether they are good enough, likable enough, credible enough, tall enough, fit enough, well-dressed enough, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
Meanwhile, someone who never thinks about any of the above, someone who is far less talented, good looking, etc. focuses on the objective and nails it.
Funny, eh?
Well then, what’s the way out of this mess?
It begins by reversing the erroneous notions you were taught. And the way to begin reversing them is by practicing Dao Zou – a moving meditation technique I learned over 15 years ago that I use to eliminate negative emotions of every kind.
Why do I recommend this program? I recommend it because it combines movement with visualization and deep breathing.
In short, you’re practicing what I wrote about in Theatre of the Mind, while you’re on the go. This means you’re nailing two objectives with one arrow.
One of my coaching members has been practicing Dao Zou for nearly ninety straight days, without a miss. To say his life has been transformed would be underplaying the reality of the situation.
As you move, suspend your beliefs about can or cannot, about believe or believe not. Just follow the program and you will make your own discoveries.
See it. Feel it. Live it.
Matt Furey
Psycho-Cybernetics.com
P.S. Looking for coaching on how to succeed without worrying or belly-aching over your limiting beliefs? Drop me a line and I’ll get back with you.
Why Limiting Beliefs Are a Crock
Over and over, we’ve been told we have “limiting beliefs,” and these beliefs represent where we are in life.
The prevailing presumption is that limiting beliefs are a “problem” that must be fixed if we want to be successful.
Instead of viewing them as a new starting point on the road of creation, we cringe at the thought of having them at all. This puts the focus on ourselves instead of putting it on what we want to accomplish.
The questions I propose are as follows:
1. Is it really necessary to focus on your personal limiting beliefs?
2. Can you bypass your limiting beliefs and become successful in spite of them?
Think about these questions for a short spell and see if you can come up with something you succeeded in, even though you didn’t necessarily believe you had the qualities necessary to pull it off.
I’m betting you can.
I have a client who dropped nearly 100 pounds over the past year. For much of that time he’s been telling me, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe how the weight came off so easily. I can’t believe how it’s staying off.”
Never once, not even a single time, have I interrupted him to say, “Don’t say that. You must believe in yourself.”
This man is living proof that the key to his weight loss success wasn’t predicated on whether he believed he could or couldn’t do it. It was all about mentally picturing the kind of results he wanted and the steps he was to follow to attain them.
If you can mentally picture a result and the process you want to follow, you will naturally begin moving in a fortuitous direction. No amount of time sitting around convincing yourself that you believe you can is going to accomplish the task for you.
Yet, a short period of time visualizing the result you want, imagining, feeling and sensing yourself already there, while suspending the idea of whether or not you believe you have “the stuff” to pull it off, will move you closer to the target.
Don’t believe me?
Then test it out and see for yourself how the crock of “limiting beliefs” isn’t holding you back at all.
Give no thought as to whether or not you believe you can accomplish a goal. Instead, take the focus off your beliefs and put it on “the thing.”
See it. Feel it. Live it.
Matt Furey
P.S. If you’re interesting in my Mind Power Monthly ongoing coaching program, drop me a line and I’ll be in touch.
Coach of the Year
A quick note of congratulations to my friend, Nick Nurse, who was named NBA Coach of the Year for 2019-2020 season.
Nick and I grew up in Carroll, Iowa, and attended the same high school.
In 2007, at one of my live events, Nick gave me two signed basketballs, one of which contained a message regarding his goal to become an NBA coach.
To hear the rest of the story, you’ll want to listen to Theatre of the Mind.
See it. Feel it. Be it.
Matt Furey
P.S. If you’re looking for coaching that will take you to the next level, contact me to learn more about Mind Power Monthly.
Give Up Fear
One early morning last month, as I was moving from dreamland to a waking state, I received an answer to a question that had been ruminating in my noggin for several days.
The answer came to me in three words.
Give up X.
In my particular case, the X was “coffee.”
Off and on, for years, I toyed with the idea of giving up coffee, but always chose to come back to it, for a number of reasons, one of which is the purported health benefits.
For the most part, I didn’t drink coffee for the caffeine kick. I drank it out of habit. It was part of my daily ritual.
Get up. Make coffee. Sip coffee while reading or preparing for a workout.
Nothing wrong with having coffee – except, maybe it was becoming wrong for me.
So I gave it up that morning, cold turkey. I did so by crafting a different mental picture of myself in relation to the drink, and what I would tell myself each day to stay away from it.
I went 24 hours without a sip of coffee.
Could I go another day without it?
Turns out, yes.
And another?
Yes.
Now here I am, some 40+ days later, free from the black bean.
As I think about it, the process I followed was incredibly simple. I wondered if the method I used would be effective in eliminating negative emotions, such as fear, worry, anger, doubt, and so on.
Turns out it works on emotions, too.
In order for it to work, though, you must either have “the desire” to give something up, or want to have the desire.
Yes, you can have a desire to have more desire. Interesting, eh?
I thought so, too.
See it. Feel it. Be IT.
Matt Furey
By the way: Increasing desire is something my Mind Power Monthly Coaching Members are learning in illustrious detail. If you want to increase your desire, too, send me an email about your situation and what you want to accomplish.
Also: Here’s the link to order the CLASSIC international best-seller, Psycho-Cybernetics.
The Worst Positive Thinking Advice Ever Given
If it’s not the worst advice, it probably should be.
When you don’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out, when you’re down in the dumps, the last thing you need to be telling yourself is, “I AM RICH.”
Acknowledging the truth may hurt a bit, but it will also set you free.
Having a financial goal is important, but at the end of the day, you must also acknowledge the facts with questions such as, “Where am I now?”
To move in the direction of what you want, you must simultaneously keep in mind where you are along the way.
Contrary to what so many in the self-development industry will tell you, giving an accurate report of where you are in relationship to your goal will not hurt you. It will EMPOWER you.
Yes, I am telling you that you need to see yourself where you want to be – BUT… you also need to see yourself where you are in this moment.
Self-acceptance is part of the formula mapped out by Dr. Maxwell Maltz in Psycho-Cybernetics.
Accept who you are and where you are in this moment, then work on achieving daily goals that move you in the direction of what is important to you.
Ask yourself, is saying, “I AM RICH,” or “I AM a MILLIONAIRE” working for me? Once you ask this question, accept the answer. And accept yourself in the process.
I have coached people who used to state the above affirmations on a daily basis… and they were no further along than the day they started. In many cases, they were worse off. Yet, round and round they went, hoping that their positive self-talk would eventually work.
Once they realized that mental imagery is king – especially imagery that is mixed with reality-based affirmations, everything shifted toward the positive.
See it. Feel it. Be it.
Matt Furey
By the way, the people in my Mind Power Monthly Coaching program are making me proud. So good to be working with men and women who truly “get it” and want to grow. If you want to be involved as well, s
The Only Affirmations that Work
Everyday I speak with people who are frustrated with the results of “changing their beliefs” via affirmations, self-talk and so on.
They are usually shocked when I tell them they don’t need to try so hard to change their beliefs, that their beliefs will automatically upgrade when you’ve established momentum and flow.
If you’ve used an affirmation and had it backfire, i.e. the opposite of what you declared happens, tune into what I’m stating.
First, you are not alone. Second, there is a way out of the mess you find yourself in.
Shall I give you an example?
Last week, one of my Mind Power Monthly coaching members, wrote to tell me that he has been stating a positive affirmation for years having to do with wealth and abundance.
It was one of those affirmations I refer to as an “IAMI,” as in I-AM-I.
I am wealthy and prosperous now. I am a millionaire. I am rich. I am blessed. Etcetera, etcetera, blah, blah.
Here’s the kicker: The man told me he could not visualize himself being any of the above.
Yet, after reading my monthly newsletter – he changed his words to those that created momentum and within seconds he was, for the first time in his life, able to visualize effectively. He could see himself where he wants to be. He didn’t attempt to force the imagery into his mind. The imagery came to him, seemingly of its own accord, spontaneously.
Now we’re talking. Now we’re visualizing. Now we’re getting some results.
Dr. Maltz stated how positive thinking that is inconsistent with your self-image does not work.
To put it simply: Positive affirmations and self-talk that are inconsistent with the image you have in mind (and the feeling you have about them) do not work.
See it. Feel it. Be it.
Matt Furey
P.S. Want information on Mind Power Monthly? Then drop me a line.
What’s Hanging on Your Wall?
In Theatre of the Mind I wrote about the importance of having inspiring slogans and motivators strategically placed upon your walls.
The reason is simple. We become what we visualize ourselves to be, and we tend to visualize that which we see most often.
When I was a teenager, I inherently understood the psychological importance of having the good, the powerful and the positive upon my bedroom walls. I tacked up the ribbons and medals that I had won in athletic competition, as well as images of the people I wanted to emulate.
When I was playing baseball, my hero was Vida Blue of the Oakland A’s.
Later on, when I became enthralled with wrestling, I put up posters of Olympic champions in the sport, along with motivational slogans.
Today, many years removed from being a teenager, I still use posters upon my walls. Whether I’m conscious of it or not, every time I walk past a poster hanging upon my walls, the message is going into my mind and creating a new reality.
Recently, I put together a Theatre of the Mind Poster that is loaded with more than 21 different word slogans I use throughout the day to stay focused, tuned in and turned on.
This poster is so powerful it stops you in your tracks.
As you look at it you unconsciously begin to choose the slogan you’re going to live today.
One of my favorites is, “Act as if it were impossible to fail.”
It’s a mighty admonition – and who can look at it and not find a pulse?
We form our mighty mental images from the words we use. So let yourself be purposeful and passionate with what you say or think when you talk to yourself.
Grab yourself a Theatre of the Mind Poster, put it upon your wall and watch as you remove more and more of the resistance from your life.
See it. Feel it. Be it.
Matt Furey
Bad, Bad Goals
Over the past two days, while working with coaching clients, the tall-tales of the self-development industry came up over and over.
“But don’t you need to set goals that scare you?” one client asked.
“How’s that approach working out for you so far?” I replied.
“Uh, not so good.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Setting goals that scare you” is one of the four pill-errors (not pillars) that the goo-roos teach. And it’s wronger than wrong. It may be the wrongest advice of them all.
If you set goals that scare you, you’ll never get off the ground. You’ll be stymied and stuck. You’ll be so frozen, a hot morning coffee won’t even wake you up.
Think of how ludicrous it is to teach people to set goals that invoke fear, when fear is the great paralyzer.
Instead of setting goals that scare you, consider setting goals that inspire you. Set goals that generate momentum and spontaneous action, goals that don’t cause you to resist yourself.
When you are doing well, you are no longer resisting yourself. You’re taking out the garbage on a daily basis. And with the garbage put away, you are free to accomplish more because you’re now in a natural state of flow.
Almost all goal setters remain nothing more than that: goal setters. Same as those who make a list of New Year’s Resolutions, none of which get accomplished.
The trick to goals is creating and following a system where you are winning the game of life all the time. You win so often that you make other people jealous, without trying to do so.
When you set goals that scare you, you’re beginning way behind the starting line.
When you set goals that rev up your engine and catapult you into action, you are free to swing for the fences. You are free to follow the advice of Dorothea Brande, who wrote, “act as if it were impossible to fail.”
You cannot act as if it is impossible to fail when you set big, hairy, audacious goals that scare you.
But you CAN when you set goals that create zero internal resistance within you.
Just as we resist others who bark orders at us and tell us what to do, we also resist the “self” that imposes goals and demands that are not in alignment with the natural flow of our own energy.
If you’ve been setting goals that scare you and you feel as though you’re getting nowhere, understand you’re a member of a big club. You’re not alone. You’re not the only one who believed the nonsense.
But there is a way out of the mess – and acquiring the attributes contained within Zero Resistance Living is one of the keys. Isn’t it odd that there’s nowhere in the course that tells you to set goals that scare you.
Matt Furey
Note: If you’re interested in my Mind Power Monthly coaching program, drop me a line and I’ll get back to you with the information.
Do Positive Affirmations Work?
The self-development industry is still teaching out-dated methods that rarely work.
Positive thinking and/or positive affirmations are a prime example. As Dr. Maltz taught so long ago, “it (positive thinking) cannot work when it is inconsistent with the self-image.”
Truism.
But what do the life coaches teach?
They teach you to “change your beliefs” with positive affirmations and self-talk while doing nothing to change your self-image, the mental blueprint you carry around with you everywhere you go.
Read my words now and listen to me later: You cannot change your beliefs unless your mental pictures change. And you cannot change your mental pictures if you’re encountering resistance from your own mind. A method that bypasses your own resistance and naturally upgrades your beliefs, even if you’re not trying to upgrade them, is the key.
Yes, it’s true. You can upgrade your beliefs without even realizing you’ve done so and without attempting to do so.
Here are some examples of “positive thoughts” that cause resistance and have almost zero chance of shifting your reality:
I am happy and grateful. I am a gazillionaire. I am fit and healthy now. I am now at my ideal weight. I am love and I am surrounded by loving people. Prosperity comes to me easily and effortlessly.
You might wonder why I am disputing whether these statements work. That’s easy.
I’ve watched a ton of others who insisted upon using them, and they got nowhere.
The other day, for example, a client read me a list of his self-talk statements. I took note of how strong the vibration of each statement was as I heard it being uttered. There was only one statement that had a truly positive charge. The rest were weak.
“How would you rate the one you just read?” I asked.
“I’d give it a three,” he replied, sheepishly.
“I see. Well, do you think a three is going to shift your brain, much less your reality?”
“Probably not.”
“How about most definitely not,” I added.
During the rest of the coaching call I helped this man discover how to create self-talk statements that are uniquely powerful to his situation. I’m also teaching him how to visualize each of these statements. That’s the key. Without the mental imagery, you may think you’re making progress, but you really aren’t doing much of anything other than blowing smoke rings.
Here’s another key point: If you’re working on changing your beliefs with words, anything you say or write or think that “pushes you out of your comfort zone,” is ultimately doomed to fail.
Think I’m wrong on this one?
Then go through Psycho-Cybernetics and show me where Dr. Maltz said you need to, “get out of your comfort zone.”
I’ll be waiting. A long, long, long time.
Because it’s not in the book.
I realize that it may appear to you that “everyone says to get out of your comfort zone.”
Well, Dr. Maltz didn’t. And neither do I.
Success comes from knowing how to get INTO your comfort zone.
Yesterday I went to look at buying a new car.
Do you think the salesperson invited me in and offered to bring me a water, coffee, tea, etc?
Hmmm. Good question, eh?
When you have a guest in your home, do you make the person uncomfortable?
If not, then why would you attempt to do this to yourself?
This topic is what I cover in the first lesson of my all-new Mind Power Monthly Coaching Program.
The digital newsletter went out to members on Wednesday – and the other components will be delivered over the next week.
One subscriber wrote to say: Thanks, loved the newsletter. Practical tips that I can use right now and teach my kids. So worth the money!!!
If you want to be involved, email me and I’ll forward you details about the group and what you will receive.
See it. Feel it. Be it.
Matt Furey
P.S. A heartfelt thank you to all the new subscribers from Nigeria. I am thrilled to have you onboard.
The Visualization Blueprint
There’s a saying, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
One of my teachers used to say it this way: “A rose by any other name still smells like a rose.”
In English, we have this substance known as “water.” You can also refer to it as aqua, 水, पानी, вода, νερό or wasser.
In chemistry water is written as H20.
What you call the substance doesn’t change the substance because the word “water” is not water.
And so it is with the word visualization. The words “imagine and feel” resonate with me in a deep way, yet these words don’t change the fact that when I’m picturing something in any way, shape or form, or with any method, I am visualizing.
Call it mental imagery, imagination, mental pictures, a blueprint, a mind map or a meditation, we are still referring to visualization.
Many years ago, I was reading a book written by Michael Masterson. In this book he talked about how he had four main goals and how focusing on his number one goal, financial abundance, would help him achieve all four.
Masterson also wrote about how he would get a pencil and paper each night and recalculate his net worth.
Whether he was aware of it or not, Masterson’s practice of writing out his goals and calculating where he was each night in relation to his goal, is visualization/imagination in action. In fact, with a pen or pencil in your hand, as you look at your numbers and compare them to where you want to be (imagining your visual goal), you are activating the brain in a major way.
Just because your eyes are open and a tool is in your hands doesn’t mean you are NOT visualizing or imagining. You are definitely doing so. In essence, it’s the same as a basketball player at the free-throw line, picturing the ball going “swish” before he shoots it.
Over the weekend a client asked me about “blueprints.”
I told him that a blueprint is a visual aid that you create through the practice of visualization.
You can craft your blueprint with your eyes open or closed. Makes no difference. Why? Because ultimately, you put what you pictured in your mind’s eye on paper. At the beginning of each day, when you hold the blueprint in your hands and look at it, you are imagining yourself either living on the successful end of the blueprint, or you are picturing what you need to do next to bring the blueprint into reality.
Whether you call your process looking, imagining, picturing, meditating upon, drawing up, calculating or measuring, you are using visualization.
So why is it that some people claim they are practicing something other than visualization, when they are definitely using it?
There are a number of reasons. Here are some:
1. The person is positioning a product in the marketplace and wants you to think it’s something he or she invented or “pioneered.” Not likely.
2. The person is emotionally resistant to the obvious. In fact, this person has trouble comprehending that the word water is NOT water.
3. The person has trouble visualizing with eyes closed, and therefore concludes, erroneously, that he or she doesn’t visualize at all.
4. The person is unable to realize that you cannot set goals or plan the actions you are going to take unless you are picturing those goals and those specific actions in your mind’s eye.
The purpose of writing out your goals are making plans is simple: The written goals and plans serve as a mental reminder of the mental imagery you selected from a plethora of possible choices.
Every time you look at these goals and these actions, whether you are willing to admit it or not, you are picturing them in your mind’s eye.
When you think of having a drink of water, you don’t picture the letters W A T E R.
You picture the thing you see in your brain… water.
You probably even get super specific on what type of W A T E R you will drink. Consider what images flood your mind when you see the following: Evian, Fiji, Saratoga, Artesian, Sparkling, Coors, Fresca.
Yes, two of those words are not WATER – but they have water. Nonetheless, how would you distinguish the difference? Though the process of mentally picturing, at a staggering speed.
So I find it amusing and entertaining the lengths some people will go to when they claim they don’t visualize. I guess the next thing you know, one of these “pioneers” and “thought leaders” will claim he doesn’t breathe.
No, I don’t practice breathing. I practice the… let me see, uh, …. the, the, the, … the blueprint for uh… for… respiration. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Respiration.
Meanwhile: “A rose by any other name still smells like a rose.”
See it. Feel it. Be it.
Matt Furey
P.S. Interested in Mind Power Monthly, my coaching program on Psycho-Cybernetics and the art of visualization? We are beginning this week. Send me an email if you are interested.
