Question about Psycho-Cybernetics: How do I create self-image “Prompts” that work as a beginner?

[Kaida]

The book Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz is arguably one of the best books on self image out there. Saw @Skills mention it in a comment so I decided to buy it. Definitely worth the money.

It goes over the fact that your actions, emotions, level of motivation, fears, and urges are all based on your self image and how you perceive yourself. The self image sets the boundaries in your mind for what’s possible.

You can try your hardest to fight your self image by taking productive action that doesn’t align with it. But the problem is that this creates internal tension.

It’s like stretching one end of a rubber band. Once the tension becomes too great, you will always snap to the starting position.

So how do we make it so there’s no tension put on ourselves?

The secret is to move the other end of the rubber band as well. Rebuild your self image so that it aligns with your actions.

————————————————————

I accidentally stumbled upon insane success with this concept by myself a few years ago, but it proved unhealthy in the long run.

Basically what I did was a ton of positive affirmations 3 times a day.

What I told myself were things like:

- Im the sexiest man alive

- I have many beautiful girls that are obsessed with me

- ALL girls love me and wanna fuck me

+20 more


Meanwhile I was getting absolutely zero pussy.

I was a virgin, and wasn’t even talking platonically with girls.

I had no in field experience at all except maybe 1 odd compliance experiment a week.

Spoiler: Field Xp

(Once I reach college I’ll start hard on the field exp. My parents make it hard to go out and cold approach. For now I’m internalizing concepts and understanding women)

There was no changes for the first few months, but I just kept consuming mountains of GC articles and content, deeply internalizing them and then hammering these “prompts” or affirmations into my head.




Suddenly, like a miracle, everything switched up.

It was I literally became a girl magnet overnight.

I became more leaderlike. Started demanding compliance. Facial expressions were suddenly smooth and sexy. Eye contact was sharp. Even my (normally deep, quiet, and boring) voice got slower and had a sexy purr to it.

It felt like my mind was running on heavy GC autopilot. I even felt “out of it” sometimes, like I was drunk and my body was moving on its own.


The snowball effect in my social circle was crazy:

A whole group of girls I had known for a long time were banging on the door because they wanted to see me shirtless.

Girls I didnt even talk to were chanting my name as I walked in like I was some kind of celebrity.

I took one of the girls I liked the most aside and made out with her in semi-public (my first makeout ever!) I’m almost certain we would have fucked had the logistics been better.

But this didn’t last forever.

New girls started showing slight disinterest. They werent submitting as easily. They tested more.

A huge crack in my mental frame appeared every time this happened. One crack at a time my powers slowly started to drain away until I was even worse than I was before I got them.

————————————————————


As a beginner at something that benefits from a good self image, creating a “Too-Godly” self image will eventually crash you. You cant keep it up since you lack expertise.

You should also avoid a bad self image like “I’m a guy trying to get girls” because thats still implying that you dont get girls, which will make you reek of neediness.

And you also cant give yourself too much credit and prompt yourself with “I’m a guy that girls are automatically attracted to”. Because then that demotivates you from working on things like posture, eye contact, and facial expressions that help you become that guy that girls are attracted to.

It’s a Catch-22.

So my question is:

What prompt do you guys use for self-image that builds your frame, while at the same time makes it so you’re getting ACTUAL experience instead of just making you confident?

I’d appreciate answers from anybody! I’d love yalls thoughts

 

[Skills]

You can have the best self image there is but if you dont have the outer game (field tested strategies), then is going to incomplete you need both... that is why even when your self image was good but no strategies, you were not getting results, after you started field testing some strategies you got spme success...i personally dont use affirmations or prompts so cant help you there.. tyler rsd, julien and ijjjji were big on this... they would look at the mirror and spent time talking to mirror about how sexy they are etc... similar to what you do...

 

[breathe311]

Awesome to hear your success, @Kaida . You put out the right vibes and look where it got you. I believe in the Law of Attraction and most importantly:
“The Secret” is simply the “law of attraction.” Essentially, the law of attraction states that whatever consumes your thoughts is what you will eventually get in life. So, if you think of all the things you don't want in your life, you'll only get the things you don't want.

The Secret is also a self-help book containing a lot of stories on the workings of the Law of Attraction. The book claims that we can change our circumstances just by changing our thoughts.

 

[Kaida]

You can have the best self image there is but if you dont have the outer game (field tested strategies), then is going to incomplete you need both...

Absolutely agree. Visualizing yourself writing perfect code will not automatically give you those skills. You still gotta practice.

that is why even when your self image was good but no strategies, you were not getting results, after you started field testing some strategies you got spme success...

True. But it was weird cuz like I wasn’t conciously using those strategies. Like my mind just started using them on its own after I read about them.

...i personally dont use affirmations or prompts so cant help you there.. tyler rsd, julien and ijjjji were big on this... they would look at the mirror and spent time talking to mirror about how sexy they are etc... similar to what you do...

How did you apply the concepts from Psycho-Cybernetics then? Did you meditate and visualize and stuff

 

[Skills]

How did you apply the concepts from Psycho-Cybernetics then? Did you meditate and visualize and stuff

I just internalized it, i have been gaming all my life kaida, i am 2.5 times your age, so is different, again i don't do visualizations, affirmations etc... so i would be kj... I am sure there may be a poster or to that does this... I know @Beam does visualizations lost a girlfriend cause she saw in his board girls, and got pissed lol... Maybe @Beam can chime in..

 

[TestY]

Good question. The inner game of identity change was a major focus of the Natural Freedom pickup forum as well. They call it the "indifference community" of game. Guys like Brent Smith, Cory Skyy and a guy called Jake.

One guy wrote a book called "The Cure: Secrets everyone should know to become immediately successful with women", which is about applying Maxwell Maltz' Psycho Cybernetics to dating.

To your question: if we assert that the outside world is a certain way, this can lead to some discouragement when it doesn't live up to it. We can get around that by focusing on our own character traits. Example: we focus on developing confidence or being charismatic, rather than affirming that "all girls like me". Some quotes from "The Cure":

I started visualizing for a half hour a day, and it as really tough at the beginning. Your brain just doesn't let you have it that easy. But day after day, I could visualize sharper, "feel" it more, and eventually I could see it in my mind. They talk about "mental movies", this was it. I would imagine me being good with girls, acting cool, talking to them, being in control, having fun, that irresistible smirk, slight cockiness.

I was noticing dramatic improvements in my results and within about 60 days, I would go out, and women would stare at me . Women would literally get nervous just taking to me. They just loved my new attitude. This was not normal for me. When I talked to women, they would give me signals to take them home almost without me doing anything. Girls were calling me several times a day

At first, these ideas will seem like a fantasy, but as you play with them they’ll soon turn into theory, and as you go over them some more, they’ll literally turn into fact.

When it comes to having a flexible and realistic self-image, I think asserting that "you are confident", still allows for development of skills, and one could even visualize the behavior to make it more skillful. However, if you want to go deeper into the rabbit hole of self-image, you might want to check out NLPer Steve Andreas' "Transforming yourself". It covers how to build a healthy and realistic self-image that also allows for and accounts for mistakes, failure etc. I quote:

Using Mistakes
Your mistakes can make your self-concept stronger and more accurate. How you represent counter examples to a quality has a major impact on how you think of yourself and how you behave. Having no counter examples makes the quality less real. It can also create an impossibly high standard, and make someone resistant to feedback. Denying imperfections leads to the shadow self and an all or nothing approach (I am either totally good or bad). Flipping from a positive to a negative database of examples is very common. Having too many counter examples or ones that are too large or prominent on the other hand can weaken or overwhelm the other examples.

 

[Kaida]

Good question. The inner game of identity change was a major focus of the Natural Freedom pickup forum as well. They call it the "indifference community" of game. Guys like Brent Smith, Cory Skyy and a guy called Jake.

One guy wrote a book called "The Cure: Secrets everyone should know to become immediately successful with women", which is about applying Maxwell Maltz' Psycho Cybernetics to dating.

To your question: if we assert that the outside world is a certain way, this can lead to some discouragement when it doesn't live up to it. We can get around that by focusing on our own character traits. Example: we focus on developing confidence or being charismatic, rather than affirming that "all girls like me". Some quotes from "The Cure":





When it comes to having a flexible and realistic self-image, I think asserting that "you are confident", still allows for development of skills, and one could even visualize the behavior to make it more skillful. However, if you want to go deeper into the rabbit hole of self-image, you might want to check out NLPer Steve Andreas' "Transforming yourself". It covers how to build a healthy and realistic self-image that also allows for and accounts for mistakes, failure etc. I quote:

Amazing bro! This was literally exactly what I was looking for.

Definitely checking this out man I appreciate it.

 

[MarioTheDom]

"One guy wrote a book called "The Cure: Secrets everyone should know to become immediately successful with women", which is about applying Maxwell Maltz' Psycho Cybernetics to dating."

Reference to a 2010 book, damn solid memory my man

Anyway, most of Maxwell Maltz work is a bit outdated because it has been built upon it, although the fundamentals are still true.

You have to sit down and figure out what works for you

 

[Kaida]

I started visualizing for a half hour a day, and it as really tough at the beginning. Your brain just doesn't let you have it that easy. But day after day, I could visualize sharper, "feel" it more, and eventually I could see it in my mind. They talk about "mental movies", this was it. I would imagine me being good with girls, acting cool, talking to them, being in control, having fun, that irresistible smirk, slight cockiness.

I was noticing dramatic improvements in my results and within about 60 days, I would go out, and women would stare at me . Women would literally get nervous just taking to me. They just loved my new attitude. This was not normal for me. When I talked to women, they would give me signals to take them home almost without me doing anything. Girls were calling me several times a day

Upon further thinking, I feel like imagining yourself being good with girls to get good with them will still eventually crash, because its still reliant on their reactions to stay solid.

This would work very well if you were already a skilled seducer, but if you’re a beginner it can hinder you from making progress.

There may be a way to benefit even more, but I’m thinking that visualizing yourself having sexy qualities like confidence, non-neediness, and calmness despite good or bad reactions from women would be the way to get the most out of self image while still making progress. Visualizing some minor losses might help in the long run

You’ll be calibrating to get better results while having good beliefs about yourself.

Example: we focus on developing confidence or being charismatic, rather than affirming that "all girls like me".

While visualizing yourself being charismatic may help you develop the confidence charisma needs, the reality is that charisma is a learned skill, and is based on the reactions of the people around you.

Someone who goes into a room full of people genuinely believing he’s the most charismatic man on Earth, but then gets rejected called weird by everyone will immediately have his self image shattered.

That will not happen with someone who tells himself he is confident, because you can be rejected by the entire world and still be a confident man. That’s really where creating a good self image shines.

 

[TestY]

Kaida said: Someone who goes into a room full of people genuinely believing he’s the most charismatic man on Earth, but then gets rejected called weird by everyone will immediately have his self image shattered.

True - as I said:

if we assert that the outside world is a certain way, this can lead to some discouragement when it doesn't live up to it. We can get around that by focusing on our own character traits.

When it comes to developing charisma, that depends on how you interpret that term. By focusing on being charismatic, I'm referring to what the author of the book mentioned described as: "being good with girls, acting cool, talking to them, being in control, having fun, that irresistible smirk, slight cockiness." One could experiment with different approaches, but I don't think the Cure's approach crashes. Maxwell Maltz describes one way to do this:

The next important thing to remember is that during these 30 minutes you see yourself acting and reacting appropriately, successfully, ideally. It doesn't matter how you acted yesterday. You do not need to try to have faith you will act in the ideal way tomorrow. Your nervous system will take care of that in time-if you continue to practice. See yourself acting, feeling, being as you want to · be. Do not say to yourself, "I am going to act· this way tomorrow." Just say to yourself, "I am going to imagine myself acting this way now-for 30 minutes today." Imagine how you would feel if you were already the sort of personality you want to be

If you want to go deeper into the rabbit hole, you could look into Neville - his teachings include reactions without crashing. You can do that through a technique called "revision", and through "ignoring the 3D" - prioritizing the world of forms, to use platonic language. This is easier if you shift your metaphysical view of reality from an Aristotelian to a Platonic view of the world.

 

[TestY]

"One guy wrote a book called "The Cure: Secrets everyone should know to become immediately successful with women", which is about applying Maxwell Maltz' Psycho Cybernetics to dating."

Reference to a 2010 book, damn solid memory my man

Anyway, most of Maxwell Maltz work is a bit outdated because it has been built upon it, although the fundamentals are still true.

You have to sit down and figure out what works for you

Yes, I would agree that Maxwell Maltz' isn't necessarily the cream of the crop. Steve Andreas' work might be closer to that, although Maltz does have some strengths that Steve Andreas doesn't have - especially the quick change through daily visualization and immersion. The community guys like Cory Skyy, Brent Smith et al mostly don't improve much on Maltz, even if their stuff is more targeted towards dating. Another modern and promising approach is Todd Herman's "The Alter ego effect" [2019].

In my opinion, some of the most powerful works on identity change through visualizations and affirmations were written in the early 1900s. It comes from the "New thought" movement which was inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson's applied idealist platonism. For those of a scholarly bent, I can recommend checking out Platonistic Virtue Ethics by Sophie Grace Chappell [2014]. An example of this early 1900s New thought is William Atkinson's work. He described the process of "thought absorption" nicely, in his "Thought Force in Business and Everyday Life" [1900]:

"4. Having obtained the proper conditions of bodily and mental relaxation, fix your thought firmly, calmly and steadily upon the word "FEARLESS," letting its outward form sink into your mind, as they dive into the wax. Give yourself up to the thought and the word. Then think of the meaning of the word, the characteristics of a person possessing that, quality, etc.

5. Form the mental picture of yourself possessed of the desired quality, act it out in your mind, as in a dream; think of yourself doing certain things by reason of the possession of the woman, you being possessed of the desired quality. In short, indulge in a pleasant "day dream," having for its theme your possession of the quality desired. Give your imagination full sway, merely insisting upon it sticking to the text, and it's always showing you successful the scenes and occurrences of the dream.

Repeat these exercises as often as possible. It is like the dripping of the water on the stone. The repeated thought takes root and grows rapidly.

One could change the word "FEARLESS" into another quality, like confidence, etc, and thereby contemplate it as a "platonic form", making the ideal real... He recommends implementing these qualities: Energy, Ambition, Determination, Courage, Confidence, Perseverance, Patience, Prudence.

 

[MarioTheDom]

Steve Andreas' work might be closer to that

You literally read my mind lol - his cover book is a piece of fantastic art work that is my phone screen saver

 

[TheEcho]

A little thing I've been experimenting with lately is instead of full on nofap, I just do noporn and restrict myself to visualizing girls I see day to day. It was pretty difficult at the start to visualize doing stuff to them, but it's gotten easier. I hold a high standard for the visualization and imagine things I know I like/do in real life and it seems to be giving me an unexpected sense of outcome independence.

 

[TestY]

You literally read my mind lol - his cover book is a piece of fantastic art work that is my phone screen saver

Yea, I did indeed mention him in my initial response to Kaida, although his work typically has to be implemented over a longer period of time - it's typical to be trained for up to two years in that approach for a complete overhaul of one's self-concept, and it requires more thought and commitment than Maxwell's approach. For most guys, I'd recommend Maxwell Maltz' stuff above and beyond Steve Andreas'.

 

[MarioTheDom]

I would say probably the best "quick" inner game book is mind over mood that offer ways to integrate things better instead of just being "wah wah wah"

 

[TestY]

I would say probably the best "quick" inner game book is mind over mood that offer ways to integrate things better instead of just being "wah wah wah"

Yes, a cognitive-behavioral DIY-approach does have its benefits. Although I personally prefer the Hypno-CBT modality. It combines visualization practice as per Maxwell Maltz with CBT-techniques. Treatment is usually brief - ranging from 2 to 6 sessions. UK Hypnosis writes:

an influential meta-analysis carried out in 1995 by Irvine Kirsch et al. Kirsch’s research team pooled data from 18 separate controlled studies, including 577 participants, comparing the efficacy of cognitive-behavioural hypnotherapy to CBT alone.

Daniel Robertson has written a practical guide to this approach, and is famous for integrating Hypno-CBT with the roots of CBT: Stoicism. You could even say he combines Platonic imagination and Stoic disputation. They have yearly free courses with handbooks. Another option is this DIY-book.

 

[Kaida]

A little thing I've been experimenting with lately is instead of full on nofap, I just do noporn and restrict myself to visualizing girls I see day to day. It was pretty difficult at the start to visualize doing stuff to them, but it's gotten easier. I hold a high standard for the visualization and imagine things I know I like/do in real life and it seems to be giving me an unexpected sense of outcome independence.

Crazy coincidence because that is word for word what I’ve been doing for the past week

My goals are more geared towards rewiring myself to feel more sexual emotions with real life women, cuz I remember seeing @Will_V say somewhere that seduction is by example. Cant lead by example if you don’t have the emotions.

Porn robbed me of some of the raw in-person sexual emotions I used to feel so I cut it out. Its pretty successful so far I’d say but still not where I want it.

 

[Rakehell]

Maybe instead of looking for things to add to your self image, look for things that take away from it. In the form of unproductive limiting beliefs, i.e: “im weird/creepy/too old” whatever fits the mold.

Things that stop you from taking a certain action. Sometimes it can even be seemingly good things, “im too cool”, “she needs to call me first”, “im an alpha alphas dont do that”.

Things that seem like productive things for your sense of confidence but take you off the right track in certain situations. In the same vein even seemingly negative things we tell ourselves can spur us into greater action because they’re a product of high self esteem, but low confidence.

“im not good enough” , “i need to do better”

 

[TestY]

Maybe instead of looking for things to add to your self image, look for things that take away from it. In the form of unproductive limiting beliefs, i.e: “im weird/creepy/too old” whatever fits the mold.

Things that stop you from taking a certain action. Sometimes it can even be seemingly good things, “im too cool”, “she needs to call me first”, “im an alpha alphas dont do that”.

Things that seem like productive things for your sense of confidence but take you off the right track in certain situations. In the same vein even seemingly negative things we tell ourselves can spur us into greater action because they’re a product of high self esteem, but low confidence.

“im not good enough” , “i need to do better”

You raise an interesting point. For some sticky issues it might be best to "remove the bad" before "adding in the good". Macavity in the old RSD forum posted a megapost back in 2016 on overcoming emotional issues. As we know, Former RSD-coach Julien Blanc has a similar program in his "Transformation mastery". Steve Andreas' self-concept model addresses this as well; how to "transform a negative quality".

The new thought guys and its modernizers like Maxwell Maltz use a different approach: in this model you transform a negative quality by asserting/visualizing its opposite. In other words: one doesn't let the limiting beliefs stick around, one directly challenges them through asserting the opposite quality. In the more esoteric New thought-works, they explain it in terms of transmutation:

And it is this fact that enables the Hermetist to transmute one mental state into another, along the lines of Polarization. Things belonging to different classes cannot be transmuted into each other, but things of the same class may be changed, that is, may have their polarity changed. Thus Love never becomes East or West, or Red or Violet–but it may and often does turn into Hate–and likewise Hate may be transformed into Love, by changing its polarity. Courage may be transmuted into Fear, and the reverse. Hard things may be rendered Soft. Dull things become Sharp. Hot things become Cold. And so on, the transmutation always being between things of the same kind of different degrees. Take the case of a Fearful man. By raising his mental vibrations along the line of Fear-Courage, he can be filled with the highest degree of Courage and Fearlessness. And, likewise, the Slothful man may change himself into an Active, Energetic individual, simply by polarizing along the lines of the desired quality

 

[Rakehell]

Thanks for the pieces of history @TestY

Personally i’m only interested in state control of the practical sense at this point. I cant help but feel like concepts like “god mode” or unshakeable senses of confidence are a form of mental masturbation.

I’ll be the first to admit despite being overall successful, I still have moments of doubt, and likewise moments of overconfidence. I’m sure other people here will relate to that.

It’s something you experience in your own head, it changes your perception of objective reality, and causes cherry picking of positive/negative information from the environment. Which can easily lead to mis-calibration if you aren’t aware.

Overall your skill level stays the same, but you’ll be doing the same things either confidently or unconfidently. And perceiving the environment based on wherever your headspace is at.

When you’re feeling on top of the world, a smile means “she wants me”, when you’re feeling 6 feet under that same smile means “shes laughing at me”.

It’s practical in the sense of changing things that inhibit you from taking a certain action when you should. Or things that provoke you into taking actions that you shouldn’t have, because of your overblown sense of confidence/un-confidence in the moment.

In those moments it’s absolutely something you should think about. Moments where you’re on the extremes of either side.

Likewise it’s more times than not better to project the image of confidence than to project the image of someone who is unconfident. But whether or not you always feel confident internally fades away from importance after a while.

It’s only mostly important to you. Being able to act, keep a cool head, and assess your environment accurately when you need to, is all that matters.