Of the many thousands of attitude patterns which you have acquired or developed through the years, some are clearly related to your "self." What kind of person are you? What abilities do you have? How well do you use those abilities? What do you like to do? Are you patient, warm, understanding, enthusiastic? In hundreds of interrelated areas you have developed "truths" about yourself, each a combination of information and feeling. . That part of your "REALITY" structure—your self image—is the core of the entire system, certainly the most important complex of attitudes which you have built into your mental processes.
Yet this vital central image or concept, like every- thing else in your "REALITY" structure, is both in- complete and inaccurate! You do not know all that there is to know about yourself, and you never will. No matter how much time and effort you spend studying your physical and mental systems, there will always be more to learn. What you do (or will) know about your- self is distorted. The thought processes which have built,
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strengthened, and adjusted the self image have not re- corded a completely accurate impression of the real you. You have been recording—for future reference— what you have been thinking and feeling about yourself, and sometimes that has been very different from what was really happening.
Can you identify some of the self-talk you have men- tally digested over the years which has related directly to you? What are some of the three-dimensional thought processes (words, experiences, and emotions) which have built incomplete and distorted patterns about you which are now a part of your "truth" system? How about some of these:
• Well, some people have artistic talent and some don't. I guess when they were handing out the artistic abilities I just got passed by. I can't draw a straight line!
Why am I so clumsy? I always seem to goof every- thing up.
• Me, run for office in our club? You've got to be kidding. That would involve standing up in front of people and speaking. I can't even lead a group in silent prayer!
She has such good taste in clothes. I wish that I did.
• Oh, I've always had a terrible temper. I guess it's the Irish in me.
• As soon as he walked in I recognized him, but I couldn't think of his name no matter how hard I tried. I really have a lousy memory!
Can you see how the words trigger the experiences and the emotional response? You can almost feel the rock clunking into place.
Check out some of the other self-talk that you have been progamming into your self image. Take a few minutes to challenge the "truths" about you which you have been reaffirming and reinforcing. Are they accurate representations of your true talent and abilities—your real potential?
Notice that in some cases the self-talk may have changed from an honest expression of emotional dis- comfort to a more "rational" explanation. Instead of, "I
feel afraid when I stand up in front of a lot of people to make a speech," you may find yourself thinking, "I just don't have any ability in that area."
The tragedy is that over a period of time, with con- tinued repetition of that sort of self-talk, you will come to believe what you have been telling yourself. You get to the point where you "know" that you were shorted in the original manufacturing process, and if that is the "truth" of the matter, then it would certainly be a waste of time to take a public-speaking course or join the Toastmasters Club.
The clincher will be, "I can't help it. That's just the way I am!" Or, "I wish I could get up in front of people and give a speech." Either of these thought sequences will lock up whatever potential may exist by making it seem impossible that any change could be made—-unless there's a miracle!
Potential
What You Know About Yourself 109
As you review some of your favorite self-talk exer- cises—about your self—notice that many are quite posi- tive. Look at the difference in your behavior—and achievement—in those areas of your life in which you have formed the habit of .positive self-talk.
Your self-image is a composite of many, many atti- tude structures—each of which is a combination of what you "know" and how you feel about that aspect of your- self.
This simplified diagram may help you to visualize the relationship between the self-image, behavior, and your potential. In each sector you have adopted a "truth" about yourself, complete with an emotional pattern about that "truth." Your potential is probably far greater in each area than you have realized.
That is not necessarily the case, however. It is possible for a person to have adopted a self-image in a particular area which is greater than the actual potential which that person possesses. I am sure that you have known people, for example, who were sure that they were fine singers, but they couldn't carry a tune if their lives de- pended upon it. They had a physical impairment which simply made it impossible for them to detect the dif- ference between adjacent tones on a scale. But their "REALITY" was that they were very good harmonizers, and whenever a group started to sing they always joined in!
While that kind of situation can, and does, happen, it is much more rare than the reverse. Most of the time people have a great deal more potential than they recog- nize and accept, and that is the primary direction with which we will be working. The important point is that you do not tend to behave on the basis of your potential.
You tend to behave in a manner that is consistent with your self image. You tend to act like your "self." Picture this as though you had a regulating mechanism within your mental processes which functions very much like a thermostat. This is your Effectiveness Regulator.
Instead of a temperature setting, the Effectiveness Regulator has your self-image as the standard or con- trolling input. Then, just as the thermostat functions to keep the heat level in the room within a range of the
temperature setting, the Effectiveness Regulator tends to keep your behavior within a range of the self-image setting.
In nearly every area of your system, there is more potential than you are using. You do not behave in accordance with the potential that you have—you behave in accordance with your "REALITY" about yourself. The vertical scale on our Regulator diagram which represents your potential is constantly changing. As you acquire additional information or skill—take a golf les- son or learn how to close a sale—your potential in- creases. That doesn't necessarily mean that you will behave more effectively; it just means that the informa- tion part of your potential package has been expanded. As the years go by, your potential may diminish in cer- tain areas because the original physical equipment is be- ginning to wear out.
Our concern is with the degree to which you are using
whatever potential you possess right now in a particular area. You may also want to increase that potential, but let's see how the Effectiveness Regulator works.
With a thermostat, when the temperature in the room gets to the edge of the thermal range, an electrical signal is sent to the furnace or the air-conditioner to turn on or off. Then, as the temperature in the room changes, those electrical signals continue to respond to the changes and keep the temperature within the range.
Instead of electrical signals, your Effectiveness Regu- lator uses tension signals to keep you within the Com- fort Zone. As your behavior gets close to the edge of that zone, you begin to feel uncomfortable, uneasy. Things are not happening the way that they are supposed to happen. The discrepancy between what you are ob- serving and the way that you expect yourself to behave in such situations creates tension within your system.
To the degree that your behavior deviates from the Comfort Zone, you tend to want to "get back to acting like yourself."
It's easy to see the Regulator at work in the life of a golfer. If you play that game you may be able to empa- thize with a golfing friend of mine. Jerry enjoys the game, most of the time. He plays at least once a week, sometimes more often than that. And for a long time he has been shooting in the mid-nineties. On a particularly good day he might come in with a ninety-one, or occa- sionally he will barely break one hundred.
Over a period of time Jerry has begun to think of himself as a mid-nineties golfer. His self-talk process re- affirms that "truth" at every opportunity. It has be- come a very real part of his self-image, and the setting on his golfing Effectiveness Regulator.
If you were to watch Jerry play a game of golf, you would sense immediately that he has the potential to be a much better player. He has the physical equipment that he needs. He has taken many lessons from the club professional and has spent hours on the driving range practicing what he has learned. And he is certainly highly motivated to get his score down.
You can see the potential breaking through from time to time as Jerry plays. Sometimes his drives are straight, long, climbing beauties—right down the middle of the fairway. Sometimes his approach shots have just the right loft and back-spin to land on the green and stop near the cup. And sometimes he putts like a professional.
But not always.
If Jerry starts his game well, using the knowledge and skills he has acquired in a natural, free-flowing manner, he might finish the first nine holes with a 44. But then, as he tallies up his score for the first half of his game, what do you suppose his reaction is?
"Wow! If I keep on playing like that for the back nine I'll have the best score I've ever had!"
Then, instead of continuing to play in a relaxed, effec- tive way, Jerry will "try hard" to hit the ball well. On the last half of his game he will have a score of 51. Back in his Comfort Zone!
Another day the same principle might apply to Jerry's game in the other direction. If he has a score of fifty-one on the first nine holes, he will nearly always "settle down" and play a better game on the second half. By the time
he gets back to the clubhouse, his score is nearly always in the mid-90s. Then his self-talk goes to work again to reaffirm his self image: "No matter how I play, I seem to end up in the mid-90s."
If he does get out of his Comfort Zone with an eighty- eight (or a hundred and one) he is quite naturally in- clined to see that score as a fluke, an exception to his "normal" game.
Does this mean that Jerry is inevitably destined to stay in the mid-nineties? Of course not! It just means that the natural tendency of the system is to continue to reinforce existing attitudes, and to behave in a manner that is consistent with those attitudes. Getting out of the ruts is possible—even easy—but it requires an under- standing of the system and some consciously directed effort to change the setting on the Regulator.
Here's another example of the Regulator at work— this time with a professional salesperson.
Marty has been with his company for five years. His monthly sales volume hovers around $10,000 per month; With a commission percentage of 20 per cent, that gives him an income of about $2,000 monthly. With all sorts of "logic," Marty has "made up his mind" that he is a $2,000 a month salesperson. He has a great deal more potential than that (which gives his sales manager a constant feeling of frustration!) but even with the fluctu- ations of season and the economy, his sales volume stays within a pretty narrow range. Automatically, his system does whatever is necessary to keep him acting like himself.
Then one month a lot of proposals that Marty has been working on result in sales all at once. His gross pro- duction for the month adds up to $18,500 and his com- mission check for $3,700 is the biggest monthly check he's ever received!
Now what happens? I expect we would all like to think that Marty's reaction will be, "Well, now that I know that it is possible, I'll sell that much every month." Wouldn't it be nice if he just accepts that as his new standard and continues to produce at the higher level?
without exception, is that Marty will spend the next couple of months "correcting for the error."
He will get his files in order, do some research at the library, re-work his sales presentation( the one that just made him more money than he has ever made before), or spend a lot of time calling on unlikely prospects. One very common action which will get him back into his Comfort Zone is to take a "well-earned" vacation. After all, if he earned all that money he must have been work- ing terribly hard. How else could he have produced such extraordinary volume?
Marty's sales for the next few months will be some- what below his normal level, and he will very likely end up the year with earnings of about $24,000.
Won't that excellent month have some effect on Marty's image? Of course. But we cannot predict that effect with any certainty. Remember that the only event which ever
has a direct effect on Marty's self image is Marty's own conscious level self-talk process. It is not what is hap- pening with his sales, but what he is thinking and feeling about what he perceives to be happening that will change the self image.
He may reinforce the already existing image by seeing the excellent month as an exception to his normal pro- duction, or he might see it as progress toward a more consistent use of his potential. Which direction his think- ing takes—and the degree to which it will move in that direction—will be a function of how strongly attached he is to his present "REALITY."
Unless Marty understands some of the principles we are exploring together in this book, it is very likely that as he associates the outstanding monthly performance with his existing "REALITY"—the "truth" which he has developed and accepted about his sales ability—he will find some "reasons" why it happened which have little or nothing to do with his professional ability. He knows it won't last, and sure enough, it doesn't!
The Effectiveness Regulator concept helps to explain why "will power" is so ineffective and sometimes de- structive. Will power is the teeth-gritting, fist-clenching, determined effort to change one's behavior—the de- liberate, conscious attempt to move outside the Com- fort Zone. Of course it is possible to do that. You do have the capacity to act in a manner that is not "like you." But the tension that kind of action produces within your system is very uncomfortable, and the net result of the self-talk which is stimulated by that discomfort will probably be to lower the self-image setting on the Regulator.
If you have a negative attitude about buttermilk, you can exercise your will power and force yourself to drink a glassful. That is certainly not your "normal" behavior with respect to buttermilk, but you can do it. But, after it is gone, do you suppose that you will like it any better? That will depend upon how negative your attitude was before you drank the glassful, won't it?
If the scale was tipped pretty far toward the negative 116
side, you will find yourself wondering why you are doing this, and with each sip you will reaffirm the "truth" that "buttermilk is awful!"
Trying hard to behave differently doesn't work. In fact, it may even have a backlash effect. If you want to get the temperature to a higher level in the room that you are in right now, it doesn't make a lot of sense to leave the thermostat set where it is and build a fire in the fireplace. The thermostat, sensing the temperature rise from the fire, will send a signal to the air conditioner to turn on. Then you will have cold air coming from the ducts in the wall and hot air from the fireplace—a very inefficient conflict in the system. It would be a lot simpler to just change the setting on the thermostat to a warmer level and let the automatic mechanism work for you.
With the Effectiveness Regulator, too, it is much easier and more efficient to simply adjust the setting than to try hard to change your behavior.
ALL LASTING, CONSTRUCTIVE CHANGE IN HUMAN BEHAVIOR STARTS
ON THE INSIDE—WITH A CHANGED IMAGE OF "REALITY"!