“Psycho-Cybernetics”, Maxwell Maltz, 1960, ISBN 0671700758, a good read.

Teachers and parents understand the terms ‘conscious mind’ and ‘subconscious mind’. In Maltz’s interpretation, your conscious mind dictates your actions. It stimulates your fight or flight responses, and guides you through your day-to-day activities.

Subconscious mind

In contrast, your subconscious mind is the real you. It does not guide your actions directly, but it creates your personality and sets the limits to your achievements. Many students encounter learning problems in their school/university career. And no matter how many different strategies they try, or ground breaking seminars they attend, the issues remain.

They are mystified as to why other students, in the same situation can gain immediate and outstanding results.

Your subconscious mind – solution

There is no mystery behind this dilemma. The solution is simple. A student will achieve exactly what he/she expects to achieve. To achieve success, the student has to first convince their subconscious mind that they are able to do so. Thus, the first step to success for any student in any endeavour is to achieve success in their sub-conscious mind. Visualising success is not a motivational technique.

There is a popular misconception that motivation is the driving force to success. However, motivation only goes so far. A student may study conscientiously 12 hours a day, seven days a week and still fail. In this regard, motivation could be deemed a failure.

The difference between motivation and Psycho-Cybernetics is the part of our mind that we use.

Motivation is a function our conscious mind. We consciously decide to act, do, struggle and achieve. However, our conscious mind is often in doubt as to which direction we should be following. e.g. We may be making great time heading north along Midland Highway. But this will be of scant reward if our destination is in a different direction.

Psycho-Cybernetics uses the power of subconscious mind, the part that scientists now believe holds up to 90% of our mental capacities. A student’s ultimate success is dependent on their created perception held in their sub-conscious mind.