Last Part

So let me ask you this. What is your attitude towards people who are better than you in certain areas of your life? How do you feel towards people who are more attractive than you? How do you feel towards people who are your superiors at work? Do you feel inferior to them? Do you feel they are better than you? Do you need to “pull” them down from their podium by criticizing? Or do you become inspired, excited, and thrilled to see their successes?

I hope you have very deeply thought about and answered each one of those questions. If you rushed through the questions, go back and take your time to think and relive relevant experiences. Think deeply about it!

I often see unsuccessful, unhappy, and miserable people criticizing others who are more happy and successful. It is disgusting to see this happen. The criticizers are no better or inferior than those they are criticizing. A young person achieves a goal at a much younger age than a miserable older person who criticizes how “bad”, “wrong”, and “mistaken” the young achiever is. It is absolutely disgusting to see someone attempt to pull another person down because of personal insecurities.

A great test to see how secure and confident a person is can be conducted by complimenting a person who is more successful than your “test subject” in an area you feel they may act inferior. For example, if I wanted to see how confident a lady is about her looks, I could compliment a more attractive lady on how her hair brings out her positive features. If the lady is insecure, she would likely find something wrong with the lady and follow up my comments with something like “… but look at her shoes. Ugh. She’s got no fashion sense.” Not an attractive quality to have at all.

Cultural Cringe

The cultural cringe is an interesting area of the inferiority complex where people feel inferior due to their culture. It could be because of genetic appearance, pronunciation of words, or other areas of the human body that vary between cultures. I believe this to be common in middle eastern countries where terrorist activities have hurt how other countries perceive these cultures. These middle easterners are likely to experience the cultural cringe because they feel inferior due to someone like their own – Osama Bin Laden – being associated with their culture.

A few days ago I came across a lady who was experiencing the cultural cringe about her physical form. She was saying how much she wished she could look like an Asian lady. She complained about the features of her body being different and unusual. She hated her self-image and loved how others in Asian cultures looked. Her idea that other cultures are better than hers made her feel inferior.

These feelings of inferiority hurt you by damaging how you communicate with yourself and others. You will hate certain people, cultures, situations, and events because of the cultural cringe. Your subconscious will be so poisoned with imaginary beliefs that are powerful enough to destroy your happiness, relationships, and overall success in life.

Superiority Complex?

The superiority complex is a feeling of superiority over other people. Back to the scenario where Sally is in a room full of successful executives, if Sally had a superiority complex or attempted to feel superior, then she would criticize the executives to “pull-down” their status in an effort to make herself feel better. Another form of the superiority complex is demonstrated when Sally could try to “lift” her status by portraying how better she is than the executives. Both of these poor techniques in “overcoming” the inferiority complex attempt to lift her status but fail to do so. Let me explain.

A common technique people use to “overcome” their inferiority complex is to make themselves feel superior. I frequently thought this was the solution to overcoming feelings of inferiority and still, ashamedly, catch myself trying to feel superior. I think you will never completely remove thoughts of inferiority. You just need to develop a positive self image and keep a negative self-image that tries to enter your life at bay. It would be humanly impossible otherwise.

People attempt and fail to overcome feelings of inferiority by becoming superior. They “overcome” inferior feelings by making themselves feel better than other people. Many people do not understand that this solution is a temporary patch on a large wound. It takes most people an experience of significance superiority (such as achieving a desired goal you felt inferior about like earning a million dollars or being popular with the opposite sex) to realize that they still feel inferior.

A temporary patch to solve the inferiority complex is to make yourself feel superior.

Let’s face it, I think we have all fallen into the same trap. We think that to overcome our feeling of inferiority we must feel superior. This ultimately only leads to more frustration and inferiority. I can guarantee you this. If you must feel superior than you are still comparing yourself to the false measuring stick you used to judge yourself when you were inferior.

Once you perceive yourself to be superior, you will be constantly searching for validation from other people to prove to yourself that you are still superior. You will likely be a person who thrives off attention and perhaps are someone who is needy. If you are put out of place by being ignored and made to feel less superior, you will attempt to grab back your “non-existent podium” of superiority by criticizing others and using behaviors to lift your own status.

If a person’s need to compete against another is driven from the person’s insecurity to feel superior, does a superiority complex actually exist? I think it does exist but an inferiority complex can be used to explain someone with a superiority complex.

You are You

A secret to overcoming the inferiority complex is accepting you are who you are. I’m certain you would have heard people say to “Just be yourself”. I think that is awful advice. If you continue to be yourself then you will continue to have poor habits, thoughts, feelings, and results.

Being yourself is completely different than accepting that you are unique. A guy who knows he is unique is still able to grow as a person and “not be himself”. He will continue to always be unique no matter what he does.

So hopefully now you accept you are a unique individual but I am willing to bet that you do not believe it. I’m guessing you consciously accept your uniqueness but you are still comparing yourself to the false measuring stick that causes inferiority. By measuring yourself against these mystical standards, you are likely to not be accepting of your uniqueness.

Next time you feel inferior, I want you to challenge those thoughts and find out why exactly you feel inferior. Having done so, acknowledge that the people you are measuring yourself against are not the true measuring stick. You are you. What you need to do is compare yourself with who you were.

If you are shy in conversations then don’t compare yourself to the extrovert, blabbermouth, social butterfly who won’t shut the heck up. Compare your present shyness to your shyness one month ago. Derive satisfaction from knowing that you are becoming a better person. No one will have experienced the same situations, people, events, thoughts, and feelings that erected your feelings of inferiority. There are so many variables that make you unique: family, friends, co-workers, upbringing, and the list goes on. It is foolish to compare yourself to others.

Know that you don’t need to arrive at your goal to enjoy yourself. You can enjoy the journey in knowing that you are making progression and becoming more confident. In doing so, you are able to accept your uniqueness.

About 90% of people have the inferiority complex so our perceived standard is a joke! You should be able to see how silly we are to compare ourselves against these false measurements. You are not inferior or superior to anyone – nor is anyone inferior or superior to you. We all are ourselves. You are you and our friend Sally is Sally. Remaining different and not complying to “standards” (which 90% of the population don’t fit in. Ha!  ) is a part of the secret in overcoming the inferiority complex.

Self-image

To overcome your inferiority complex you need to change your self-image. The self-image is how you perceive yourself. It is a mental picture of who you are. It does not have to be truth as we’ve seen in the inferiority complex where you are not necessarily inferior. The self-image is the image of yourself that you hold in your mind.

The great Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of Psycho-cybernetics, was a plastic surgeon in the mid 1900s. He operated on many individuals who felt inferior due to their “unusual” looks. Most of the individuals did not at all look unusual as it was their self-image that blew their little differences out of proportion. They had used their creative imagination to create a dangerously false understanding of what they looked like.

The doctor had operated on many people who despite after the plastic surgery, still felt a feeling of inferiority. They would come back to him requesting more surgery seeking to look exactly like famous individuals. He would again operate on them and still only to have the individuals dissatisfied with their appearance.

For some of his patients, this was not the case. Some individuals’ feeling of inferiority would disappear after plastic surgery while others had their emotional scars cured without ever having to undergo surgery. This made Dr. Maxwell Maltz very curious. He wondered why people who had their “outer scars” healed like facial deformities still had “inner scars” like feelings of inferiority. From his research emerged modern self-help psychology. He is the founder of visualization, creative imagination, self-talk, and changing the self-image.

Unfortunately, anorexics have a really distorted self-image. Their obsessive compulsion to lose weight cannot be logically understood. They can be on the brink of death from starvation and still perceive themselves to be fat. Those who have never directly experienced such a situation will often fail to understand how this can be true. It is a very hard disease to grasp your mind around if you have not directly experienced such a horrific situation.

A teenage girl with anorexia will have concrete beliefs, thought processes, and emotional states that she uses on a day-to-day basis which potentially could have developed all the way back to her toddler years. Each hurtful word, thought, and experience over a person’s lifetime accumulates to formulating a poor self-image. Think again before you call a child, or even an adult, hurtful words that are unhealthy for a good self-image. You are creating other people’s self-image on a daily basis.

Your self-image… controls exactly what you can and cannot do. If you see yourself as inferior to others… then this self-image will ensure that you remain inferior.

Your self-image has enormous powers. It controls exactly what you can and cannot do. If you see yourself as inferior to others because of a false belief, then this self-image will ensure that you remain inferior. No amount of positive thinking, willpower, determination, or other techniques will cure your feeling of inferiority if your self-image is inferior. Just like your self-image determines if you feel inferior, so I believe that for any goal you set out to achieve, your self-image must also be congruent with your desired future. Your self-image controls what you can achieve.

“The self-image controls what you can and cannot accomplish, what is difficult or easy for you, even how others respond to you just as certainly and scientifically as a thermostat controls the temperature in your home. Specifically, all your actions, feelings, behavior, even your abilities, are always consistent with this self-image. Note the word: always. In short, you will “act like” the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.”

A person who is 250 pounds can drop to 210 pounds through willpower. The person can lose weight with determination. However, if the weight-loss took place out of sheer determination, then the person will return to their true self-image weight of 250 pounds. If you see yourself as fat but you are determined to lose weight then it is likely you will lose weight. Your determination will drop those pounds. However, if your self-image has not adjusted to your new weight then you can be guaranteed your old weight will return.

The room temperature can fluctuate a few degrees depending on who enters and leaves the room yet the thermostat will always return the room to its set temperature. This is why people who do not adjust their self-image are able to lose weight yet it fluctuates and eventually returns to their self-image.

The same rule holds true for becoming more muscular. If your self-image is a thin-body, then you are going to have an extremely tough time packing on muscle. Arnold Schwarzenegger at 15 was thin. What set him apart from other body-builders in the gym was his self-image. He would visualize his new muscular body each time he performed a rep at the gym while other body-builders would fantasize over bikini models. In 1980, Arnold claimed his seventh Mr. Olympia title and become the icon of bodybuilders.

A person aiming to lose weight through willpower is using forward goal-setting. This fails. If you use forward goal setting where you set a goal to achieve and work towards it, you set yourself up for failure. As I’ve repeatedly said, positive willpower cannot overcome a negative creative imagination. Your creative imagination will always win.

Apply this to other areas of your life. Stop trying to use willpower to overcome your inferiority complex or to achieve some other goal. It cannot be done for permanent results. What you need to do for all your goals is use backward goal-setting where you set a goal to achieve and begin doing the things now that you would be doing upon achieving that goal.

To do this you need to awaken your creative imagination by immersing yourself in an imaginary environment where you have already achieved your goal. Your primary aim is to visualize yourself immersed in an environment so real that it feels like you have already achieved it. I will run through a complete exercise that you can apply right now to overcome your inferiority complex.

It is this technique that you are going to primarily rely on to overcome feelings of inferiority. When the technique is used over time, on a frequent basis, your inferiority complex will evaporate.

Exercise

I’m going to run you through an intense visualization. The nervous system cannot tell a real event from a fake event. Studies continue to show over and over again that when we visualize the body experiences physiological responses which mimic action. The mirror neurons in the premotor cortex of the brain become activated when visualizing in the same manner as taking action. Mirror neurons hold an important component in social understanding, empathy, developmental language, and learning new skills.

This isn’t the exercise, but imagine you are in a real fight. Hear the yelling, swearing, and abuse. Feel the air. Taste the blood. Seeing the people gathered around. Look at your angry opponent. By immersing yourself in the environment your physiology will appropriately respond. Your body will release doses of adrenaline as your heart rate increases along with heightened awareness. The more real your visualization is, the more your body responds as if it were a real experience.

To demonstrate the exercise I encourage you to use on a daily basis, I’ll walk you through what I would do in Sally’s situation.

I firstly slow down my breathing. I notice whatever tensions there are in my body and make a conscious decision to relax that part of the body. Now, I visualize myself walking confidently into the room full of executives. Shoulders are back, posture is erect, neck is straight, my strides are slow, and I hold my eye contact if others look at me. I can

hear the chatter and occasional loud laugh. I see the gray colored walls and people’s black shoes.

I feel the wrinkles around my mouth as I smile when greeting an executive. I sense other’s feel my firm handshake. People are warming up to me as I’m communicating complete comfort with myself. I love myself and have no need to compare myself against other’s standards. I’m proud in knowing that I’m becoming a better person. I’m a unique individual. I am poised and have zero feeling of inferiority.

That is a brief example of what I would feel and see in my mind’s eye. I’d encourage you to go into more depth and create more details. Thorough details are extremely important. Make it so vivid that it becomes real. Use all your five senses: taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing.

To overcome your inferiority complex, start visualizing what it would feel like to not worry what other people think of you. Imagine yourself in the exact same environment. Smell the air and touch the surfaces that are around a non-inferior you.

Run through these visualizations everyday. By constantly running these visualizations, you begin to create a new self-image that is aligned with the visualizations. Your creative imagination overpowers whatever willpower you have.

You should also use the positive thinking I earlier “bashed.” Positive thinking is of course a valuable tool when using in conjunction with your creative imagination. Combine these two great tools together and you will soon overcome your inferiority complex. After all, your inferiority complex developed by using these same tools in a negative fashion.

Please post a comment or story about your inferiority along with how the report has changed your life. Also,let others know about this.  I want as many people to read this as possible. With your help, I know this can be more easily accomplished so please tell your friends, family, and co-workers about this report. You don’t know the feelings of inferiority someone could be experiencing which is damaging their life. Do them a favor by telling them about this blog and they could be forever thankful for your thoughtfulness.