Psychology of Success: How to Succeed in Everything Using the Teutsch IDEAL Method
American psychologists Champion Kurt Teutsch (1921–2005) and Joel Marie Teutsch (1913–1992) were the founders of psychogenetics. This concept explains how hereditary patterns of behavior hinder our success.
The Teutsch IDEAL Method for Achieving Success
In 1959, the Teutsches published the book “Understand and Raise Your Consciousness. From Here to Happiness!”, which became a bestseller and underwent numerous reprints. In it, they laid out their psychogenetic theory and the foundations of the so-called IDEAL method for achieving success and personal self-improvement. Their book analyzed factors that help individuals create positive programs in their lives. This provides the prerequisites for success in all endeavors, allowing one to become a lucky person and change their destiny.
The method is based on modifying human behavior in personal life, health, and career. Its main postulate is the influence of hereditary predisposition on personal effectiveness.
IDEAL is an acronym for the following English words:
- Individualized. Every person has a unique genetic predisposition and inherited destructive behavior patterns. If these are not recognized and eliminated, they will repeat over and over—not only in our lives but across future generations.
- Directive. This means we can change the direction of our lives by following a positive program and constructive rules of conduct.
- Explanatory. We can understand and explain the reasons why our lives unfold in a specific way and not otherwise.
- Action. By understanding the causes of our destructive thinking and behavior, we can develop a specific program to change them and achieve success.
- Log (formulated and documented). This means the individual logically realizes how their new understanding and new actions will affect the final result.
In other words, the essence of the Teutsch method is to get rid of internal limitations that hinder our success in life. To do this, we must identify which inherited destructive behavior patterns govern us, understand the reasons for their occurrence, and replace them with constructive ones.
According to the authors, the method can be applied to any situation to obtain optimal results. By putting its principles into practice, one can achieve happiness, prosperity, and even wealth in this turbulent, rapidly changing world.
Get Rid of the "Loser" Psychology
First and foremost, you must stop evaluating yourself as a loser or a "bad" person. Constantly blaming yourself for perceived violations or shortcomings and seeing yourself as a victim creates and attracts this type of relationship with others.
Similar statements from other people should be viewed critically and not entered into your internal information database. Contacts and services from such people should be excluded; they are negative brain programs. Remember that failures are always temporary, and the life experience gained from them serves to achieve future success.
Focus your attention on those aspects of your activities that already present you as a high-class professional. Constantly and in detail, recall episodes of your life that ended successfully. Imagine your clothes, the setting, and the people who were near you in detail. They all radiated luck and rejoiced with you. At this moment, your brain produces hormones and "neuropeptides of success and luck."
Try to train your brain to produce these neuropeptides through a conditioned reflex path. Let it be a certain impulse triggered by meeting a person or seeing an object that accompanied you during a past success. In short, "catch the moment of luck," and your brain will learn to react to it, creating a program of success in real life.
Prosperity is not necessarily tied only to money. You should always feel the presence of free time to fulfill your plans and desires. The ability to accept beauty from the world, feel the love of those around you, experience the joy of health, show generosity in finances, and maintain a broad outlook toward all life events—this is the behavior program of a person destined for luck and success, including full material well-being.
After creating this worldview, act in all matters as if luck always accompanies you. Feel the delight of a lucky person, the unique aroma, and the mindset of success. During this period, take an interest in the details of the lives of those who have achieved world-renowned success. Associate yourself with these people; find common traits in behavior, habits, abilities, and origins.
Do Not Fear Making Decisions
A prerequisite for success is the ability to make decisions. One must not evade this process. Only then does active movement in the right direction begin. You must learn to stick to your decisions, defend them if necessary, and always believe in them. Forming an appropriate program in the information field allows you to apply the universal formula “I can” in real life.
Psychologically, there is a sequence in decision-making. First, consider all the positive and negative results that may accompany the decision. There is a tradition of settling for less or worse rather than more or better. This is well expressed by the proverb "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Avoid this mistake. Make a decision definitely and finally, then act accordingly. Fight for your decision and recall the facts that led you to it. With persistence and the removal of all negative factors, success will undoubtedly come.
The decision-making process trains the brain to concentrate thinking on the problems that you specifically need to solve. In this case, real actions begin to align with the brain program you have chosen. This process must be repeated frequently to achieve automatic reproduction of the program in all situations, even the most complex. One can consider themselves worthy of success only if there is internal respect for oneself. You must learn to love yourself.
You can avoid constant misunderstandings through strict adherence to your promises, punctuality, tact, care, and sincerity. Following such a behavior program immediately attracts similar treatment from others.
Communicate with People
Relationships are central to forming programs for success and luck. Avoid the fear of communicating with people based on the belief that they will scrutinize the flaws you attribute to yourself. Self-assertion and false pride often force you to thoughtlessly exaggerate your abilities to others, which ends in deteriorating relationships with colleagues and managers and the crushing of hopes.
In personal relationships with loved ones, recognize each person's right to be themselves, rather than the set of "doubtful virtues" you would like to see in them. Every person can find something good in another, discovering unexpected abilities and bright individuality.
Give your loved ones a chance to change. Kind thoughts when communicating with them normalize any conflicts. Do not hide your intentions; learn to discuss all problems benevolently.
Follow the Rules of Successful Behavior
A goal-oriented program forms a favorable course of events in real life and brings luck. C. Teutsch considers the formulas for success to be: “I simply cannot fail” and “I simply cannot suffer losses.” All events that happen to people can be viewed through the lens of: "Everything happens for the best" and "Without knowing the taste of bitter, one cannot appreciate the sweet."
To implement various programs, an individual must learn to carry out all their plans at every level, even in small things. For success in business and personal relationships, C. Teutsch offers a set of ethical norms that "program" successful solutions to life's problems.
These rules include the concept of “living large.” Constantly avoid thoughts about the absence of time, money, success, or energy. Convince yourself that you are wealthy. Let money lie in various places in your house to signify its constant presence.
Eliminate stinginess from your behavior; try to buy things in advance and spend money with pleasure. Realize the formula: “Money exists so that you don't have to think about it.” In this case, you are not its slave, but it is your servant—a means to possess what you desire.
The second important formula is: “The more I rest, the more opportunities I have to earn money.” Creating an aura of usefulness, attractiveness, and accessibility around money—and the desire to accept it into your life—is the program that will allow you not to worry about it. Do not mentally set a "minimum" amount of money you want to have. Your vision of incoming funds should not be limited to a specific sum; use maximum values.
You can stop worrying about money when you have the means to cover any expenses or when leading a lifestyle that does not require significant costs. In this case, your comfort is achieved through specific life requirements, determined by worldview and the love of those around you. Only then can the aphorism "Content with little, we know the great" be accepted. This statement pertains to one's spiritual outlook, not the creation of programs for success and luck in material reality.
Your childhood environment might have formed an idea that one should settle for minimal comforts and achievements. This program must be eliminated as it prevents you from enjoying the fruits of civilization. Even the Buddha could not follow the rules of extreme ascetics.
Wishing well-being and prosperity to others and wanting to see others happy triggers the "Law of Similarity," attracting such situations into your own life.
Create Positive Thought-Forms
Another way to attract the Law of Similarity is to create images and sensations for yourself that would appear if you already had material well-being. This includes feelings of peace, comfort, trust, self-confidence, and love for others. Creating these thought-forms facilitates the resolution of issues related to living conditions, career, and creative success.
Relationships with others can often hinder positive results. Many people only express sympathy while secretly envying you or believing your success is accidental. They form negative programs about you. While these programs don't matter during casual small talk, they can become active if you share your deepest successes with the wrong people. Their negative thought-forms can interfere with your destiny. Therefore, your personal life and business details should be known only to you or those you can truly trust.
Recognize Obstacles on the Path to Success
A major obstacle to success is the habit of making excuses for failures. In doing so, you involuntarily create irrational programs that you cannot control but introduce into real events.
The "excuse" system shifts responsibility to others, causing helplessness and total dependence on circumstances. Conversely, a psychology of success is created by those who manage their own destiny and possess confidence and independence of judgment. Such people defend their rights even in small things.
This behavior helps them express feelings rather than suppress them, which prevents various illnesses. As C. Teutsch notes, the direct expression of emotions protects humanity from alcoholism, crime, gambling, and severe diseases.
Every person should have a psychological filter to critically process or eliminate negative information—this includes bad news or other people's problems that they try to impose on us.
In family life, success is guaranteed to those who associate with happy couples where bad information is rarely exchanged. Remember: give advice only when asked. If someone forces advice upon you, only a critical mind saves you from adopting an unnecessary program.
Finally, learn to be patient with yourself, trust your beginnings, and be confident. Think about your skills and capabilities. Aim to be happy in daily life by accepting things as they are. Fight the urge to return to fear or depression, and surround yourself with happy people. Do pleasant things for yourself and express gratitude to those around you.
The most important thing is that success starts with you giving yourself permission to be successful.
Example 1: Relationships — "Constant Quarrels over Trifles"
Imagine a man who explodes with anger every time his wife makes a comment, just as his father used to do.
- I (Individualized): He realizes: "My anger is not me; it is an inherited behavior pattern from my father. I am automatically copying his reaction."
- D (Directive): He gives himself a new directive: "I choose calm discussion instead of defensive aggression."
- E (Explanatory): He understands the reason: his father acted that way because he felt insecure, but the current situation is different, and his wife is not an enemy.
- A (Action): The next time a grievance arises, he pauses (takes 3 deep breaths) and says: "I hear you, let's think about how to fix this."
- L (Log): In the evening, he writes in a notebook: "Today I didn't yell. The evening was peaceful. It worked."
Example 2: Finances — "Fear of Spending Money on Oneself"
A woman with a stable income buys only the cheapest things because her family always "saved for a rainy day" and lived in a state of scarcity.
- Psychology Shift: She stops being a "victim of circumstances" and implements the rule of "living large" (within her own scale).
- Action: She buys one expensive item she has long desired without feeling guilty.
- Thought-form: Instead of thinking "if I buy this, the money will run out," she repeats: "Money flows to me easily so that I can enjoy life."
- Law of Similarity: She begins to sincerely rejoice in the successes and purchases of her friends instead of envying or criticizing them. By doing so, she attracts the energy of abundance into her own life.
Example 3: Career — "Imposter Syndrome and Lack of Promotion"
A person has been working in the same position for years because they are afraid to ask for a promotion, believing that "you just have to work hard and you'll be noticed" (a behavior model of peasant or working-class ancestors).
- Decision Making: They decide: "I am worthy of more." Following the Teutsch method, they stop settling for "a bird in the hand."
- Association with Success: They start studying the biographies of successful people in their field, finding common traits (e.g., persistence).
- Visualization: They vividly imagine their new desk, their new schedule, and the emotion of joy from being recognized as an expert.
- Action: They go to their manager and calmly, confidently (without excuses!) argue why their contribution to the company deserves higher pay.
Practical Exercise for Everyone: "Information Filtering"
- Stop listening to whining: If acquaintances call to complain about prices, politics, or illnesses—politely end the conversation. This is "information junk" that forms a loser's program.
- Seek "success hormones": Every day, recall 3 moments when you were lucky (even if it was just catching a green light). This trains the brain to react to luck.
The Teutsch method proves that success is not a matter of luck or chance, but the result of a conscious correction of the "genetic code" of our behavior. We are not obligated to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors. By using the IDEAL algorithm, an individual shifts from being an object of circumstances to becoming the author of their own destiny.
Key Insight:
Your "fate" is often merely an unconscious family script. True freedom and success begin at the point where you grant yourself inner permission to be happier, wealthier, and more successful than all the previous generations of your lineage.
Discover more about your internal scripts with MriyaRun tools:
- "Conversation with Yourself" Diary — your personal space for sincere reflection and healing.
- MAC Cards — a key to your subconscious and a source of new insights. link: mriya.run