Yes, I think it can be done, and without drugs or hypnosis etc. And I think there is not much difference between doing it to yourself as opposed to doing it to others. But not quite the movie version. I assume you mean inserting not just any old belief, but an irresistible urge to act on it.

The problem is that the irresistability of the impulse planted is probably going to be inversely proportionate to the controllability of the target idea. So you'll either get a weak drive around a strongly controlled idea (brainwashing) or a strong drive around a weakly controlled idea ("create a monster"). In the asymptotic cases you'll either control the idea completely, and get no urge to act on it at all, or you'll have zero control over the contents but send the person (possibly yourself) shooting off like a rocket in an unpredictable direction. There is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle, where you get maximum drive bang for vector precision buck. But hitting it consistently is hard. Think shaped charges. Takes some skill with explosives.

The problem is that not all ideas are equally capable of creating irresistible impulses to act. The best ones are unfortunately mysteries in the pre-inception stage. Since I am on a Jung kick these days, I believe the ideal fuel is some sort of a paradox buried inside a mass of messy input. Resolving that paradox through introverted intuition is what will create the irresistible impulse. You may have to add a certain amount of relevant stress as well, depending on the personality type, since introverted intuition is not equally strong in all people.

Traditional education actually achieves this, though pretty inefficiently. PhD programs are decent at this.

I've done this to myself a few times, mostly in the middle to left part of the spectrum, where left = strong+unpredictable.

For the lean startup types here, this is kinda like creating conditions for a product-market fit inside a head.