OUR ‘SELF IMAGE’ SETS THE BOUNDARIES
OF OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS
I have been privileged to speak to a few groups of people in the past week – landowners, high schoolers and a host of wonderful women (and men!) on International Women’s Day.
The importance of our Self Image came up. When I’m running workshops I talk about Self Image and refer to a book written by Dr. Maxwell Maltz back in 1960 called “Pyscho-Cybernetics”.
Cybernetics (loosely translated from the Greek) means “a helmsman who steers his ship to port.” Psycho-Cybernetics, a term coined by Dr. Maltz means, “steering your mind to a productive, useful goal so you can reach the greatest port in the world, Peace of Mind.”
Dr. Maltz was the first researcher and author to explain how the Self Image (a term he popularised) has complete control over an individual’s ability to achieve (or fail to achieve) any goal.
If we have a Self Image of someone who is a failure, we will fail no matter how many opportunities come our way. If we have a Self Image of someone who will succeed, we will succeed no matter how many obstacles we face.
We know that Good Self Esteem is the single most important factor in achieving anything you want in life.
Self Esteem is how you regard yourself and how you feel about yourself. It is reflected in the way you treat yourself and the way others treat you. (Remember what you put out comes back!)
The way we live our lives is a measure of our Self Esteem and we will let ourselves have only what we think we are worth. Low Self Esteem means effectively stopping ourselves from getting what we truly want.
As Maxwell Maltz says: “Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-brake on.”
Helpful Hints in Raising Self Esteem and Ensuring a Positive Self Image:
- Take full responsibility for your life – stop blaming others – give up the ‘victim’ act. Own your reactions – no one makes you feel angry or foolish or hurt – you do it all by yourself.
- Stop being critical of others – one of the quickest ways to lower your Self Esteem is to sit in judgement on others. Look for something likeable in everyone you know and meet.
- Stop feeling guilty, see mistakes as valuable lessons. See the cause and effect in your behaviour (what produces desirable results and what doesn’t) in place of the moral judgements of right/wrong, good/bad, better/worse.
- Consciously generate positive thoughts and feelings of self love and acceptance in place of old thoughts of inferiority and inadequacy. Use the affirmation and visualisation process. Be in charge of your thoughts.
- Keep your awareness (your thoughts) focussed in present time, instead of living in the past or future. Be grateful for what you have right now.
- Volunteer to help someone in the community. Knowing you can make a difference to someone else’s life is uplifting and empowering.
- Use the mental rehearsal process. See yourself achieving the end results you desire.
- One of the greatest ways to build our inner strength is to LAUGH. Enjoy life, have fun, laugh more and feel great.
Have a happy month all. Love and Laughter
