How do you, view you?
September 26th, 2007 Posted in Creating Success, Curt's ArticlesYour self-image is the mental picture that you hold in your head about yourself. It is basically the answer to the question, “What do you believe other people think about you.”
Here are some examples:
Am I skinny?
Am I fat?
Am I attractive?
Am I likeable?
Am I smart?
Get the point?
In general, people act on the outside in accordance of this mental self-image you feel on the inside.
Did you grow up with a particular group of friends, where internally each of you sort of branded each other? You had the good-looking friend, the smart friend, the funny friend, or the negative friend. Almost in every instance when you used to “hang out’ together everybody consistently filled their “expected” role I bet.
As you grew older and spent less and less time together as a group, you develop a more “whole” you. Meaning, you were no longer just “good looking” or just “funny”. You develop a whole arsenal of personality traits and a new set of behavioral patterns, consistent with this “new” and more mature you.
After a period of a few years, have you ever re-united with this group? If so, did you all fall back into your “old” roles? The reason for this is simply that your self-image regressed to what you know in that particular setting. Your internal thought process remembers the way things were, and thus your behavioral patterns act as such as well.
Sometimes when people fall back into situations like this, they wonder why they are acting as if they are back in high school or college again. It is because you have to make the effort to change your internal mental pictures that determine your external behavior.
All improvements within your self come from the increased knowledge that you and only you can control your self-image. These thoughts and internal views that you have, determine your attitude, emotions, and behaviors. Therefore, it can be concluded that the way others view you is a direct result of the way you view yourself.
The creation of a positive self-image is absolutely paramount in determining the path that you walk in life. All great leaders and successful men and women have a positive self-image. Their self-image and self-ideal are almost identical in all aspects of their life.