Your self-image affects who you are, what you do and the life that you create for yourself. Is your self-image helping you or hurting you? If you feel it’s holding you back, with practice and awareness, you can use your own mind power to change your self-image and change your life.
What is your self-image?
Self-image is how you think of yourself. It includes everything from your appearance to the type of person you believe yourself to be.
It’s based on your experiences, beliefs and the ideas of yourself and others.
If you have a positive self-image, it’s easier to create positive things and experiences in your life. If you have a negative self-image, it can place limits on what you do and who you believe you are.
You create and change your self-image each and every moment that you are alive.
It’s Your Choice
You choose who you are and what you are capable of.
Thinking that this is just the way I am – I’m a failure, not good enough or unlucky are just labels. They are not a pronouncement of who you truly are.
They are just how you are feeling or reacting at this present moment. They are patterns of behavior.
If you experience a stressor and react to that stressor in a particular way, you have completed a loop of behavior. If you continue to choose the same reaction to stressors and react in the same way repeatedly, then they become a habit.
Most people are ruled by their habits to such an extent that they never realize the power that they do have. To change, or try to do something differently or react in a different way is uncomfortable or feels strange and out of character.
Who Are You, Really?
Your true character is who you choose to be in each moment. But you have to be aware of your reactions and actions in order to recognize them and change them.
It’s a matter of choice. When you are awake enough to choose your reactions to any given situation, you are then free to choose the reactions that will benefit you and help you to get what you want in life.
As long as your habits and old ingrained patterns are ruling your life, you are not free. You are merely running on autopilot.
These patterns are not just easy to recognize habits such as smoking or biting your fingernails.
How Do You See Yourself?
These patterns are also in the way you view the world and yourself.
I’m a failure. I can’t do anything right. They are better than me, more talented, luckier.
These kinds of thoughts are just opinions. They are not facts.
When you allow these opinions to determine who you believe you are and what you believe you can do, you become both the prisoner and the jailer of your own belief system.
Change Your Perspective
However, to change your self-image requires a change in perspective and a leap of faith.
Notice the endless chatter in your mind. Don’t fight it because that just makes it fight back. Instead just notice it.
Are these thoughts supporting you in creating the life you want or are they preventing it?
Remember, these thoughts are not you. They are not who you are. They are just thoughts.
According to some researchers, we may have up to 50,000 thoughts a day. Most of these thoughts are the same thoughts that we had the day before. They are old habits.
Unfortunately, these old habits are creating not only your self-image but also creating the life you currently have. In order to change your self-image and your life, you have to change your thoughts.
Ditch The Labels
You are more than a label. If you choose to label yourself, then choose a label that supports the life you desire.
When you notice yourself thinking thoughts that don’t support you, look at the thought.
For example, if you notice yourself thinking I can’t do anything right, ask yourself does that thought help you? No, it doesn’t.
Then think of a thought that would help you, such as I’ve does lots of things right in the past. Sometimes I make mistakes but then I learn from them and move on.
Change It Up To Change Your Self-Image
Make a new habit. Make a habit of noticing your thoughts and changing your old thought patterns to new ones that support you.
It may seem like a lot of work at first but think of it as a game. Give yourself mental points for each thought you recognize and transform into gold.
By becoming aware in the present moment, you are not only changing your thoughts. You are changing your self-image and yourself.
You gain the power to choose what you think, how you think, what you do and who you are.
Because in each moment, with each new choice, you change your self-image and determine who you are now and who you choose to be in the future.
And the future starts now.
