9/26/2016 AspectsofourSelfImageBodyLanguageReadingPsychologistWorld

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Aspects of Self Image: Changing your Self Image

Two Aspects

There are two aspects (in pragmatic terms) to the issue of self-image formation. What we have talked about so far sets the general tone that someone's self
image can take on which limits there ability to deal with aspects of life, or holds them back from what they would like to be. The two aspects can, for
convenience, be labelled General Self Image, and Capability Image.

The General Self Image is what we have been talking about so far, whereas the Capability Image is formed out of beliefs about your ability to do something
and may restrict (or enable) people in a specic area. And it is created in much the same way.

Spot the Issue

It can be quite dicult to decide just where a problem lies when you are talking to someone with a poor self-image, i.e. whether it is a general problem or a
specic capability belief that is causing a restriction.

In normal conversation, people will usually make excuses for not doing the things they want to. Now this is true whether it is a general self-image problem
that is holding them back, or a specic capability belief.

For example, someone may complain to you that they are having trouble managing on their current wage, so you suggest they go for a promotion that's
coming up. They may oer an excuse such as "I need to get an extra qualication rst." Perhaps you suggest they go to a night class to get the qualication
and they reply that they wouldn't want to mix with a bunch of students and anyway they were never that good at school etc. And so it continues.

In general, you can reasonably presume that if someone oers excuse after excuse for not doing something they would like to do, then you are dealing with
a General Self Image problem. If, on the other hand, they oer an excuse, but show an interest when you start talking about other ways they could achieve
their outcome, you are probably dealing with a specic Capability Belief.

Can Anything Be Done?

Because of the way that our self image is created it is quite likely that we all have am image of ourselves that falls far short of our actual capabilities and we
could all benet from some help along the way.

One thing that can be benecial is to take some time to consider what your beliefs are about various issues. As the self-image is formed it can be said to
take the form of a set of rules. Rules about what you can and cannot do. Rules about what you are and are not capable of, and so on.

Because these rules were formed without your consent or consideration in the main, it pays to take time to examine them and decide whether they are rules
you want to live by now.

To make a start at uncovering just what these rules might be, and since we are talking about restrictive self images, sit and consider the kind of things you
could never do. Let's take something pretty wild as an example: Let's suppose you realise you could never murder your father. Now it's quite unlikely that
you've ever sat down and considered this and decided, after logical consideration, that it would be a bad thing to murder your father. So this rule is quite
likely to have come from someone else.

It may have come from your family, or they may never have mentioned it. It may have come from a general appreciation of society's values. It may have
come from your religious upbringing when you were taught that killing was wrong. And so on.

The question is - do you still want to live by this rule? It's clearly a good one and should stay.

Now this is quite an exaggerated example, but it indicates the method for uncovering your rules.

Let me give you another example from my own life. When I a child and was given my rst bicycle (without stabilisers I might add), I thought about how to
ride it. Clearly it was a relatively easy thing to do as even that thicko Stuart (names changed to protect identity as they say) from round the corner had
managed it. So I took the bike out into our back yard and tried to ride it. Well you've guessed it - I promptly fell o. So o I went again. And again.

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A couple of days later, with a few grazes and bruises under my belt, I was riding my bike.

One thing I learned that day, though I didn't realise it until much later was that if something can be done you just have to keep trying if you want to do it
too. This formed one of my rules.

A good rule do you think? Well, yes, in some circumstances maybe. It clearly worked for bike riding. But consider some years later when, as an adult, I
started up a little business. Now this was a business in which many people do well, and therefore I knew (because of my rule) I could too if only I persisted.
Some years into the project, and despite a lot of keeping on keeping on, I realised I was not doing well at all.

Of course, what I had not realised when I unconsciously formed the rule was that in order to master the bicycle, I had (also unconsciously) tried a number
of dierent ways of doing it (much as we unconsciously learn to walk through trial and error).

Not so with my little business. I had just kept on doing what wasn't working in the belief that persistence alone would pay o. Now it seems obvious and
stupid looking back on it, but this is how our self-image rules work.

And it should certainly illustrate the point of knowing what they are being important.

The main thing to bear in mind is that once you have passed puberty, the self-image is unlikely to change of its own accord. No matter how well we do in
life, or what we achieve. Many of our most successful people (if they haven't addressed the self image problem that is) will report private fears that they're
not good enough, or that they can't expect to get away with this forever - someone's bound t guess aren't they? In other words, their self-image keeps
them insecure even though they're doing well in other respects.

Now I know my rules - what should I do?

Well, once you've uncovered them, analysed them and decided whether they are worth keeping or not, it is well worth taking some action to help improve
the situation.

There are a lot of tools that can help here, and our sister site, Hypnotic World, has many strategies outlined that are of tremendous help in this.

The main thrust though is to use a relaxed state of mind to chip away at the weaker areas of your self-image by imagining yourself, not as you are, but as
you would like to be. You can create the relaxation through hypnosis, the Jacobson Progressive Relaxation method, or any other good quality relaxation
training.

There are two times though which occur naturally every day when you are deeply relaxed and which you should take advantage of.

The rst is in the morning when you are starting to wake up but before you are fully awake. The second is in the evening when you are starting to fall
asleep but before you are fully asleep.

Take a problem area

For example, let's used my own example from earlier. The case of the persistence and exibility. I would start by imagining scenarios where it would be
important to keep going, but to be exible in my approach. One example might be a sales interview. If I were talking to someone with a view to selling them
something persistence (although important in these situations) alone would not be enough. If someone doesn't respond to what you say at rst, it is
important to continue with a dierent approach.

So I would create a visualisation sequence in which I was talking to someone in a sales interview, and after listening carefully to what the prospective
customer had to say, I would see myself using dierent approaches towards selling to him.

Then, at the key times in the morning and evening, I would run through this sequence.

This will improve your self-image

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As I said, the key is to se yourself not as you are, but as you would like yourself to be, and to do this at a time when your mind is suciently relaxed not to
become critical of the visualisation. This process will gradually chip away at the less than positive aspects of your self-image and replace them with
something far better.

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