Summary: It is time to address the topic of Self Esteem on our personal development journey – which basically is how you feel about yourself. However, what will have our attention this week and is closely related to Self-Esteem, is the Self-Image, which concerns how you see yourself and how you believe others see you. That means if you have a negative view of yourself, your self-esteem naturally will be low as well.
So that’s why this week’s challenge will aim to get a clearer view of our present self-image, in particular in the context of limiting beliefs that hinder us in life. Because if we are to reach our full potential, we need to break free from chains that are holding us down.
In practicality this means we are going to turn on the awareness radar and pick up on what stories we tell ourselves; the limiting beliefs that dictate our life and how we act in different situations as a result of that. Yes-we’ve done this before, it’s called self-observation! But that’s only half the battle, because we also are also going to take at least 10 minutes to just sit down and process this data and do some root cause analysis! Asking ourselves Why – looking back to our childhood.
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So we are on a quest to build ourselves up from within, and since this year started we’ve been taken a deep look at ourselves to reach a higher state of self-awareness. Seeking to understand and build a deeper connection with ourselves to get clear picture of who we believe we are, who we really are and who we want to be. In other word we are more or less playing around with what is called Self-concept, because to be self-aware is to have a self-concept. Actually, if we look to how the famous psychologist Carl Rogers defines it, we are missing one part; Self-esteem.
The three components of self-concept consist of:
- The view you have of yourself (self-image)
- How much value you place on yourself (self-esteem or self-worth)
- What you wish you were really like (ideal self)
But before we move on to solely focus on self-esteem, which will be the next big topic for this channel, we need to understand the connection between self-esteem and self-image.
“Self Esteem is how you feel about yourself. Image is about how you see yourself and how you believe others see you. They are closely connected because if you have a poor opinion of yourself your self esteem will be low.”
in what our ideal self looks like, but that’s for later.
So this week will be about getting clear on our present self-image, in particular the context of limiting beliefs that hinder us in life. Because we are to reach our full potential, we need to break free from what is chaining us down. Why? Well because it plays a tremendously important role in the development of our self-esteem. As we have spoken about in earlier challenges, we need to know where we are today, our self-image, so we know what to work on to move towards our ideal self. Logically, this also means having a sense of clarity
But so, I haven written any on this, instead I refer you to the video were Leo from actualized.org explains it way better than I could do today.
But in short here’s a description hi-jacked from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-image) :
“Self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others (height, weight, hair color, etc.), but also items that have been learned by that person about themselves, either from personal experiences or by internalizing the judgments of others. A simple definition of a person’s self-image is their answer to the question “What do you believe people think about you?”.
Self-image may consist of three types:
- Self-image resulting from how the individual sees themselves.
- Self-image resulting from how others see the individual.
- Self-image resulting from how the individual perceives others see them.
These three types may or may not be an accurate representation of the person. All, some or none of them may be true.”
HOW ARE WE GOING TO DO THIS?
Observe yourself throughout the day and the actions you take – what stories are you telling yourself. What beliefs dictated the action you take? Since so much of our actions are controlled on both a conscious and subconscious level, it really requires a HIGH awareness if we are to pick up on the actions we take and the stories we tell ourselves. Since we are acting the way we always do, it will be very hard to notice these things that usually is just your “normal” mode. So if this introspection is going to work, we really need to turn up the knob on our awareness radar and our observational ability.
But observing and collecting the data is one thing, we also need to allocate time to process and analyse all this. so – sit down for 10 minutes on the evening and go through your thoughts and notes. Try to seek answers for why you are having these beliefs. Look back into your history and try to find answers to your beliefs originate from. So take notes throughout the day, and then at the end of the day – take time to go through them and do some introspection in relation to these notes. Start to pull the yarns of these believes and ideas that has dictated your day
That’s why I really urge this week to unplug from all the external input we load ourselves with. Really take time this week to be alone in your own head. No podcasts, no music unless non active listening to lyrics. Just allow yourself time and space to dwell and process your observations. An insight I’ve come to realise the importance of more and more since this focused inner journey begun.
So in short, this week’s objectives are:
- Turn on the awareness radar and try to pick up on the stories you tell yourselves; the limiting beliefs that dictates your life and the way you act in different situations. Self-observation. Take notes continuously throughout the day and think and reflect about why you took or didn’t took the actions you did.
- Allocate alone time for yourself in your own head – stay away from external inputs this week that steels your focus away like podcasts, social media, apps, etc. and try to tune out the music as well, or at least only listen to instrumental music.
- At the end of the day, sit down for 10 minutes and go through your notes and observation of the day; process, reflect and analyse and see if you can find answers to the underlying root cause. Ask yourself why and why until you end up with one or a few plausible answers.
So that’s it! Now in terms of vlogging this week, we’ll see. It may just be some live streams we’re we do this “at-the-end-of-the-day” reflection silently on our own. We’ll see. Make sure to subscribe so you’ll get notifications for all the videos I release!
I wish you the best of luck, & let me know if you’re doing the challenge!
/Alexander J
Recommended material:
Video on self-concept:
Video on Self-image:
