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Living Inside Two Boxes-The power of Self-Image

Guest post by: Stephen Blakesley

Article Overview: Self-Image, how we view ourselves, is the gateway to superior performance. Our Self-Image will not allow us to achieve anything beyond what we believe we can. As Earl Nightingale once said, "We become what we think about."

Living Inside Two Boxes-The power of Self-Image

The Self-Image is a principal piece of Self-Awareness. Your Self-Image defines and limits almost everything you do. The Self-Image is the gateway to your talents and ultimately, the achievement of your goals.

It makes no difference what the goal is, if it is not consistent with your Self-Image the gateway or access to your abilities will remain restricted and sometimes, even closed.

A great picture of Self-Image is illustrated by placing a dot in the center of a piece of clean paper, around it draw a box with a dotted line about an inch on each side. Then, outside that small box draw a bigger one with a solid line about five inches on each side. Now you should have a dot inside two boxes, one small with dotted lines and the other much larger drawn with solid lines.

The dot represents you, the large box with solid lines represents your real limitations E.g. you cannot run a 4 minute mile because you have only one leg. The smaller box, with dotted lines,, represents your own self limiting beliefs about your self, usually much less than your real limitations and often incorrect E.g. I cannot run a 15 minute mile because I am fat and out of shape.

An essential piece to becoming all of which you are capable is to push the limits of your Self-Image (the small box) closer to those imposed by the bigger, physical limitation box. Expanding your Self-Image involves self-talk and questioning the limits of your current self.

Two phrases really make the difference between achieving your goals and not achieving them and both drive the Self-Image; "That is just me!" and "I can be all I choose to be!" One is four words and the other is eight, but "Oh, the power they hold. One is limiting and the other is open-ended.

"That is just me," kind-of-talk is self-limiting. When asked why you arrive late at work and you respond, "that is just me," you have set the stage that will encourage you to consistently arrive late. On the other hand, if you respond to that same question with, "in the future, I respect other's time and always arrive early." you are describing future behavior in the present tense and have chosen to be all you can. You can arrive early, if you decide to arrive early, almost all of the time.

What is your Self-Image? Are you living in the small box or are you pushing the limits of your self image to find out what your limitations really are?

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Article Tags: earl nightingale, emotional intelligence, self awareness, selfimage



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