The power of self-imagery: Why how you view yourself affects how far you go
Conversations that encourage pursuing what you want, being who you want, going after your loftiest of dreams etc., at times, feels exclusively peddled to the youth.
Whether it be by educator, parent, or children’s program, the message that we can be whoever we choose somehow gets lost as we age.
Peter Pan is a perfect example. Though fictional, the boy who never wanted to grow up made adulthood out to be this mundane state where your imagination dies. As a child, Peter Pan could do literally anything he wanted — from making food appear out of thin air to flying — why then would want to trade that away for real life?
I think we pitch life’s endless possibilities to children, yet curtail the same verbiage when they become adults because the mind is still malleable while young.
Children still believe in Santa Clause and of course, they believe they can make it to the league. They see themselves as rocket scientists, doctors, and superheroes. They real life believe they can do whatever they set their minds to. They see themselves as able; they aren’t familiar with doubt.
If you look at today’s most successful people, they too have these qualities.They are the people who latched on to a dream and never let it go, individuals who sacrificed everything they had for a purpose — they’re the kids who never grew up.
We will only go as far as we see ourselves going. You’re only as good as you believe yourself to be. It’s when we learn this that we unlock the possibilities of life.
Conviction
You live with conviction when you’ve settled on who you are and what you want to be. Self-imagery is how you see yourself, so when you’re convinced on what you see, the rest of your life will aline that way — negatively or positively.
Kobe Bryant played with conviction because he truly believed he was the greatest basketball player on the earth. There are famous actors who moved to Hollywood with nothing but a car and an audition lined up because they felt convicted about their calling. There are people who commit hours to a single craft or skill, simply because they feel like it’s what they were called to do — it’s how they see themselves.
If you see yourself one way and you truly believe it’s who you’re supposed to be, you’re going to do everything in your power to shift your life in that direction.
The issue with a lot of us is that we don’t see ourselves in any way, so there’s nothing to feel convicted about. Or worse, we see ourselves in a negative light, so we end up heading the wrong direction.
Check yourself: if you’re not living with conviction, it’s probably because you haven’t determined how you see youse;f.
Fake it till you make it
Inexperience holds a lot of us back from seeing ourselves as who we desire to be.
Because we haven’t acquired a certain degree or mastered a particular skill set or have the fanbase, we drop the optics. But you don’t necessarily need results for the title.
There’s something to be said about faking it until to make it. Continuing to pursue despite failure and there not necessarily being a reward at the end does not sound “fake” to me. It sounds like practice. And most of the time practice is what separates the ones who quit and the ones who eventually do make it.
We can’t be afraid to see ourselves at our finished state, because the second we doubt or switch the image of who we think we are, the chances of the image coming into fruition diminished exponentially.
Constant renewal
How we view ourselves should always be under construction. It should be revisited, retouched, tweaked, and should serve as a reminder of who we are, despite where we are.
The renewal of our self-image is important because we ourselves change. So it’s important that the way we see ourselves is still how we want to be seen.
Every day we should have a reminder of who we are and how we see ourselves.
Whether it’s an image of our ideal body or a poster of a sold-out arena, we should never lose focus what you see yourself accomplishing.
When we do this, it keeps the main thing, the main thing, which is difficult when your life is moving in more than one direction. When we renew our self-image, even if it doesn’t change, it serves as a constant reminder that we haven’t given up on ourselves.
There is so much power in our projections. What we feel and what we emit is crucial, and that ties back to how we view ourself.
Be proactive and vigilant in how you see yourself. Write down who you want to be and who you feel you are, and you’ll be surprised at what you can actually accomplish.