The term self-image was coined by Dr Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon. He discovered a very interesting phenomenon while working with his patients. With most of them, when the plastic surrery was finished, it helped them immensely. They became calmer and happier, literally a new person. Getting rid of the facial problem helped remove their psychological problems too.
Yet some people didn't feel any different after the operation, no matter how spectacular the changes on the outside. Even though they woke up with an absolutely beautiful face, they still insisted that they were ugly. Dr Maltz called these people "scarred on the inside".
He did some research and experiments, and discovered that everyone carries around an image of themselves inside their head. He came up with a visualization technique to change one's self-image, which he then taught this to his patients along with the plastic surgery. To his delight, it often did more to improve the patients' self-esteem than the actual surgery.
You too can achieve spectacular changes in your life through changing your self-image.
A poor self-image is like chaining a huge lead ball to your foot. It places artificial limitations upon you. This fact has been realized by top athletes and sports teams for years. Visualization is today used by all top athletes to improve performance. They can't allow themselves to place artificial limitations upon themselves - and neither should you.
Self-image guides your actions
Your self-image is like an airplane's automated guidance system. You can consciously override it and act as you want. But whenever you stop focusing on your actions, your automated guidance system, the self-image, takes over.Although you can act as you choose, most of the time your subconscious mind runs the show. This is where your self-image takes over. It often means you sabotage your conscious attempts
to achieve things, only to be consistent with your poor self-image.
Your self-image is basically the total sum of all your beliefs about yourself. Most of them are unconscious and were programmed into you during your childhood. The trouble is that a lot of the beliefs are less than helpful.
The average western parent criticizes their child 8 times for every time they praise them. No wonder a lot of people develop a negative self-image that prevents them from achieving their best in life.
In professional running, there was a barrier for several years called the four-minute mile. Runners didn't seem able to run a mile in under four minutes, no matter how hard they tried. Some athletes even started believing that a human would explode if he ran a four-minute mile.
Then, one day, a man ran a four-minute mile. In the next month, dozens of athletes managed the same. Over the next year, over a hundred people ran a mile in under four minutes.
They had all held a belief that running a mile under four minutes isn't possible. It took one man to show them the truth and shatter that negative self-belief. They could have run the four-minute mile all along, but their poor self-image was preventing them from doing so.
Correcting your negative self-beliefs
The first step is to find negative beliefs you hold about yourself. Then either get rid of them, or replace them with positive beliefs.The trouble with finding your negative self-beliefs is that most of them are subconscious. In fact, your mind goes to great lengths to protect your ego, and hides your negative self-beliefs from you.
Many high-achieving individuals have a poor self-image. They try to make themselves feel better by making more money, being more famous or having a hotter girlfriend. Yet on the inside they still feel inadequate. They are driven to achieve more, only to try to prove to themselves they aren't as unworthy as they feel on the inside.
I have been there myself. The worst thing about it is that one doesn't even realize that he has a poor self-image. For many years I went on living thinking I was doing fine (while feeling bad most of the time - but I didn't realize that since I had no base of comparison). I had held negative beliefs about myself and I had absolutely no idea they were even there.
Thankfully I stumbled across some self-help materials. In those I found a lot of methods for discovering my negative self-beliefs. I have since then done a lot of research and talked to many people, and discovered the most effective techniques for finding your own negative self-beliefs. I share these techniques with you below.
Finding your negative self-image
One thing our mind does to protect our ego is to pretend that the opposite of our negative self-beliefs is true. So a person who feels poor on the inside might work hard, get a big house, a new car and buy expensive jewelery. Yet they will still feel poor on the inside.Similarly a hooligan might shout at people and act all strong and tough. In reality he will be compensating for feeling weak and helpless on the inside. Real strength looks like James Bond, not like a hooligan.
Thus, the first method for finding your negative self-beliefs...
1. Find where you compensate for inner beliefs
It's important to remember you're only compensating for your negative self-beliefs, not for who you actually are. So if you find that one of the beliefs you compensate for is "I'm a loner", it doesn't mean you are. It means you hold that negative belief, and acknowledging that you hold the belief is the first step towards letting go of it.
I'd like you to ask yourself the following questions and write down the answers to find where in your life you compensate for negative self-beliefs:
- What is it that you want people to notice about you first?
- If your life were trying to prove something about you, what would it be?
It is important that you take time and write down the answers. This lets you put the negative beliefs down on paper, instead of letting them hide in your subconscious mind. You can then tackle them more easily.
When I first asked myself those questions, I found some interesting things. I had read some books about body language and what confident posture looks like. Upon performing this exercise, I realized I was overdoing the body language. I was compensating for my feeling of not being a confident person. I was walking a bit too upright, my shoulders pushed back and my chest pushed out a little bit too much. Try-hard, if you will.
I also noticed that I didn't feel the need to compensate for things I felt confident about. I was great at mathematics (and still am), but I didn't feel the need to go and tell everyone I met.
Another thing we do with our negative self-beliefs is turning them outwards. We hate those bad things we believe might be true about us, but instead of hating ourselves (or rather who we believe we are), we turn our hate towards others. This is called projection.
2. Find what traits your are projecting onto others
Projection has two opposite sides, like a coin. On one hand, we hate people who have traits that we fear might be true about ourselves. On the flip side, we idolize people who have traits we wish we had.
For example you might idolize a person who is great at public speaking. This would mean your negative self-belief is that you will never be a good public speaker. This negative belief prevents you from getting out there and working on becoming one, so instead you idolize someone who has that trait.
I'd like you to write down answers to the following:
- Who is your least favorite person and why?
- Who do you idolize, and what do you like about them?
When someone does this exercise for the first time, the natural tendency is to go "But of course those things aren't true about me! That's ridiculous!". I had the exact same reaction myself. But deep down it kept bugging me, and over the next few days I realized that the things I hated most about the person were exactly what I feared had been true about me all along.
Getting rid of your negative beliefs
Dr. Paul Dobransky describes beliefs as data that's superglued to the floor of our mind with emotion. The difference between any odd idea and a belief is the emotional part. This is what makes beliefs hard to change.Our beliefs have a way of clumping together in our minds. Firstly, a new belief is formed and sticks to the floor of our mind. Then, whenever supporting evidence arises, it attaches itself onto this belief. Over time, the belief grows into a huge mass that exerts strong influence over our mind.
Psychotherapy gets rid of your negative beliefs by severing the emotional connection. It cuts off the superglue that holds the belief to the floor of your mind, and the whole mass can be then lifted off easily. The technique used is called EMDR and can be only done by a licensed therapist. You can find one in your local area if you want.
Another way to get rid of the negative self-belief is to start a positive self-belief instead and build it up until it's bigger than the negative belief. If someone called you and told you you have to pay
€ 250, 000 you'd likely get hit pretty hard. On the other hand if he told you "You have won €1,000,000 in a lottery. Oh, and by the way, you have to pay a €250,000 tax." you wouldn't worry too much. The difference here is that the large positive impact of the million far outweighs the inconvenience of having to pay two hundred and fifty thousand 250,000.
If you build up your positive belief to the point that the clump in your mind becomes far bigger than the old negative belief, the negative belief will break off bit by bit end eventually fall away completely.
The trick is to plant the positive belief and then clump on loads of supporting evidence instead of waiting for evidence to happen. Although the belief might feel weak and shaky at first in the shadow of that huge blob of negativity, it will soon become the dominant belief.
Here's what I'd like you to do right now.
1. For each of your negative self-beliefs write down a corresponding positive belief you would like to replace it with. (For example "I am weak and helpless" -> "I am strong and powerful")
2. Next find 5 times in your life when the positive belief had been true. In the above example you maybe stood up to someone or spoke your mind despite facing disapproval. Write down those five occurrences next to each of your positive beliefs (a short bullet point to remind you of the
incident is enough)
3. This last step will be done when you can take some twenty minutes to relax comfortably. In the evening before going to sleep is ideal.
Go over the list of your positive self beliefs and the incidents to support them. Pick the first incident. Close your eyes and lie down comfortably. Go back in your mind to the time where the positive belief about you had been true. Watch yourself go though the incident.
Now step into yourself. See the memory through your own eyes, hear it through your own ears and relive all the feelings associated with it.
Next, turn up the intensity of the memory. Make the colours brighter, the sounds louder and the feelings stronger. You might want to add a soundtrack to the memory to make the emotions even stronger.
Let it really sink in to you that this is who you are.
Now repeat the process with one incident for each of your positive beliefs, or more than one if you wish.
If you want, you can also turn your new positive beliefs into affirmations. This step is optional, but it makes a huge difference when done right. There is a special way to phrase affirmations, and I will discuss them in a future post.
Enjoy your new positive self-image and what it brings to your life. Experience your own "four-minute mile".
