“Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.” ~ Maxwell Maltz

When you look at yourself or think about yourself, do you love who you are or do you automatically pick fault with what could be improved upon? Negative self-image affects all of us at some point, I know that I am at my most insecure professionally because what people think of what I do matters to me hence I am twice as critical on myself. When I think about myself on a good day, I think that I am a driven go-getter who also looks amazing with her hooker heels. But more often than not, the thoughts are more like “My complexion could be better”, “I should be more ahead in my career” or “I should have published a bestseller by now”.  

The people closest and dearest to us tend to be hyper-critical about what we look like and what we do. For example, every year during the Chinese New Year celebrations, my mother would remark that I look fatter than before (whether it is true or not). Many parents are hyper-critical of their child’s grades and scores on tests and my personal experience was when my father remarked that I should have scored 100% on a test (I scored 98%) and I responded that he should go take the test himself if he was that clever.

These things whilst small can really chip away at a person’s self-image over time. I could have grown up constantly criticising my intelligence and my physique (come to think of it, I sometimes do 😊) and be permanently scarred that I feel unworthy of any achievements but fortunately I am plagued only by occasional bouts of insecurities and self-doubts.

There are days when negative self-image stops you from showing up and doing your best work because you start to believe that there is no point to all of this, no one else will ever see what you’ve worked hard on and that you will never reach the outcome you want because maybe, just maybe, your dream is simply too big for you.

Cue the pity party band ☹

When this happens here are 3 ways you can turn your negative self-image into a positive self-image:

1.   Summon the power of your past experience.

When I get a little down and doubtful of what I can achieve, I think about my past achievements and obstacles I have overcame. These are things like becoming a General Manager, learning how to build websites on my own being independent living on my own in my mid-teens.

These things on their own may not mean much to anyone else but for me, they hold special meaning because I had worked hard on achieving these and invested a lot of my time and effort into realising them. The point of thinking about your past glory is not just what was achieved but how you have dug deep and overcame your self-doubts when achieving them, remember what you went through, how you went through it and how you felt after you’ve achieved them.

When we are living in this moment, we remember vividly how tough things were in the past because we like to lament on how we suffered but we tend to overlook what went well and what we did to overcome those times so this exercise will help you to recall the good.

Next time when you are bogged down with self-doubts about your capabilities, think about the things you have achieved and lift yourself up knowing that you have gone through much harder stuff before. How did you overcome that obstacle in life? What made you push through the pain?

2.   Acknowledge and show gratitude for whom you are now

Our present self is the one that we tend to ignore and neglect to show our affection for. It is like things we have in our homes that get the most wear and tear yet we don’t always take care of it nor notice its presence.

When I think about who I am today, my experiences and my choices in life is a reminder that I am the product of all of these things and without them my life would be different. We often complain about our current situation because we think that our current reality should be better and different somehow. We also regret our past actions because they are the cause of our situation today. I think that we are often put in the position of being in exactly the place we ought to be and we have done the things we’ve done because these experiences bring us to this exact moment where we are embarking on the path we choose.

Looking at yourself right now, what are you grateful for? Your home, your confidence level, how you look now as compared to when you were an awkward teen? Are you more loving now than before? There are many things about ourselves we should acknowledge and be grateful for, find out what they are for yourself, take 10 minutes and think of at least 5 things you are grateful for when it comes to who you are.

3.   Indulge in the possibility of your future

According to the psychologist Dan Gilbert who talked about the psychology of our future self on TED Talk, we overestimate the probability of the person we will become in the future being the same as the person we are now. But I think that we think of ourselves as being not just the same but better in the future; thinner, richer, happier, more successful and more discipline but mostly clearer on what we want in life.

It’s like how a lot of visualization exercises take us down certain paths in life, either a straight or a fork in the road where on the path leads us to our eternal glory or for us mere mortals, success and happiness. If you think about it when we do these exercises, we get excited, when we set goals and imagine the future that we are creating for ourselves, we are pumped to get going. We see the future clearly and it leaves us wanting more and motivates us just enough to get past our small pity party.

Next time you are in full throes of a negative self-image, sit down, close your eyes, imagine and visualize the future that you want that you are working so hard to build now. Get into the details of everything that you are dreaming of, see it, feel it, hear it and experience it. Imagine that you are creating a virtual reality future you are dreaming of and immerse yourself in it. This should only take a few minutes but after this you should feel energized and buoyed by a sense of excitement to get going.

Small and consistent

These three ways may sound like it is too short or too simple to work but as with anything, you have to start small. We all have negative self-image from time to time: that beautiful curvaceous woman you see may secretly hate how she feels inferior to her peers, the successful manager you see on the street may hate his weight and you, though mostly self-assured and happy may have self-doubts and feel frustrated with where you should be in life. No matter the reason, you can snap out of this negative self-image mode starting with these small steps.