Empowering Your Mind

by Linda-Ann Stewart

Is your self-image in alignment with who you want to be? Do you want something greater for yourself, but you feel unworthy to seek or achieve it? Or maybe you’ve attempted to change a habit or situation in your life, and it hasn’t worked out. If so, the problem is likely due to how you view yourself. 

Your self-image is a combination of qualities that you identify with: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. They are concepts that you believe define you. For example, you think of yourself as intelligent and friendly or a failure and inept. Your self-image includes abilities, talents, strengths and weaknesses you believe you have. You see yourself through the lens of all these characteristics and they filter out everything that isn’t in alignment with them.

How Your Self-Image Sabotages You

If any of the ideas you hold contradict your goals, then your subconscious mind will sabotage your aspirations in some way. Your subconscious mind keeps you in alignment with how you think of yourself. It will conform your actions and behaviors so they agree with how you view yourself. In this way, your subconscious keeps you congruent with your self-perception.

For instance, if you think of yourself as a disorganized person, then every time you try to keep your space neat, you’ll make some kind of mess. Your beliefs affect your behaviors and your subconscious mind ensures that they align. If they don’t agree, you feel discomfort, unease and even anxiety. By trying to shift beyond your self-image, you’re stepping out of what’s familiar and safe. And your subconscious mind will create distress until you go back to your old ways.

You Can Change Your Self-Image

Your self-image is an accumulation of past childhood ideas and attitudes you’ve established over the years. All of these are simply beliefs, and beliefs can be changed. With some work, you can improve your self-image so it supports you when you take action to achieve new goals and visions.

1. Become aware of the beliefs that construct your self-image. Focus on the areas you have trouble improving. How do you identify yourself in these areas? For instance, to meet deadlines, do you describe yourself as someone who is always late? Before you can change a belief, you have to be aware that it’s a problem and what kind of issue it’s creating.

2. Why do you want to change your belief? To change it, you have to have a strong motivation that will override your natural reluctance to change. Will the shift make you healthier or happier? Write down all the benefits to having a better self-image in this area. Your motivation must be strong enough to convince your subconscious mind that it’s safe for you to pursue the change.

3. What actions do you need to take to change your belief? These could be improving what you tell yourself, making decisions based on your new identity, changing habits or something else. For example, to eat healthier, you’d think about how a healthy person would eat, and make choices from that position. This would allow you to adopt a better lifestyle overall and create new eating habits. Once you decide on these new actions and behaviors, commit yourself to follow through on them.

4. Create a new self-image that represents your aspiration. Imagine yourself a year in the future with all these changes in place. How would you think and feel differently about yourself? Tell yourself that you’re worthy of and deserve the outcome. What other changes would have resulted? What you’re doing is updating your self-image so that it supports you in your goal or vision.

You may feel uncomfortable as you go through this process, but it will be worth it. What you’re doing is changing a fundamental part of yourself to align with what you want and who you want to be. It takes courage and commitment, but it allows you to create the life you want. 

Affirmation:

The Universe perceives me to be a perfect reflection of Itself, having all the loving and good qualities that It contains. It holds the highest and best view of me. That individualized expression of the Universe is the potential of who I am and could be. I now aspire to be that person, and view myself as the Universe sees me.

For more articles on improving your self-image, read 5 Steps to Create a Greater Self-Image, When Self-Image Sabotages Positive Thinking, and Say “Yes” to Your Vision.

Watch the accompanying video, Guided Meditation to Create a New Self-Image.

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Your Erroneous Zones: Step-by-Step Advice for Escaping the Trap of Negative Thinking and Taking Control of Your Life
By Wayne Dyer

This is the book that propelled Wayne Dyer into his path as a self-improvement and spiritual leader. Although I have trouble with Dyer’s authoritarian tone, this is a must have book if you’re working through self-esteem issues. Not only does it address various false beliefs, “erroneous zones,” that have created a low sense of self-worth, it explores the possible reasons we keep them going.

For every belief we have, positive or negative, there was an original purpose for it. And sometimes the subconscious thinks that the reason still exists, despite evidence to the contrary. We also tend to receive benefits out of even negative attitudes. This book examines and dismantles those reasons and benefits. It brings self-defeating beliefs and attitudes into the light of awareness so that the reader can make a conscious decision to either keep them or change them.

The whole message of this book is to take charge of your life and your emotions. Because, by doing so, you can change your life.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson – Making a decision focuses your energy to your goal. Instead of going back and forth, “Should I, shouldn’t I,” that divides your attention, a commitment to an idea or action concentrates your power on that one thing. It kick starts your subconscious to move you in that direction, and funnels opportunities from the Universe to propel you along.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

Seven Ways to Feel More in Control of Your Life
Most of us are bombarded for demands for our attention and feel overwhelmed. We bounce from situation to situation, hoping we’re making the best decision. But we don’t take the time to think things through. When you take control over what you place your attention on, you’re able to reduce the mental noise. You reduce your stress, become more effective and are happier.

Finding Your Worth in a Sea of Negative Self-Beliefs
A positive self-image is important to being effective in your life and achieving your goals. Negative views of yourself can unconsciously cause you to act in self-sabotaging ways. But you can break out of those negative patterns and improve your sense of self and well being. Here are 4 ways to improve your self-worth and change your life.

The Truth Behind “You Create Your Own Reality”
Although the Law of Attraction has gained popularity in recent years, most people don’t realize that it’s not just about manifesting “stuff.” It’s more about empowerment and realizing that you choose your thoughts and your actions, which results in your experience. This article goes into a deeper examination of the idea of co-creation and how we can more fully participate in it.

~ Linda-Ann Stewart

If you’d like a guide to help you achieve a 90-day goal, download my free comprehensive 90-Day Strategic Vision Worksheet.

Every day, you make decisions that either keep you on course to your goals, or take you off it. They either support your endeavors or undermine them, and they shape your destiny. Most people have no idea that every single day, they have so much control over the course of their lives. Linda-Ann shares a tip to help you make the right decision in each situation so you reach the success you deserve.

Transcript:

Thank you for joining me. I’m Linda-Ann Stewart. Have you begun to drift a bit off course? You have a goal in mind, but are no longer aiming straight towards it? Maybe you wanted to reduce weight, and went on a diet. But after a while, you had one piece of candy. Then you had a doughnut, then a piece of cake.

You went to a your favorite restaurant, and just couldn’t resist having your favorite meal, which blasted your diet out of the water. And these choices started coming quicker and quicker, until you just gave up. Has that ever happened to you? Maybe on a diet, or with some other goal? Where your decisions started to skew you off course?

Unfortunately, that’s a way that you miss your target. Hundreds of small, minor decisions that you make every day add up and take you off course. Some of these decisions may not even be made consciously. You go to the break room to get coffee, talk to a coworker, and don’t even realize that your hand has snagged a piece of candy from the bowl that’s always there.

The small decisions you make each day keep you on course, or take you off course, to any goal you might have, personal or professional. For instance, one day, I needed to focus on writing an article and I also had to call someone to answer some questions. I knew that if I made the call first, it was going to distract my attention from my article for hours. I just know that about myself. I’d be more concerned with the other person and what they needed and I’d have a hard time pulling my attention back to my article.

So I decided to focus on my article first, and to schedule making that call later in the day. That was a small decision that allowed me to stay on course for the tasks and my goals for the day. What small decisions are you making each day that are making a difference in your goals? That’s what I’d like to cover today, and give you a tip that can keep you on course.

I’m a vision strategist. I work with women service professionals and small business entrepreneurs who are frustrated because they’re spinning their wheels and lost in a forest of details of their business. Using my 30 years of experience as a hypnotherapist, I coach them to develop and focus on the strategies that keep them on course so they bring their vision into reality.

In both my hypnotherapy and coaching businesses, I help people make decisions that will keep them on track to their goals and vision. The same principles hold true whether you want to reduce weight, or build your business. The tiny decisions you make every hour of every day shape your destiny. They can develop into habits that undermine you or support your endeavor.

For instance, do you have too many balls in the air or are involved in too much? That could mean that you don’t prioritize what’s important to you. Or are you multitasking, which actually undermines productivity? If you’re too busy or multitasking, you’re making choices to just deal with what’s immediately in front of you. You’re not taking into account your goals or the ultimate course you want to follow, your intention.

To stay on course, you want to create a habit to ask yourself if your actions are keeping you on course or taking you off it. It will take some conscious effort, because you may have to break old habits that you’ve created. And, as we all know, breaking habits can be challenging, right?

When I decided whether to write the article before I made my call, I asked myself which would be the best thing to do first. I would normally do the call first so I could check that off my list and have time free to concentrate on my article. But I knew this call might need more of my time and attention and actually distract me. So I had to fight against my normal impulse, my habit, and work on the article before I made the call.

Your mindset tip, to stay on course, is a question to ask yourself, such as: “What decision can I make here that will be more likely to keep me on course?” You can do this at the beginning of the day, or at any decision point during the day. Remember, it’s the small decisions that cause you to successful or not.

There will be times when you have to be too involved in other things, or have to multi-task, or give yourself permission to have that bite of cake. But when those decisions become conscious choices and you’ve made sure they won’t take you off course, those decisions serve you, rather then you just acting out of habit. You’ll be taking charge of the course of your life, one decision at a time.

If you’d like some help in getting on course and achieving your goals, apply for a Complimentary Coaching Consultation.

Thank you for watching. I would love to hear how you’re keeping yourself on course. Take care.

Read the accompanying article Are You Living on Autopilot?

~ Linda-Ann Stewart