Imagine, if the external world had so much influence in creating our opinions, how much will our inner world have a power on us?
Interacting with people and silently noticing many more, I have noticed people keep putting themselves down. Few know it, most are unaware of the fact. Just yesterday, I was in a training, where we all gathered to learn the basics of coding, something that we were are interested in but, had very little knowledge in. One girl responded to the trainer saying, “so far I have not made a single mistake, I hope I won’t be making any in future”. To which another girl quickly responded saying, “I will compensate for it. She won’t make any mistake and I am going to make a hundred”.
Do you see what is happening here? The first girls speech creates a picture in her mind of confidence and drives her to code without errors while, the second girl has already created a picture in her mind of her codes being a lot wrong. The way you see yourself is the way the world will see you. The whole training group now sympathises with her feeling she needs more attention than others.
This girl probably does not even know that she is putting herself down. Just after the class, if someone told her, “I think your codes are going to have a lot of errors”, what do you think her reaction will be? Will she take offense or, will she say, “yeah. I think so too”?
The picture you create about yourself, is the way the world will see you.
You are so fat. You are so ugly. You are born unlucky. Nothing good can come of your life. You won’t succeed. Imagine the impact these words will have if someone constantly kept telling you these. Now, replace the “You’s” in the sentence with I’s. What you tell yourself is more important than what the world tells about you. After all, you spend the maximum time with yourself. You can escape a negative person, but can’t escape yourself. You can shut a person who is negative or, you can distance yourself for such people but, you can not shut or, distance yourself from you. If you put yourself down, your brain is processing it even as you sleep or, are busy with something else.
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Instead, of seeing yourself at the defeated battle ground you are at, start seeing the victory ground you want to be at. Stat looking at your self as an attractive person. Imagine your life being where you want it to be. You never have to be stuck at the job you are at. If you want to be the VP of your company, you have to see yourself being it. To unleash your potential, you have to realize that you are worthy and capable of reaching that place. People will treat you right when you treat yourself right. If you want your marriage to be a bed of roses, start imagining it to be one. If you want to run a marathon, start imagining reaching the finish line. When you start seeing yourself achieving it, you have crossed your first step of preparations towards your goal. To give birth to something, you have to first conceive it. Start conceiving the idea of positivity, of growth, of success, of people loving you. Start respecting yourself for who you are. You are unique. You are a masterpiece. Created for something glorious.Let me encourage you to take a minute and paint a picture of who you want to be. Now imagine it everyday. Do it diligently and soon, you will come to see it pass.