BUILDING A GOOD SELF IMAGE

Building a good self-image is like carving an image from wood or molding an
artifact from the clay. It passes through deserving characteristics, demanding
opportunities and deployment of an individual’s heartfelt wishes to be how
he/she best loves to be known.
The Oxford Dictionary of Current English defined self-image as “the idea one
has of one’s abilities, appearance, and personality”. A good self-image
confines in you a reputable conception about you and makes you to develop
confidence in your own worth. A bad self-image on the other hand deforms
your expected self, making you full of incapability. A good self-image
enhances your internal harmony and that integrates you peacefully into your
external environment, preparing and equipping you to actualize the purpose
of God in your life. The following tips will guide you to build and maintain a
good self-image;
1. See yourself as God sees you:
How does God see you? He sees you as he sees human beings when he is
about to make them and send them. Think about it. It is very simple; God
loves you and sees you as a messenger, sent by him to fulfill an assignment.
Don’t hate yourself because it will be like hating what God loves. Hating
something that God loves is a sin. God loves you and you cannot in anyway
change that attribute of God. Hence, you must love yourself the way you are.
See yourself as a tool that God is holding in his dominant hand, ready to do
a great work. Prepare your mind and see your own image with an imaginary
mindset of God. Keep telling yourself; “If I were not good enough, God
wouldn’t have sent me to earth”. Yes! You are good machinery; good enough
and better off for something wonderful that is why you were sent to earth.
2. Repent quickly and free your mind:
Have you ever done something wrongly and it kept hunting your mind from
time to time? Your knowledge about your own image comes from your
imaginations. How you think of yourself reads to you who you are.
Continuous meditation on a bad behaviour you put up recently will only
create a yoke of bondage in your heart. This yoke keeps telling you about
what a hypocrite you are and that means you can’t have a sincere ego to live
a life of freedom. Repent and stay away from sin. When you live a life of a
hypocrite, you end up being unsecured and this can kill your conscience with
ease. Believe and assure yourself of a sincere repentance when you fall short
of the glory of God. Reclaim that glory and spread your wings as if you are a
new born bird, ready to fly! You are safe when you have a sincere heart.
3. Admit that you are not infallible:
One of the most peaceful statements a person can make in his life time is to
say; “I am right, but I may be wrong” . That statement honestly known and
affirmed will make you humble to admit your mistakes and guide you to
correct them with time. You are not infallible; you may make mistakes and
that is a fact. By your speeches, actions and thoughts, you may sink into
fault by which someone may become offended. You may make wrong choices
and go for wrong judgments in terms of business, relationships, and
investments and even in fellowship. What you need to do now is to imagine
your status through the sight-mind of God. Find where you went wrong and
by asking others who are consistently concerned about telling you freely
about yourself. Assess yourself from time to time to notice how your steps
are offending someone unnecessarily. Learn to say “I am sorry”, if that is
what would make peace between you and your offended counterparts.
However this attitude should not make you to become excessively timid,
apologetic and self-humiliating to the extent that you refuse to speak your
mind about some radical issues affecting your disposition and environment.
4. Set your mind on positive things:
What you progressively think about is what you are likely to appear to be.
Filtrate your imaginations and delete negative ideologies and thoughts of less
or no productivity. Never waste your thought musing over evil plans; you
destroy your self-image if you do so. Don’t keep and offence in your heart
for a longer period. You hurt your emotion if you do so. Hurting your emotion
means, you are constructing an attitude whose help will leave you unguided
on your path to success. Have a compelling vision that sets your mind on
what God can do through you. This is the kind of imagination that sets your
brain on restorational purpose of God in your life through the redemptive
power of Christ. It is called Holy Meditation. It keeps you far away from
things that would make your knowledge about yourself to be dim.
5. Be moderate, not too low and not too high:
Your physical exposure has a high influence on your mental stability. A
person with a very good self-image integrates faithfully through sincere
layering and leveling of his or her acceptance into his or her environment. In
your speech, never talk too less of your abilities; that is low self-esteem.
Don’t talk too high and boastfully about your sole capacity; that is pride. In
your appearances, don’t show off to be excessively glittering in costly jewelry
in relation to those around you. The concept of self-moderation does not
preach mediocrity. Mediocrity is absent when you set your mind on positive
things and do all things with all decency. The fact and conclusion is that you
need a simple life to go to heaven. The complexity of your earthly array is
not a guarantee for a triumphant eternity!
6. Make friends with people who encourage you:
One of the sweetest spices that sweeten the taste of your self-image is good
companionship. As a matter of fact, God did not create you to be alone. That
is why relationship is necessary. However, not every relationship is a
productive one. The presence of good friends, colleagues and relatives
enhances your meaningfulness in your environment. Imagine you are the only
person on this earth just like Adam was in the beginning of the world. Life
would be boring for you. A meaningful life is experienced on the laps of
socialization, good interpersonal relationship, and communication. These help
you be connected with people of like-minds and that stabilizes your peaceful
co-existences and harmony in life.
7. Give compliments to others freely:
You are entitled to your gifts and talents and that is the source of your
success on earth. You should however avoid looking down on people because
they can’t do what you do. Everyone is a leader in his or her area of
specialization, hence the fact that someone may not do what you do means
you may also not have the capability to do what someone does. Cultivate
the habit of giving compliments to people who deserve it. Breakdown the
walls of unhealthy ego and negativity that may only make you to think you
are the better than everyone else beside you. With this, you will live a life
without holding any negative impression about others.
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Remember what Eleanor Roosevelt said that “no one can make you feel
inferior without your permission” . You have the right to keep offences in you
or ignore them. You have the right to feel good about your own identity and
be happy with what you have or have seen.
Stop comparing yourself to others. It will either make you too proud of
yourself if you see them to be too low or it will make you to feel too low
when you rate them to be high.
Stop saying negative things about yourself. You deserve to be great and
you must. Encourage yourself in every situation.
Stop regurgitating over your bad conducts. They are real, but you must
be able to repent quickly and have your inward liberty.
May God help you to build up and maintain an image in his likeness. Live life
so well.~Prince Slycon Agbesi