Many years ago one of the first books I read in the area of personal development was written by an author and speaker who is by far one of the most successful in history. Zig Ziglar inspired people for over 40 years with his words of wisdom. After reading Zig’s book “See you at the Top” it changed my thinking and my vision for myself from that day forward.
You can purchase it by clicking on this link: http://www.amazon.com/See-You-Top-25th-Anniversary/dp/1565547063/
This book outlines many great and inspirational stories, but one area of the book that makes this book awesome is the 15 areas that Zig recommends you focusing on to have and manage a healthy self-image of ourselves.
The fifteen areas you can start working on today to feed your own self-image:
Step one: Take Inventory: To have a healthy self-image you need to look at yourself and say what are the things that make me who I am. What are the things I do well. What are the things I do that others may not do, that make me unique. When you take inventory of these areas you will see how much value you can and do bring to any situation.
Step two: When you make up and dress up, you look up. Every knows the minute they leave the barber shop or beauty parlor you feel like you are a celebrity. Your hair is right and you just feel like a million dollars. Since it feels so good be sure to do it often. The same goes for dressing up. How often do you dress up? If you aren’t doing it enough do it more. You feel how you look.
Step three: Regularly read about success stories. Guess what? Life is hard. I am sure you already knew that though. Since life is hard, we all need to read and listen to stories about others who had a hard life and how they came out on the other side. Reading biographies and stories about others inspires us and can show us that things aren’t as bad as they could be, and we have the ability to do so much more. Both of these things inspire us and feeds our image of ourselves.
Step four: Listen to speakers, teachers, preachers, and mentors. There are certain people who live in the area of motivation and inspiration. There are certain people who their job is to create inspiration and push you to stay motivated to fulfill your life’s purpose. Make sure you take the time to listen to them and seek them out. When you are doing this everything in your life will just seem better.
Step five: Take short steps. We all do one of two things. We either try to bite off more than we can chew at the beginning and get frustrated because we are unsuccessful. Or we try to steal third base before we steal second base. You have to take short steps. These short steps give us a positive self-image, because short steps usually will allow us to have some success which make us feel better about ourselves.
Step six: Smile and compliment. There is something that just happens to you when you make a decision to smile. It just makes you feel better. When you couple smiling with complimenting others, it just takes your feeling of yourself to a whole new level. Giving another person a compliment and watching how it makes them feel, makes you feel better. So do it often.
Step seven: Do something for someone else. There is an old saying that if you took a group of 500 people and you all put your problems in a big pile, that you would take your problems back. Meaning that things aren’t as bad for you as you think they are, and they could always be worse. So when you make a decision to give or help someone else it reminds you of all the good things that you have in your own life.
Step eight: Be careful of who you associate with. Out of this list of fifteen I would have to say that this one is probably the most important one that can help or hurt your self-image. Be careful on what you allow and who you allow in your life. People can either build you up or bring you down. Be sure to spend time with people who build you up.
Step nine: Make a list of all of your positive qualities. You are a good person. You know it and I know it. However, we sometimes forget or don’t think about our own positive qualities. Take the time and remind yourself of all of the positive qualities you have from time to time. This helps feed your own self-image.
Step ten: Make a victory list to remind you of your past successes. If you have never done this, I encourage you to do so. This process reminds you of what you have done well, and it motivates you to do want to do more. Sometimes we forget our past successes. Take the time and do this. Make a list and write it down and add to it often and look at it often.
Step eleven: Avoid some things. When you try to do everything, it is hard to be good at anything. This can play on your self-image. Focus on the things you like to do and that you are good at. This helps shape a positive self-image.
Step twelve: Learn from successful failures. The best way to learn is to try something and fail at it. The second best way to learn is to read or listen to others failures, or just observe and learn from them. We call this OPE (Other Peoples experiences). There are some failures that I just don’t want to go through on my own, I would rather learn them from someone else.
Step thirteen: Join a group or organization with worthwhile goals. Being around other people who share your passion and enthusiasm for something or some cause is contagious. You feed off of each other. This association is very powerful for your own self-image.
Step fourteen: Look at yourself and them in the eye. When you have a positive self-image of yourself, you can look at yourself in the eye and know who and what you are and what you stand for.
Step fifteen. Alter your physical appearance when possible, practical and desirable. How many times have you seen the commercials with the diet ads? You know the ones where someone lost a lot of weight and they are now in a bikini or without their shirt on. The stories these people tell you are typically the same. Before these individuals were quiet, shy, and didn’t go out much, and now they are half-naked on television. If you can change your physical appearance see what happens to your self-image.
My hope is that you are already doing many of these things. If not I would encourage you to do so. We all need to have a positive self-image of ourselves.
To your success and your future.
Pennies into Fortunes 
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