Arm Yourself with Belief in Yourself

The most important factor in making satisfying choices is a positive self-image.

Arm Yourself with Belief in Yourself Self-image, or the mental picture you have of yourself, determines to a large extent the level of success you achieve as a leader. The level of success you achieve as a leader, of course, helps determine the level of success your organization will achieve. The more positive your self-image, the more opportunities you must pursue success for yourself and your team.

Success means something different to every person. For some, success means advancement to even higher positions within the organization. Others count the contributions they can make to the lives of other people. Still others measure success by the size of their bank accounts. The success you seek likely consists of bits and pieces of these elements. But here is a definition of success that works for everyone: Success is the progressive realization of worthwhile, predetermined personal goals. This definition implies that success is the result of your own choice—the choice of the specific goals you pursue.

The most important factor in making satisfying choices is a positive self-image. A positive selfimage enables you to set goals that reflect your values and provide meaning and fulfillment through their achievement. Your self-image determines the measure of confidence you bring to the challenge of using your potential and working toward the goals you have set. Psychologists estimate that, on average, people use less than a third of their actual potential. This means that by using only a small additional portion of your potential, you can make a sizable increase in your effectiveness. If, for example, you are now using 30 percent of your potential, you could choose to increase that amount by another 10 percent—a total of 33 percent of your potential. With relatively little effort you can be 10 percent more effective than you are now.

The factor controlling how much of your real potential you can use— or will use—is your selfimage. You begin to acquire your self-image almost immediately after birth. As people in your environment reacted to you with approval or disapproval, you began to form a mental picture of who you were based on that feedback. If many of the messages you received implied that you lacked ability, that you were too young, too inexperienced, or limited in some other way, you may have internalized that message and believed it. Even now, you may be limiting your success based on these old messages, and ignoring the fact that you are now more experienced and more capable than you were in the past. Choosing to develop your self-image sets the stage for significant contributions to your team and organization. A positive self-image enables you to view organizational opportunities and challenges in new and exciting ways. Then you are ready to develop clear plans for the achievement of organizational goals. Armed with a strong belief in your potential for success, you and your team members are positioned to achieve the objectives which may now seem remote and out of reach.

Source LMI, Curated by Bizwiz Learning