Ep 186: Transforming Your Self-Image for Personal and Professional Growth

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how Well . Hello friends . I hope you had an amazing week .

Today I want to talk about something that is really at the heart of my coaching practice , but even more I can say with absolute certainty , it's at the heart of all the issues we experience in our lives , and that is our self image .

Our self image defined is how we see ourselves , and I think what's interesting about it is that most of us believe that how we see ourselves isn't an option , that it just is what it is , that we are just who we are right . We don't really stop to think about well , but where did that idea of us even come from ?

So that's what I want to talk about today and , even more importantly , we don't stop to think about how we see ourselves really shapes our entire life , because it does .

That is why I initially started this coaching practice , I was , I think I said last week I was initially going to focus on people very early career , because I just wanted to , you know , help and help people who were just getting started .

What turned out , though , is that the people who were coming to me were more mid-career , and so I just there were so many of them and so many of that was happening I and because , honestly , that's where I am I thought , well , I get it , I understand the complexity , and I'm in the middle of it myself , and so it's interesting to me because it's something

that I'm experiencing all the time . But what was interesting was as I started to talk to more and more of these people about the issues in their career or their business , but also in their personal life , because , listen , what shows up in one area of your life also shows up in another .

Trust me when I tell you that , and I think , if you stop to look at your own life and some of the challenges that you have , you can probably see how there's some common threads that run from your personal life whether it be self-care or relationships or money or something about like that all the way to the things that happen in your professional life .

So there's always a common denominator and the issues we have in one place usually show up in another and at the root of it . I didn't want to be a coach that focused on well , go do this and it'll change it . Because , really , if you focus from the action level , it's just like people who set a New Year's resolution 90% of us don't follow through , right .

It's because taking the action starting the diet never works right . Starting the exercise routine you have to fundamentally change how you see yourself , otherwise nothing's going to change .

You won't stay with it right , and how you see yourself shapes not only how you look at the value of your life in the rearview mirror , but it shapes every decision you make going forward .

So , very early on , I decided that I wanted to help people with their career and their life at midlife , but I want to do it through the lens of their self-image , because that's at the root of all of it , and what my goal is as a , as a mindset coach and as a performance coach , is to help people understand what's really causing the things in their life

that they don't want , which is always self-image based at its root . How do you decide to change that and helping them first believe that they can change that , because 90% of people believe they can't . They believe well , that's just who I am . I can't undo that . It's too late . It's who I am . How do I change who I am ?

And that's kind of why today I wanted to just have a conversation about I'm calling it who do you think you are ? And I think that is a very provocative way of looking at it . And if you spent some time like if I asked you that question , and if you spent some time like if I asked you that question , who do you think you are ?

What are some of the answers that you would give ? A lot of people would say the evidence , the labels of the things they have in their life . I am a successful businesswoman , I am a mom , I am a girlfriend , I am a friend . You know , we'll say those kinds of things .

We might also say some of the labels that have been ingrained in us over the course of our lives I'm the smart one , I'm the pretty one , I'm the frumpy one , I'm the fashionable one . I'm the frumpy one , I'm the fashionable one , I'm the skinny one , I'm the fat one . Right , we label ourselves and we label ourselves because other people have labeled us .

We think that the way we see ourselves is just the truth .

And we think it's the truth because our mind is always looking for evidence , it's always looking for data points to back up or prove the things that we think about anything about other people , about experiences , about our own life , and so , like , one of my current clients is a woman at midlife , highly accomplished in her professional career , successful by anyone's

definition , but over the past 25 years of her life she's now 50 , over the past 25 , 30 years of her life , she's had a set of relationships served her it's probably a good way to put it and it's been a source of a lot of unhappiness in her life . And she blames herself for that .

She blames herself and she has a label for it I'm the girl in the bad relationship . And she has come to that conclusion because , as she looks back over the course of her life in a dispassionate way , she thinks in a dispassionate way , she's like well , look at all this evidence and what's the common denominator ?

The common denominator is me , so it has to be me and it's just who I am . And so when she came to me , she was wanting to talk about a point of inflection she's at in her career and a decision that she's about to make . That for her is a little scary . It's pretty life-changing .

And as we were talking about her uncertainty around that , we very quickly like through the getting down into the root , which is what we do in the way that I coach we found that she really has these questions around her own self-worth and when we looked at the other places that were showing up , it was very easy for her to say well , listen , one of the big

reasons I believe this is I'm the girl in the bad relationship . And then she just had all of these data points going back to the beginning of time to prove that there's some questions around her self-worth because of the people she's attracted and the experiences that she's had and she's made . All of those things mean something about her .

And as we're working on and doing that , the first big hurdle has been we're not quite through it yet helping her understand that that talk track began somewhere and it didn't begin with the first boyfriend . That was maybe an unfortunate choice . It began much earlier than that , when she was young , as it does with all of us .

So all of the things that we think are quote unquote true about us were programmed in probably before the age of five , you know , in our family of origin , in the people around us , in our early schooling experiences , in the neighborhood , friends , group , socialization all of that , all of that data came into our young mind at an early stage of development , before

we had the sophistication to sort through in a reasoned way what all of it meant . Usually the things people say to us , the ways people treat us , are really about them , not us , right ? We have a hard time understanding that , even in midlife . So when you're five or four or three , you don't understand that .

You think that the way things are in your family of origin and your place in that is about you and it's their response to you and the truth of you . You don't think about it that deeply because we're young and our minds aren't fully developed , but that is what gets put in .

All those little data points are put into our brain and they're in there then and that starts at a very young age to shape how we see ourself .

But we don't think about it that way because we don't think it's an option , we think it's just the truth and we think that the way these other people are treating us or talking to us or whatever , is just a result of who we are and what we deserve and how the world is going to respond to us .

Here's the problem with that is that that all happens subconsciously and it happens , as I said , 90% , 100% of the time it happens because of the other people and what they're thinking and what they're feeling , so they treat you in a certain way . That is not about you , even if you do something naughty when you're young and you're punished severely for it

. Not everything a child does is optimal , right , and that's part of a parent's job is to kind , of course , correct them , help them understand ramifications of their actions , and don't touch the hot stove and don't do that . We have to keep them out of danger and all of that stuff . But does it mean they're a bad person , right ?

They may tear up the house and you have to help them understand not to do that and why not to do that . It might take you a while to teach them that and you might have to find some interesting ways of reinforcing that optimal behavior , but it doesn't mean they're a bad kid , right ?

Just because you bring home a challenged report card doesn't mean you're the dumb one in the family . Just because maybe you have a sibling who's intellectually powerful and you're maybe upper middle in terms of intellectual capacity , it doesn't mean they're the smart one and you're the dumb one . You're both on your own journey right .

And so the labels that get put on us I'm the pretty one , I'm the skinny one , I'm the fat one , I'm the dumb one , I'm the smart one it shapes our entire way of looking at the world . So , my client , she didn't just become 20 in college and attract the first boyfriend who was hypercritical of her and slightly abusive . By accident .

That got shaped because of who she came to believe she was from the age of zero to 20 . So she's already thinking of herself in a certain way and in her mind she really thought that she had to do with birth order , even though she wasn't really aware of it . She felt like the invisible one . She felt like she didn't really matter .

Then in her preteen years she went through sort of an awkward way of being in the world . She had braces and she was super skinny and had a lot of hair and in her mind she wasn't very attractive .

So at a critical young age when she was starting to discover her interest in the opposite sex , she was thinking about herself in a way that wasn't great , because when she looked in the mirror she interpreted that to be I'm not attractive , right . So the combination of feeling invisible in her family a little bit .

She wasn't the bad kid , she wasn't the outstanding kid , she was just kind of in the middle . And that early childhood experience shaped how she went into her teen years and it shaped the choices she made in her first relationship .

The first boy that showed an interest in her was the one that she started the relationship with , versus stopping to think to herself is this a person that I want to spend time with ?

She didn't have the level at that age of self-worth to make that kind of decision because she thought I'm lucky , someone's interested in me , I think , is kind of where we're getting to with that .

And so that first bad experience got programmed away , reinforced all the earlier things she'd come to believe about herself that she didn't matter , that she wasn't very attractive , because those are the things that he kind of told her .

And so then that shaped her view of how she was going to be and she attracted more of the same throughout 20 to 30 years of her life and got sort of progressively worse . And that is , in a nutshell , what happens with our self-image .

And it happens without us being aware of it and it happens in a way that most of us , I would say as humans , don't take the time to undo .

And we don't do that because we don't realize that our self-image is optional , that our self-image , if it's running on default , got shaped before the age of five initially , and then all of the experiences we've had since have been further proof of that original self-image for most of us .

Sometimes we'll happen upon experiences that reshape it at a foundational young age , like I do think sports for kids can be really healthy because they start to learn , I think , important skills there and it can shape a different image of themselves .

But if it just runs on default , then that is your life , and so what I try to do with my clients is I like to stop and say listen , however old you are 35 , 55 , 65 , however old Do you want this default way of being , this view of who you think you are , to shape the rest of it ? Do you want more of the same ?

Because if you don't actively decide to change how you see yourself , you will get more of the same .

Your life will be some version of the same thing , no matter how many jobs you change , no matter how many partners you change , no matter what you do , if you don't first change , change how you think about yourself , you will attract more of what you already have gotten .

So when I talk about who do you think you are like , if I asked you that question if we were in a session , what would your answer be ? I want you to think about that for a minute and you can either put the podcast on pause or come back to it after , and just I want you to write it down .

Write down all the words that would describe who you think you are . Most people would say , oh , what they do for a living , or I'm a mom , or , you know , I'm a friend , or whatever . They'll say that . But then they'll also talk about the labels .

I'm the frumpy one , I'm the skinny one , I'm the smart one , I'm the dumb one , I'm the whatever one , I'm a great friend or I'm a bad friend , or I'm a hot mess or whatever . We have these labels that we give ourselves . What would that be ?

And I want you to look at that when you're done , that list of all the things , and don't just stop at the surface level . I keep writing all the things . Think about every area of your life friendships , self-care , how do you dress , how do you take care of yourself Right , think about your relationship with your significant other . Think about your work life .

Think about your community life . Think about you in whatever setting you as a daughter , you as a whatever .

I want you to write it all down who are you and when you're done writing and that'll probably be a pretty long list , because by the time we get to midlife we have a lot going on I want you to look at that list and I want you to ask yourself if this is who I think I am and this is how I think about myself every day .

Can you see where your inner critic comes from , that self-critical voice that some of us have running on default , sometimes all the time , sometimes only sometimes ? Can you see where that comes from ? Right , you can probably see some words written down here that are kind of running on repeat in your mind .

Can you see how some of the challenges you've had in different areas of your life your relationship with your parents , your relationship with your friends , maybe your lack of having a lot of close friends , your relationship with significant others through the course of your life , your relationship with your children , your relationship with co-workers .

Course of your life , your relationship with your children , your relationship with coworkers , your relationship with a boss all of it comes back to this . If we don't decide to edit some things out and to actively choose what we want going forward choose what we want going forward we're going to get more of the same .

It is impossible to shape a different life until you've first reshaped your self-image , and it doesn't have to be a complete overhaul , but it can be a complete overhaul , no matter how old you are . I do believe that the older we get , the longer it might take to undo , because we've had more time on the planet and more experiences .

I think if you're 15 , I think if you're 25 , I think if you're 30 , you only have 30 years in , whatever it's like . Yeah , that probably wouldn't happen overnight to reshape your self-image , but I do think we're a little more fluid . We haven't had like , if you're 60 , 30 more years for that to get deeply entrenched .

But even if you're 60 , even if you're 70 , no matter what age you are 50 , 40 , whatever , you can choose to think of yourself in a completely new way . And I want to talk about how do you do that ?

Because I know that there's a lot of like self-help things and there's a whole genre around the law of attraction and a whole genre of self-help that's about positive affirmations and I do believe that that has a component in it , but it isn't enough .

And the reason why is that if we believe that we're whatever label we're the fat one , or we're the dumb one , or we're the girl in the relationship , whatever we believe about ourself , we can't just decide to take a thought like I'm the skinny one , or I'm the smart one , or I'm the girl who always chooses the amazing partner .

We can't go from I'm not good enough to I'm amazing overnight . You won't believe it .

And what happens is that our brain is running so fast that even if we do a 15 minute exercise every morning and write down the thoughts we want to believe about ourselves , because we haven't undone that foundational belief that we are just this set of things , it's going to default back into those patterns of behavior when we hit a speed bump , when we encounter

a challenge , when we whatever and we're going to go back to . That's a bunch of BS . I'm not amazing , I'm a piece of crap or whatever we believe about ourself .

And so I have found that , in order to change your self-image at any age I just think it can happen usually faster the younger we are because there's less time that we've run on default I believe you have to use kind of a stair-step ladder .

You have to practice crawling out of the thought cellar If you believe something bad , whatever the I am statement that you believe that you are and it's not great . In order to get from that to what you want to believe about yourself , it is going to be a stair step of thinking and I think the first thing you have to do is neutralize it .

And you might say well , how do I do that ? How do I go from believing I'm the girl in the bad relationship to you know , I'm worthy of love or something like that .

You are worthy of a great partner , whatever it is , you first believe I'm human , that statement and practicing that every day and catching those moments when your inner critic is running and serving up some version of what you wrote down on your page when I asked you to define yourself the way to undo .

That is by taking the first step up the ladder to a new self-image . And it's editing out the problematic phrase . You are not the girl in the bad relationship , you are not the dumb one in the family , you are not the fat one , you are not the frumpy one . You are not any of those things . You are human . That is the first thing .

The value of that is twofold . Number one you are editing out a problematic phrase right now , day one , and you're practicing thinking , over and over again , a thought that you can actually believe is true . You are human . You're not going to you know , no one's going to argue with that fact or I'm a woman , or I'm a man or whatever .

You can do it with your gender too . Like I'm a person , I'm a human , I'm a man , I'm a woman . That is a way to immediately start catching that negative thought loop and practicing just thinking something new . And the value of thinking a thought like I'm a human is we know that humans aren't perfect .

Humans can make mistakes , humans can make choices that don't serve them and it doesn't mean anything about them , just like children can misbehave . Right , they're practicing , they're experimenting with you know what they can get away with . They're doing all kinds of things when they're young . It doesn't mean they're naughty . It doesn't mean they're bad .

It doesn't mean they're destined to become a criminal or something like that . It's like they're just a kid and they're just experimenting . So the value of the ladder is that it edits out the thing that you don't want to believe anymore and it allows you to step into something that's 100% true and 100% neutral . Humans are positive and negative .

Humans are good and bad . Humans are all kinds of things . Being a human is a imperfect thing and believing that you're that is something that you could start by thinking . And you're catching those negative thought loops and you're deciding on purpose to think nope , I'm a human , is what I am . I'm not the girl in the bad relationship .

I'm a human who has sometimes made some questionable choices about my relationships . That's a very , very different thing than I am the girl in the bad relationship . I'm a human who has made some challenging choices in relationships is a much better thing to believe .

And as you practice that and get used to quieting that old negative thought loop about I am this , I am that , I am this , I am that , and you're editing those things out by neutralizing that bad part of the phrase and just allowing yourself to believe . You know what . I'm a human . That's it .

Good and bad , right and wrong , challenge , and no challenge Like that's that's who I am . And then the next step up might be something like my client we're not there yet , but she kind of wasn't even realizing she was doing it .

After she got out of her last relationship she just told herself I'm just staying out of relationships because obviously I don't want to be the girl in the bad relationship anymore and so therefore I'm not going to have another relationship . I'm just going to focus on my professional life and my friendships and that's enough .

If that's what you want , that's fine , but that really , as we've gotten into it , isn't what she wants . So her next step up on the ladder might be I'm a human who's experimenting with what's right for me in relationships or something like that , as she allows herself to get out into the world and having dates again .

She's going to have some great ones , probably , and some horrible experiences again .

She's going to have some great ones , probably , and some horrible experiences we all do , and it's like she can allow herself to do that and have it , not go back or default back to oh , this is happening in a challenging date because , you know , I'm the girl in the bad relationship and I never meet a nice guy . We don't want that narrative to continue .

So we want to start with I'm a human . And then , as she starts to put herself out into the world , into dating situations , we want her to say I'm a human who is experimenting , finding the right person for me .

So that allows her to say some might be good , some might be bad , and to make a purposeful choice about that , versus just , you know , believing that she's always going to choose the wrong person Right .

And as she practices that and starts to self-select into the kind of a relationship that she might want , whenever that happens she can start to believe that she's the girl that's worthy of a healthy relationship , she's worthy of a partner that respects her , she's worthy of that kind of love . That's what I mean by the ladder .

I don't think it's helpful to try to jump from I'm not good enough to I'm amazing , because your brain won't believe it , because you've had too long to practice . I'm a hot mess , I'm not good enough , I'm not worthy , and you've got too many data points .

You have to start first by taking that I am statement , the I am not good enough , and deleting not good enough Practice that you can't get to all the way , probably to I'm good enough right away . But you can take that rung up the ladder by going from I'm not good enough or I'm not worthy to I am human .

I think that is a great ladder statement because it's 100% neutral and it's 100% believable .

Very important you need to get rid of and edit out the phrase that's not serving you from a belief and allow yourself to practice a neutral belief and catching those negative thought loops when they happen , so that you can undo that neural pathway , weaken it and replace it with the neutral one I am human which allows yourself to be .

You know all kinds of conflicting things and it's fine because humans are that and gradually work your way up the ladder , one rung at a time , until you arrive at I'm amazing and you can get there . It doesn't matter how old you are .

Who do you think you are is a very powerful question to ask yourself , because the things that have happened to you in your life , in all areas of your life , whether they're good , bad , neutral , however you define them and the way that you think you are , the way you have of looking at yourself . I want you to understand that it's not true .

It's just the result of things that happened to you very early on , when you were too young to really understand that the way people were responding to you was about them . We still don't understand that . Most of us at midlife we think it's about us .

No , the way people are in the world is 100% about them , and what we have to do , the work we have to do in who do we think we are is understanding that . That's not set . Our brain has executive function . Our human brain has executive function . We can decide to think and believe new things about ourself . That's a choice .

But getting from default ways of being that have built up over 30 , 40 , 50 years or longer , that is going to take time and a deliberate way of undoing and reshaping , but it is very , very doable . We have something called neuroplasticity in our brain .

We can choose new ways of thinking about ourself and hardwire those in and therefore make possible in our life things that today might seem completely out of the realm of possibility . So that's why I focused my coaching practice here and that is why I wanted to talk about it on the podcast today .

So if you're someone who did the exercise , if you haven't , please go and do it . Ask yourself who do I think I am and write down all the labels , write down all the words , write down everything . It might be pages and pages of stuff . I want you to be honest with yourself , with what you write down .

Don't edit it , don't make it sound better than it actually is , and when you're done , I want you to look at it and I want you to ask yourself which of those things .

If you look at your life and the set of experiences that you are having or have had , can you see how these beliefs made you make those choices , made you stay in those situations or leave those situations , made you attract more of the same , and are you willing to let the next half of your life be shaped by that ?

If not , you've got some self-image work to do , and I believe we all do . Honestly , I think our self-image , in order to have the best life , has to stay fluid . I don't think it should ever be set . It doesn't matter if you're 85 , you know . Who do you want to be for the remaining days and years of your life ?

That is a choice we are always making every day , and in order to make , I think , the most optimal choice , the most possibilities-oriented choice , it's by allowing yourself to constantly see yourself and your possibilities in the most expansive way . And that isn't done on default . That is a choice that you

make . So if this is something you struggle with , if this is something you're interested in , I invite you to head on over to my Instagram , click on the link in my bio and set up a 30 minute call . I would love to talk to you about what's going on in your life and some of the ways that self-image work can help you .

And with that I'll leave you till next time . Make it a great week . My friends , do you have a life coach ? If not , I'd be so honored to be your coach . I've created a virtual coaching program and monthly membership called Next Level . Inside , we take the material you hear on this podcast , study it and then apply it .

Join me at the purposeful careercom backslash next level . Don't forget the purposeful careercom backslash next level . Join me and together we'll make your career in life Everything you dream of . We'll see you there .