How You See Yourself Will Influence How Other People Treat You

The one person we will never be able to run or hide from is ourselves.

We live with who we are, even if we do not like who that might be. There is no hiding, and there is no turning our backs on ourselves and finding someone better. We are the best we have.

Unfortunately, many things influence the view we have about ourselves. Opinions, expectations, pain and hurt from our past are only a few that shape and mould how we see ourselves. We become strangers to our original design, and often we hate the person staring back at us in the mirror.

We compare ourselves with those around us and sell ourselves short on every level. Wishing we could have the confidence, boldness and success those around us have.

We forget that their confidence, boldness and success did not magically appear — although that would have been nice.

The difference, they worked at having a healthy relationship with themselves. They did not allow their mistakes, failures, past, or the opinions and expectations of others to define how they see themselves and what they believe they can achieve.

They decided to build a healthy relationship with themselves, for themselves.

So what does a healthy relationship with yourself look like?

Knowing yourself — what is your self-talk like, what are the thoughts going through your head, what is your behaviour like, what do you believe about yourself and your abilities?

Understanding yourself — what is the root of your thoughts, feelings and behaviour, and how does it impact your life and your relationship with the world, people around you and yourself?

Improving yourself — being honest about where you are, not willing to stay where you are and taking action to move towards who you want to become.

Being comfortable with yourself — not allowing the world to define you, but intentionally doing it yourself.

Being confident — in yourself, your decisions, your abilities and how you approach and deal with life.

Loving yourself — we will talk about this a little bit later.

I know that, most probably, your stomach is pulling in a knot right now. Fear and anxiety take over at the mere thought of digging deep and getting to know and understand yourself better.

Daunting as it might seem, this is the only way to start building a healthy relationship with yourself. We cannot work on or change what we do not know about. We cannot grow in confidence and become the successful person we desperately desire if we do not take the courage to know and understand ourselves first.

Yes, we might find things we do not like, but is that not the whole point? How else will we be able to know what must change and make those changes?

So, how do we do it?

Firstly we decide to be brave and take a hard and honest look at ourselves.

Secondly, we decide what it is we need and want to change.

Thirdly we think about why we want to make the changes. It will help us persevere through the challenges.

Fourthly we take responsibility and start taking small steps to make the changes we want to see in ourselves.

Finally, we start walking confidently and see how we grow a healthy relationship with ourselves and the ones we love.

There are a couple of things to remember when evaluating where you are in your relationship with yourself and growing in self-awareness.

• Take the time to be intentional and ask hard questions.
• Be brutally honest with yourself.
• There is no right or wrong answer, just truthful ones.
• Do not stop digging until you are satisfied with your discovery and it resonates with your heart.
• Be open to learning more about yourself.
• Remember that you are not static in your growth.
• See it as a discovery journey.
• Enjoy and embrace the journey.

In the process, learn to love yourself more for who you are and not for what the world made you to be and remember these important aspects about self-love:

• Self-love is not selfish or unhealthy.
• Self-love is a foundational aspect of building a healthy relationship with yourself.
• Self-love is a journey of discovering, accepting and being who you are.
• Self-love is taking a stand and telling the world that it no longer has the right to determine your value or worth only you have that right.
• Self-love is being truthful about yourself and being at ease with your realness, including the good, the bad and the ugly.
• Self-love is having grace with yourself and knowing that you are doing your best.
• Self-love is loving yourself and accepting yourself unconditionally.

Today, I want to encourage you to be intentional, ask the hard questions and start forming a self-aware picture of what you think, what you feel, and how you behave in every area of your life. And do not forget the WHY behind all those questions. The WHY will lead you to the truth about how you see yourself.

Once the truth about how you see yourself is known, you can do something about improving your view of yourself. Remember, we cannot work on what we don’t know.

Enjoy the journey and know you are worth much more than being only a shadow of your past mistakes, pain, hurt and the opinions of others. You are unique in every way. Discover your uniqueness and grow into your fullness while loving yourself through and through.

Once you confidently start loving yourself, the world will follow automatically.

Download the free worksheet to help you grow your self-awareness, build a solid and unshakable relationship with yourself and see how other people will start treating you differently.

Talk again soon

Belinda Pieterse — ReDefine