A positive attitude (ie. spirit of optimism ) is absolutely essential in path towards success in whatever endeavour in life you may choose. We all know and envy those people who project an aura of confidence and success. Don't we?

Thus, self image is a vital self-management skill... and, like all skills, it needs constant exercise to nourish, strengthen and grow:

"Water flowers, instead of weeds in your garden."

How long has it been since we visited ourselves by looking closely at ourselves?

The technical word for this is introspection (loved by those "psycho types").

How Do You See Yourself Now?

1. What do you do well?

2. What do you like most about yourself?

3. What results/achievements are you most proud of?

Your self image can be an 'invisible ceiling'. Don't sell yourself short, because everyone has potential to do anything. "If you can think it, you can do it." Aim high. If you train fleas to jump in a glass jar, even if you remove jar, they do not jump any higher (it's a conditioned response).

Don't be a flea! Say to yourself:

"I need to lift lid of my unlimited potential."

Lifting Lid

Unlimited Potential

Self Image

Self imposed ceiling

Limited Potential

HOW DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN THE FUTURE?

Write a short note to yourself on who you want to be and what you want to achieve by years 2003 and 2005 (perhaps even 2010, as years fly by so fast, as we get older). Utilise visual imagery (or mental pictures) and talk to yourself in a quiet place. Stillness is key.

Make a decision to change (if you want to) and where you want to go in life. Involve yourself in clear specific goals. Enough about goal-setting. That's subject of another article!

So work on your self image daily by affirming that you are "unique and special" . A person with individual gifts and talents. You DO have something totally unique to contribute to world... by "simply being YOU."

Craig Lock

The Special Person You Were Meant to Be

If you can value truth above approval, and friendship over power, wealth, or fame, If you can share your gifts wisely, leaving someone better off than when you came, If you find happiness, simple pleasures, and see rainbow, not falling rain , If you have faith to keep on believing in miracles that no one can explain, If you live every day to your potential and find goal in everything you see, Then you'll be, not just happy and successful, but person only you were meant to be.

To end off this piece, a few final thoughts on taking risks in life... RISK:

Seeing that I've taken one or two...or three or four in my time. And achieving any type of success always involves taking some form of calculated riskI love quotation, 'Be bold and unseen forces come to your aid'. It certainly worked for us when we came to New Zealand with virtually nothing. Remember past is unimportant. Only present and future matter. And future belongs to calculated risk takers. I have to think so with my life way it is, don't I? And more importantly, I need a great deal of FAITH...to keep me going day after day.

"The greatest risk in life is to risk NOTHING... The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing..."

- Norman Vincent Peale.

"Only person who risks is truly free. A man's con- quest of himself dwarfs conquest of Mount Everest". - N.V.Peale (again).

"Whatever you do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it". - Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

To end off this chapter, a final thought from plain old "Joe Bloggs"... Whatever you want or desire in life, remember Hamlet's words written by great English playwright, William Shakespeare:

"To thine own self be true".

Then you will be happy. Be happy.