When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

When you think about yourself, what do you think?

When you speak to yourself, what do you say?

When you want to take action on something, do you do it? Or do you talk yourself out of it?

When setting your New Year’s resolutions and goals or making any decisions to embark on a journey of self improvement, we always begin with great intentions.  Perhaps you want to get in shape, lose weight, eat better, start meditating, learn to dance, or any multitude of things that you know will make you feel better about yourself and improve your life.

These are terrific goals, however what can often happen is that the way in which you see yourself does not match the outcome you want to achieve.  For example, if you want to start meditating but you see yourself as someone who cannot sit still for even one minute and you believe it’s going to be really difficult to just sit quiet, then the prevailing thought you have about yourself is that you won’t be able to do it.  If, however, you decide to see yourself as someone who can learn new things and can envision all of the benefits you will achieve by meditating, then the way you see yourself immediately supports what you desire.

Or, let’s say you want to meet the love of your life.  You know what you want and have put yourself in all the right places and circumstances to find the right mate, but what you think about yourself is that you’re not really that good a catch, or you aren’t funny enough or soon they’ll see all of your imperfections. What you think about yourself will keep you from having a healthy, loving and successful relationship.

Have you ever known someone who is really an amazing person, talented, beautiful, intelligent, but they don’t see it?  No matter what you tell them, they don’t believe it about themselves so they go about their life believing they are not those things while everyone around them is baffled by the obvious.   How you see yourself is more important than how others see you and it will determine your outcomes long before you even get to them.

When we go through life thinking that when “this” or “that” happens, then we will be happy, then we will be successful, and then we will enjoy life, what is really happening is we do not see ourselves as capable of having or being all of that now.  Life is not about pushing the “pause” button and waiting to feel good later. Life is about living in the moment with as much joy and appreciation as possible which means that you learn to love yourself and appreciate who you are first.

“You cannot perform in a manner inconsistent with the way you see yourself.” ~ Zig Ziglar

“If you see yourself as prosperous, you will be.  If you see yourself as continually hard up, that is exactly what you will be.” ~ Robert Collier

Your thoughts are things, and they are constantly creating your reality.  Whatever you think about expands in your life, which is why it does not matter what others think about you, it’s what you think about yourself.  Attaining any of the goals you have set for yourself this year will come about by the thoughts you think about you.  There will always be things that we want to improve on within ourselves, but let me encourage you to mindfully celebrate your best qualities and make the way in which you see yourself a priority this year because it is the actual foundation from which all your choices, decisions and actions are based and makes all the difference in attaining any goals you have set for yourself.