The Mentor In The Mirror #67

It's nice to have a mentor to encourage and motivate you and provide expertise to help advance your career, solve problems, and achieve goals. In many different arenas people have benefited from being part of a mentoring relationship.

I have experienced that there are many people who desire a mentoring relationship but find it unavailable. While we do not always find a capable or willing person available to help us learn the "ropes" and build our self-esteem, everyone has access to a first class mentor. Someone who knows us best and has our best interest at heart. To find this outstanding mentor you only need to look in a mirror.

This amazing mentor in the mirror has the power to help you believe in yourself and boost your self-esteem. He or she will point out the steps for moving from apprentice to master starting with the fact that self-esteem is a indication or measurement of the relationship of self-mage and self-ideal; our current performance level and goal performance level.

For many people there is a gap between their self-image and their self-ideal. This variance creates a conflict— low self-esteem— that your mentor wants to help resolve. Your mentor in the mirror has one goal: help you improve your self-image thereby, bridging the gap.

Improving self-esteem involves these easy steps. Set aside some time to get acquainted with your self-ideal, the person you most want to be. Is this the person you really want to be; your alter ego? Is this your inner hero? If so good, if not, then you want to identify the person you would like to become.

Once you have your self-ideal clearly in focus, your next step is to determine your current relationship to that ideal. People who fail usually have a view that they aren't meeting their standards. This low self-esteem will prevent them from becoming the person they want to be. Remember, self-esteem is a personal approval rating or self evaluation. It is the relationship between self image and self-ideal. The closer you see yourself being your self-ideal the higher your self-esteem; the further away, the lower your self-esteem.

If you are only the shadow of your ideal, you may with discipline, dedication, and perseverance achieve the ideal and obtain maximum self-esteem. Work to move closer each day until you have bridged the gap.

Like all skilled mentors, the mentor in the mirror doesn't accept alibis. He or she will hold you accountable for results. The mentor knows that victims create alibis while winners don't make excuses. Victims may try but, winners do!

In the classic movie Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Obi-wan Kenobi begins to tutor Luke Skywalker in the ways of the force. This force is a natural power used by the Jedi Knights. The emphasis is on the good that comes from being positive and proactive. Unfortunately, too many people don't think positive thoughts and thereby fail to act. It is amazing the number of people that half-heartedly try to succeed when a Jedi knows that to progress from apprentice to master, there is no try, only do!

For many people their self-esteem problem is not that their self-ideal is set too high. The problem is that their self-image is not realistic. Unfortunately too many people have low self-esteem due to the negative way they look at themselves. It is easy to forget just how unique an individual is when we get caught up in judging ourselves based on what we perceive to be the outstanding traits of other people. I believe that we tend to overestimate the strengths of others while we underestimate our own strengths. Too often we compare the strengths of others to our own weaknesses thus erroneously comparing apples to oranges.

It is our strengths that define and make us who we are. Our weakness keep us humble. Time spent on improving and amplifying our strengths pays off in increased self-image. Time devoted to improving our weaknesses only reinforces our low self-esteem.

You can have confidence in the mentor who says, "Have fun and celebrate." Long-term self-esteem success is the result of the small victories we accumulate ever day. Have fun as you move toward victory. Celebration when justified unleashes more motivation for additional success and increased self-esteem.

Starting today listen to the voice of the mentor in the mirror. He or she is trying to get you to believe in yourself so that you feel good about yourself. The solutions to your self-esteem problem is not in the mirror. They lie within each of us. The mentor knows that the higher our self-esteem, the more we will achieve. I believe that self-esteem is really the value we put on ourselves. If so, you are priceless.

Three Point Success Summation

Hog Thought: The idea that the mentor in the mirror knows how to motivate (inspire) is built on the observation that no one knows us like we know ourselves. Look behind the stone face that is starring at you and start chiseling. Chisel away doubt, fear, procrastination, You, like Michelangelo, can set the angel free to achieve greatness.

Hog Quote: “A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment.”— Dr. Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics

Hog Action: Have high aspirations. Your performance is a reflection of the mentor in the mirror.