Week 1 – Self-Image and Outlook
You have successfully completed the Bootcamp. You have laid the foundation for physical strength and resilience. The next 10 weeks (Program 2) is all about building psychological strength and resilience. This week we will go through the importance of self-image and how you can use the principle of a servo-mechanism to guide you towards the outcomes that you desire most in your life. Also you will get acquainted with the outline of all the topics that will lead you towards a healthy and strong self-image over the next 9 weeks.
The Servo Mechanism
It’s just as possible to build our mental resilience and work on our emotional regulation, as it is to build our physical strength and work on our cardiovascular system.
The principle of cybernetics regards the human brain, the nervous system, and the muscular system as a highly complex ‘servo mechanism’.
This concept does not mean we are machines, but it does mean that our physical brain and body functions as a machine that we are in control of. And the principle of cybernetics says this automatic creative mechanism within us can only operate in one way – it must have a target to shoot at.
This is to say we must first clearly see a vision in our mind before we can move towards it. We then become an automatic vision-seeking machine that will naturally steer its way to a target using feedback data and information stored in our subconscious mind. And when we are off course, this internal system will automatically course correct.
When we do see this vision clearly in our mind the creative mechanism takes over and does the job much better than we could do it by any combination of conscious thought, effort, or willpower.
When we are operating through this internal creative mechanism it doesn’t relieve us from the need for effort and work, it just feels different in our mind compared to when we are striving for something or craving a result.
The great thing about this automatic creative mechanism within us is it works when picturing the type of person we want to be, just as it works when picturing a mental image of a goal or vision of what we want to do with our lives.
This means we can put our internal creative mechanism to use to develop our self-image.
Self-image
Before a person can change, we must first picture a mental image of the type of person we want to be. We must hold the vision of that person in our mind. We are literally changing our self-image just by creating this mental picture. And when we start to consciously think and feel like the type of person we want to be, we begin to act like this as well. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The aim of Self Image Psychology is not to create a fictional image of ourselves that is all powerful and all important. Imagining a superior image is as unrealistic and inappropriate as the inferior image many of us unconsciously hold within our mind about our self.
Our aim is to find our real self.
And to then align our mental image of our real self with our goals and visions.
It is common knowledge among psychologists that most of us underrate ourselves.
There’s apparently no such thing as a superiority complex because people who seem to have one are usually suffering from an inferiority complex – their superior self is a cover-up, a fiction to hide from themselves and others their deep-down feelings of inferiority and insecurity.
It’s vital that we search for our real self. The person we want to be is always the person we’re meant to be – we just didn’t know it because socialisation and conditioning got in the way. By working on our self-image we learn to believe in what is true, not what is false. In what nature intended for us, not what society turned us into.
Great living starts with a picture of our real self held in our imagination.
If we can imagine this image of ourselves every day, if we can meditate on this picture daily, then this mental picture becomes all-consuming and we become more resilient and more inspired to think, feel, and act in alignment with this mental picture.
The important thing is to make these mental images as vivid and as detailed as we possibly can. This involves installing the type of intrinsic habits that create the best conditions for our brain and the rest of our body to operate in.
Program 2 Outlook
The foundation of this 50 week program was to focus on the extrinsic habits that we covered in program 1 such as sleep, hydration, breath work, strength work etc.
In program 2 we are now going “inside” to look at the less practiced, less talked about habits such as the ways to manage our stress, the way to regulate our emotions, the way to work on our self-image.
If we don’t create the best environment for our brain and body to operate , if we don’t work on this stuff and we leave it to chance, then it’s only a matter of time before the cracks start to appear.
An easy way to create a picture in our mind of the type of self-image we might want to build that we will easily remember is contained in the letters of the word SELF-IMAGE.
This picture then becomes our 9-step system to work on our self-image. Over the remaining nine weeks of this program we will look at each component of this system in turn which added together forms the make-up of a strong resilient self-image:
1. Self-Esteem
2. Environment
3. Love
4. Faith
5. Individuality
6. Masterminding
7. Acceptance
8. Gratitude
9. Evolve
Conclusion
If we only address the extrinsic habits and neglect the mental and emotional habits, then we end up out of balance. On the outside of our lives it looks like things are going well, but on the inside of us because of the imbalance the cracks can start to show. We are looking forward to the changes that you will notice, once you start building your strong and resilient self-image.