Affirmation Challenge Day 14 [Self-Image]: ‘I’m perfect as myself.’

This is Day 14 of the 15-Day Affirmation Challenge held in July 2014, where we practice positive affirmations for 15 days. The challenge is now over but you can do the tasks in your own time. Visit the overview page for all the challenge tasks.

Dear everyone, welcome to Day 14 of our 15-Day Affirmation Challenge! :D Just two more days before our challenge ends (including our break day tomorrow)!

Here is the overview of all the posts for the challenge so far:

End of Week 2

We’re now at the end of Week 2 of the Affirmation Challenge! Week 2 has been about cultivating positive beliefs in the different areas of our life wheel. From our physical looks (part of self-image), to our relationships, to romance, to career, to wealth, and to health, these are six areas that we have explored in the past six days.

As the life wheel areas are meant to be pillars that we build throughout life, the affirmations we’ve been practicing and action steps we have set in the past week are by no means ends in themselves. Rather, they are merely first steps towards the right direction. What’s going to come next depends on the actions that we take next, as opposed to what we’ve done for the past two weeks. This challenge is merely a kickstart, something to remind you of what has always been in you. Remember that as we move towards the end of the challenge!

As we wrap up the life wheel week, the last area I want to cover is…

Day 14: [Self-Image]

Today’s affirmation: “I’m perfect as myself.”

Have you ever made such statements to yourself?

I’m not good enough.
I hate myself.
I’m so stupid and ugly.
I can’t love myself until I become X.
I’ve so many flaws and imperfections.
I’m not worthy of anything.
I’m a good-for-nothing.

I’m sure some of you can relate to at least a statement or two above. After all, some of these are exact statements that I have seen in the comments section of PE, including during this very challenge.

Negative self-image is a real problem that many of us face, be it successful entrepreneurs, overachieving executives, hopeful students, proud parents, social butterflies, or even fashion models. (In fact, it is said that models are among those with the least self-esteem despite being lauded for their conventional good looks, because of the way the industry scrutinizes and objectifies them for their bodies!) Unlike Day 8 where we talk about physical looks, when I say “self-image,” I’m referring to more than just physical looks. I’m talking about how we perceive ourselves, from our physical looks, to our ability, to our self-perceived worth, to other aspects of ourselves.

I myself have moments of negative self-thinking, where I make statements like, “I suck” and “I hate myself.” This typically happens when things go wrong and I feel that I could have circumvented them but failed to do so. Much of this behavior can be attributed to a heavy level of self-responsibility — I often feel that I’m responsible for everything, and for something to go wrong, I’m the only person to blame as I should have anticipated it but didn’t. While having a high internal locus of control is good, the tendency to always blame myself when things go wrong isn’t. After all, what I can do is my best, and if there are situations where “my best” don’t match up to my expectations, then I need to respect myself (first and foremost) for doing my best, after which I should use this as a learning experience to become better — and not beat myself up for not meeting (my) expectations!

So today, instead of saying “I suck” and “I hate myself” when things go wrong, I’ve learned to say, “Thank you for trying your best. Let’s now think about what we’ve learned from this episode, and how we can do things differently (and better) next time.” :)

There’s something that participant Santas shared during Day 12’s task on wealth that I want to share with you guys. She said, “I have read that being wealthy is what we are supposed to be and not having money (circulate in our lves) can be compared to not having enough blood cells in our veins. It’s like a sickness caused by poor thinking habits.”

How true is that? The thing is, this example applies to our self-thoughts too. When we think negative self-thoughts, it’s like having dirty, infected blood in our veins. While some may think that our negative self-thoughts have no impact on us (other than just being negative self-thoughts), that’s not true at all. Our self-thoughts are so pervasive and rudimentary that they affect our very life experience and the future that we create, much like how our “quality” of blood affects our physical health. This dirty and infected blood (our self-thoughts), being that it’s an inherent part of our body, proceeds to stain the quality of our life, stain the quality of our relationships, limit our ability to perform (in our goals and tasks), and impede our personal potential.

After all, if one is constantly thinking self-bashing and self-disparaging thoughts, then how can that person hope to become anything different from those self-thoughts? Thoughts like “I hate myself” will only encourage you to pin-point your own flaws at every turn and behave in a self-hating way (sometimes leading to self-sabotaging behaviors); thoughts like “I’m not worthy of anything” will only enforce your lack of worthiness (to yourself) and encourage you to create an unworthy life. Because, like I’ve mentioned since the beginning of the challenge and my recent radio interview, our thoughts (consciously and subconsciously) affect our actions, which then affect our results.

Hence, our second last task of the challenge is to address any negative thoughts about ourselves. Now, let’s get started! :D

Your Task Today

Identify at least one negative self-belief/thought. What is one negative self-belief/thought you have? For example:
- I’m not good enough.
- I hate myself.
- I’m so stupid and ugly. (Refer to Day 8 on [Physical Looks] for more on tackling negative self-thoughts on our physical looks.)
- I can’t love myself until I become X.
- I’ve so many flaws and imperfections.
- I’m not worthy of anything.
- I’m a good-for-nothing.
(Pick one belief/thought that you’ve not addressed in the past 13 tasks. You are welcome to explore more than one if you like.)
When did this negative self-belief/thought start? All our beliefs/thoughts have an origin, as what I’ve shared in my childhood stories article. For example, a woman may think she is ugly because she was teased about her looks as a kid and she often has trouble getting dates. Someone who thinks “I’m worthless” may do so because his/her dad constantly said, “You’re such a worthless kid!” when he/she was a child. How about for you? When did this negative self-belief/thought of yours start, and how did it start?
Challenge this negative self-belief/thought. Is it true? Sure, you may be justified for having this self-belief/thought based on the incident(s) you wrote in Step #2, but that doesn’t mean that it’s true. For example:
- Just because you were teased about your looks as a child doesn’t mean you were/are ugly! It just meant that the people who teased you did a narrow perception of beauty, and also that they were socially insensitive. (I share this exact experience and how I internally addressed it in my beauty article.)
- Similarly, if your parent said you were X when you were a kid (where X can be any negative adjective), it doesn’t mean you are truly X. That was just his/her comment at that point in time, and it could have been said in a fit of anger, low consciousness, or simply an erroneous belief on his/her part.
Create new positive belief(s). What new positive belief(s) can you use to replace the negative self-beliefs/thoughts from Step #1 with?
Say your new belief(s), along with today’s affirmation:
“I’m perfect as myself.”
(If you think it’s silly to say this out loud, you can say it silently in your heart.)

I encourage you to write down your new belief(s) and today’s affirmation so that you can always see them and commit them to your heart. Repeat them every day to yourself, for as many times and as long as needed, until they become part of your default thinking.

Affirmation Wallpaper: [Self-Image]

Today’s affirmation wallpaper, for download:

Download (right click and save): [1366×768] [1600×900] [1920×1080]

Share Your Results!

Share your results, check out other participants’ responses, and interact with each other in the comments section! Remember, this challenge is a community effort: by openly engaging in the discussion, not only will you help others, you’ll also help yourself.

If you think today’s affirmation has benefited you, do share it with your friends and family.

Once you’re done, proceed to Affirmation Challenge Week 2 Review and Catchup!

(Images: Flower, Red flower)