Unlock Your Life | Building a Strong Self-Image

Ep #48: Building a Strong Self-Image

Unlock Your Life | Building a Strong Self-Image

Have you ever wondered what happens when somebody gets a crystal-clear picture of what they would absolutely love in their life? What could happen to you if you allowed yourself to bring that main character energy to your own visualizations?

We can never create anything in our lives beyond our own self-image. And while you may not have a positive self-image, it is entirely within your power to create one. Building a strong self-image is the first step to creating a life that you love.

Join me this week as I’m sharing the importance of bringing main character, leading lady energy to your life and your work. I’m showing you how to start building a positive self-image, and the impact that visualization can have upon your one precious life. Ready to bring an abundance of positive energy to your life? You don’t want to miss this episode.

If you would like some help with figuring out how to listen to your intuition and show up and serve in the world, I’d love to help! I can help you create a vision for a life that you absolutely love living. Click here to arrange a session with me.

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please share the show with a friend or, even better, leave a review to ensure others can benefit from it too!

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

  • The power of visualization.
  • Some important questions to ask yourself in terms of your self-image.
  • The first thing I do in every session with my clients.
  • How I have seen visualization get results for my clients.
  • Why building a strong self-image is crucial in creating a life you love.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

  • If you’re enjoying the podcast, I’d love to hear from you! Please share the show with a friend or even better, leave a review to ensure others can benefit from the podcast.
  • Click here to access my 7-day gratitude train challenge.
  • Tag me on Instagram when you’re listening to the show, and don’t forget to share it with a friend!
  • The Magic Power of Self-Image Psychology by Dr Maxwell Maltz
  • Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz
  • Click here to access the exercise you can work with to help you bring main character energy to your life.

Full Episode Transcript:

“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” Henry Ford. This month we’re talking about building a strong self-image because we can never create anything in our lives beyond our own self-image, but we can rebuild it. We can change it. We can reestablish it. This month we’re going to be focusing on the tools we need to have the life that we would absolutely love living. It starts with building a strong self-image. Let’s get going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

So I’m talking to you this month about the prospect of bringing main character energy to your own life. The fact is, is that every day, all day long, we are thinking, we are creating images in our mind, and we’re playing out a script, a little mini movie.

Now, in order to have a life that you absolutely love living, you want to notice what you’re thinking. You want to bring your awareness to your thoughts because you’re setting in motion the life that you are living. So if we have this power why not use it for good? So we’re going to talk this month about bringing main character leading lady energy to our lives.

Now, when we are people that have enjoyed a lot of success that can be a really strong foundation. It can help propel us to keeping momentum and building a life that we love. However, as we get older, we get a little bit out of practice with doing new things, trying new things, and even allowing our imagination to run wild with possibility.

Now, having had some success in our life can be great because it’s evidence that we are successful. However, sometimes it can be a little bit of a sand trap. It can keep us stuck because it can create a block within us. Sometimes we get stuck because we don’t want to make a mistake. We can’t really imagine doing something different, trying something new. So we’re gonna talk about how we can change and build and create an even stronger self-image.

Maxwell Maltz was a famous plastic surgeon. He’s the author of psycho cybernetics and the magic power of self-image psychology. The new way to a bright, full life. Maxwell Maltz was famous as a plastic surgeon because he had the skill set to absolutely transform what had been deformities, birth defects, major injuries to people’s faces, and change damages that people had been suffering from. So he would do his very best work.

He started to notice something odd. He would take someone who had a major deformity and correct it and bring them back to a restored image, but he noticed that many of his patients couldn’t see it. They will look in the mirror, and they would continue to see that all self-image that had been physically transformed but still existed in the mind of the patient. It was all that they could see.

It made Dr. Maltz curious. He wanted to study what’s going on here. Physically, they’ve been transformed, but mentally they can’t go there. He started to notice and has shared with the world what he learned. We all have a self-image, and we cannot perform beyond our self-image. But the good news is we can change it. We can improve it. It all starts with awareness. So this month is going to be the month of positive self-image. We’re going to work on doing the kind of work that is going to set us up for having great success in all of our lives.

Now, visualization is a tool that many, many people use in order to build success. You can bring together an image in your mind that you absolutely would love, and then you start working on becoming and being the person that made the kinds of decisions, that made the moves, that did the things that the person in your image would do.

So I’ll give you a few examples. There’s this famous golfer that we all know, Tiger Woods. The story goes that he started learning to play golf as a toddler with his dad. He recounts a story where his dad helped him to understand how to putt more effectively.

Tiger says, “My dad didn’t know really how to convey distance to me. So we would break it down into smaller pieces. He would say just take a picture of this section and then move the ball to that section. Then take a picture of the next session and move the ball to that section. With that, I was able to make a mental image, a picture of where I wanted that ball to go. That’s how I learned to effectively putt.”

Now he shares the story, and he says, “When I’m out on the golf course, it may look like I’m super cool and collected, and I’m not nervous at all and sometimes that’s true. But sometimes I get really, really nervous. When I do, I just go back to the basics. The basics that my Pop-pop taught me when I was just three years old. I tell myself just take a picture, move the ball to the picture.”

Now, Tiger is not the only one that uses the power of visualization. Many golfers will practice a shot first in their mind before they ever take their hands to the clubs. They start to train their mind and then their body to collaborate and to cooperate to put that ball where the golfer wants the ball to go. It’s a skillset that most professional golfers use.

Now who else do we know that uses the power of visualization in order to make things happen and to control the power of their minds? Well, the famous ballerina, Misty Copeland, has shared many stories of how visualization has been an integral part of her success.

Misty never wanted to be just satisfied with being on the stage or being part of the chorus. She set her mind to becoming a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre. How did she do it?

Well, Misty says visualization works. In her book, she talks about how she traced the Marley floor with her pointe shoes and imagined herself on stage. Not as a member of the corps, but as a principal dancer, and it felt right. It felt like a promise. Someday, somehow it was going to happen to me, and then it did. She advises us to take time each day to visualize our own idea of success and know that that will help bring us closer to our own desired reality.

Another beautiful story that I’m familiar with, a teaching story from Misty Copeland, talks about after she became a principal dancer and was the featured star of the ABT, she was injured. With that injury, she had to endure surgery. Then, of course, a recovery period. There was a part of her that became concerned. Her mind wanted to run away and says to herself, oh, what if they replace me? What if I don’t recover? What if I take too long? What if, what if, what if?

She caused herself to pause and to say, no, that’s not what I want. So while she wasn’t able to go into the studio or onto the stage and practice her rehearsals with the company, she didn’t allow that to stop her. She continued to practice and rehearse while she was at home. Whether she was sitting on the couch or sitting in the bed or thinking about anything, she would cause herself to remember her dance steps, her dance routine, the choreography for the ballets that she was scheduled to perform.

She would go through each movement in her mind. She trained her muscles to remember oh, yeah, we do this. This is what we do. Her mind and her muscles work together to heal, and she found that her healing and recovery was much quicker than the doctors had predicted. When she returned to the stage, while she had some challenges, she came back faster, and he came back stronger than anyone would have predicted. She attributes that to incorporating visualization.

Now, does it only work for celebrities and superstar athletes? Well, of course not. In my practice when I work with my clients, it works with them as well. So you know that I’m a whole life coach. I want my clients to have the best of everything. That what they desire, what their dream is, to build a life that gives them life.

A couple of years ago, I had the awesome opportunity and challenge to work with someone who had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Now, let me tell you, it was a little bit scary. I have to be honest with you. But I reminded myself to stay in service. Sometimes we have those moments where we think back to ourselves. My friend, Jennifer Rapo who’s a speech coach and actor says—and she too has recovered from cancer. She says, “What would I do if I had a little more time? What would I do if I have a little more courage?” I think these are important questions to ask ourself.

So when I was working with my client, she was dealing with some health challenges. This is a woman who at 52/53 was diagnosed with breast cancer. But breast cancer had been lingering around the edges since she was 16. Always some kind of little scare, threatening her and threatening her life. Now it was here.

So when we worked together, we talked about building a vision for health. It’s not enough to want to be healthy. We want to know what are you gonna do with this one precious life? What are you going to do with this good health that you so desperately want? What will you do with this life?

My client thought and it took her some time to allow herself to dream. But it became crystal clear to her what she really wanted. She wanted to travel. The image that came to mind first was she wanted to be in Paris for Bastille Day. So that’s an image we can work with. So we continued to work with that. We continued to work on the idea of building great health, and my client did get healthy. My client did experience a complete recovery and is doing well having gone through her surgery and gone through chemotherapy and is now on the other side.

But what happens when one gets a crystal clear picture of what they would absolutely love? What happens when one allows themselves to feel a burning desire? Well, what happens is you start to notice new opportunities, new ideas come to you. Then when these ideas and opportunities come to you, you conjure up that little bit of courage. You conjure up a little bit of faith, and you start to act on that faith. You start to act on that courage.

So you don’t have to take the whole journey all by yourself, but you confront those ideas that come to you. When they are not in alignment with the life that you are dreaming of, that you would love, you talk them down. You say yes, I’m doing this thing. You don’t continue to entertain ideas that nothing good ever happens to me. Every time I try to do something, the cat get sick, the car breaks down. I’m never going to be able to fulfill my dreams. No, you continue to work on that idea.

You hold it in your mind. You see yourself packing your bags, you see yourself getting on the plane, you see yourself arriving, you see yourself celebrating Bastille Day near the Eiffel Tower. You allow yourself to dream, and then you continue to work with that image.

So not only did my client recover from cancer scare and cancer treatment and surgery, but she went on to apply for an opportunity sponsored by the United States State Department to travel to Paris, France. She is the first of the staff of her workplace to be selected who was not a traditional faculty member. She’s the first. So she will be going on an all-expense paid educational trip on behalf of the United States to Paris. What’s the cherry on top? She will be there doing Bastille Day.

So what can happen to you, over to you, if you allowed yourself to bring that main character energy to your own visualizations? What would you do with that? Truthfully, right now, you might not yet have a positive self-image, but you can create one. You can build one. In the show notes, I’m going to provide an exercise for you to work with so that you can bring main character energy to your life.

Now, the first thing we do in every session that I do with my clients is we recalibrate our energy. We recalibrate our vibrational tone. We remind ourselves of what’s good, what’s already working. That is part of our gratitude practice.

The next thing we do is we go over to the win column. We make note of our wins. So when we are working towards our dreams, we don’t take them in big giant boulders and try to bite off the whole thing whole. We break everything down into little, tiny inchworm pieces. We remind ourselves to celebrate those wins, those progress. Because with that we build a new self-image. We build a new foundation. So this month we’re talking about bringing positive self-image to our own psychology. We are bringing main character leading lady energy to the work.

Now, over to you. If you would love to bring main character positive energy to your life, check the show notes. I will have an exercise and worksheet there for you so that you can start to practice what it’s like to get that kind of main character energy in your life. You can do this exercise for 10/11 days and see how it works. This stuff works if you work it. I would love for you to take the opportunity to try it out. Try it out. Try me now.

So this has been episode 48 of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you are enjoying the show, what I would love is if hey maybe you can take a screenshot of yourself enjoying the show from your mobile device and tag me on the gram. I’m LoriHarrisESQ, LoriHarrisESQ. Show me that you are listening to the Unlock Your Life podcast.

What else can you do? Well, how about you share it with your friends. If this episode has been helpful to you, let your friends know about it. That’s how we grow the show. Another way we grow the show is from your positive reviews. You can leave a review anywhere you listen to podcasts. You can find me all over these internet streets, Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify. What’s your favorite platform?

I was so surprised this week. I found out I’m on Audible. I’m everywhere you are. So enjoy the Unlock Your Life podcast and share it with a friend. It’s been my great pleasure to serve you this week. I look forward to talking to you next time. Remember, it’s your life. Make it a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.

Enjoy the Show?

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Unlock Your Life | What Are Your Core Values?

Ep #47: What Are Your Core Values?

Unlock Your Life | What Are Your Core Values?

Do you know what your core values are? Core values are the guiding light, the driving principles that move you through your life. And when you are clear about your core values, they will help your decision-making, the way you live your life, and how you form relationships.

So how can you determine what your core values are? How can you use your core values to move toward the things that light you up? That’s exactly what we’re talking about this week.

In this episode, I’m showing you how to get clear on your core values and use them to make decisions in alignment with the person you aspire to be. I’m showing you how your core values can support you in creating a life you love, sharing some of my own core values and beliefs, and some questions you can ask yourself to identify yours.

If you would like some help with figuring out how to listen to your intuition and show up and serve in the world, I’d love to help! I can help you create a vision for a life that you absolutely love living. Click here to arrange a session with me.

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please share the show with a friend or, even better, leave a review to ensure others can benefit from it too!

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

  • What core values are and how they impact the way you live your life.
  • One of the main things that lights me up.
  • Some of the organizations that I support due to my core values.
  • Three things to reflect on each night regarding your core values.
  • How I am clear about the things that matter to me.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

  • If you’re enjoying the podcast, I’d love to hear from you! Please share the show with a friend or even better, leave a review to ensure others can benefit from the podcast.
  • Click here to access my 7-day gratitude train challenge.

Full Episode Transcript:

Do you know what your core values are? Core values can be the guiding light, the guiding principles that move you through your life. When you’re clear about your core values, it will help you in decision making and how you live your life. This week we’re going to finish up with the area of vocation by looking at our core values. What are our core values, and when do we make decisions that are in alignment with it so that we can be the person that we aspire to be? That is in integrity. Let’s get going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

So recently I was approached and given an opportunity to do some consultant work. The first person that asked me about it I was like oh no. I don’t do that. Then another person approached me and asked me to do the same work in a different kind of way. When they asked me about it, my whole being said oh yeah. Hell yeah. When I felt that feeling, I knew that this was something that I wanted to go toward rather than shrink away from.

Why did I know that? Well, partly because I’m very clear about the things that matter to me. I know that I’ve shared with you that the main thing that lights me up, that gets me going, is living a life of freedom and helping others to do the same. So when I was offered this consultancy work, I heard it from the point of view of oh, this expands my mission. This allows me to do more to help more people experience more freedom. It feels like a hell yeah. So I continue to move forward, to move toward that opportunity.

Now, how can you use your core values to move toward the things that light you up? Well, first of all, we have to be clear about what our core values are. This week on the podcast we’re going to talk about how does one get clear about our core values?

Now, core values are the things that help you in making life’s decisions. They are the big rocks, the boulders of your life. We refer to our core values over and over again in our decision making, whether it’s for things big or small. They impact us as we decide who we are going to be and who we’re going to associate with. So we use our core values to decide where I will form friendships, to decide with whom will I form a romantic relationship? Even how we will make a living.

They are the major who am I kind of questions, and what do I believe? Does this particular action align with my core values? It’s one of my favorite questions because when I ask that question, any sense of doubt or lack of clarity clears up right away because I know what matters to me most. So when I asked myself does this align with my core values? It helps me to stay on track within the white lines of my life.

So I’m looking for integrity. I’m looking for alignment. How can you make a decision about your own core values? How can you get clarity about what are my core values?

One thing you can do is look at your own calendar. When you look at your calendar and you see where you have decided to put your time and energy in a forward motion, it can tell you this is what’s important to me. This matters to me. Sometimes you’ll look at your calendar and say, “Oh, I’m a little out of balance. I have more things in the this matters to other people category rather than it matters to me.” So you want to look at your calendar and make sure it’s reflective of the kind of person you want to be.

The other thing you can do is look at your checkbook. I know most of us are not really writing physical checks anymore, but you can review your accounts and see where you are putting your other form of energy, your monetary form of energy, and it will tell you a lot.

Now, for me, because I really care about freedom and liberation, there are certain organizations that I donate to on a regular repeated basis from the point of view of my tithing or giving the first fruits of my labor. There are places that go automatically. Generally, they’re things that support my own spiritual development, have been important to me for keeping balance for me. So they get paid first.

The other things that get paid first are the things that matter to me in terms of who am I and what do I believe? Do I support the organizations that light me up? So I donate to organizations that help people in the reentry process from leaving places of incarceration because I fundamentally believe in second chances.

I know that there are organizations out there that align with my core beliefs, and I want to support them not only mentally and spiritually, but I want to put my money where my mouth is and give them the tools that they need and make them fundamentally a part of my practice by providing financial support.

The other thing I believe in is we all should have clean water, and our lives shouldn’t be revolving around fetching water. So by donating to organizations that supply clean water opportunities around the world, I feel as though I’m supporting women. I’m supporting young people developing lives where they can flourish and dream and fulfill their own purpose rather than spending the lion’s share of their day fetching water.

I am so grateful that my life doesn’t revolve around fetching water. So I want to support organizations that support young girls and women in not having to spend the lion’s share of their day in fetching water.

The other thing that I love to donate to that I make it a priority that’s part of my first fruit is organizations that feed. Because you can’t experience freedom if your basic needs are not being met. So if people are going to school hungry, they’re not going to do as well as they could if they went to school with full bellies. So I’d like these organizations that help people with feeding their families, with feeding themselves, and providing basic sustenance.

So if you looked at my checkbook, you would see that on a regular, repeated, predictable basis, these are the causes that I’m giving my money to. The other things you might see is Lori goes to Starbucks a lot. Sometimes that’s in alignment with where I’m at in a particular time in my life, and sometimes I’ll have to look at that and say, “You know what? That’s not really where I want to be spending that part of my energy. I don’t want to be giving my money to that.”

Another thing that I noticed is, I try to stay out of Target because Target inspires a lot of impulse buying. I have to check in with myself and say is this what I want to be doing? Am I being the kind of person that I want to be? Am I investing this part of my energy in places that align with my core values?

So just deciding oh, those are cute shoes. Yeah, those are cute shoes, but do I need those shoes? Oftentimes, I’m coming back to no. I don’t need those shoes. Why do I not need those shoes? Because I want to have a higher quality of product for me. Like you know what? I know that in the end these shoes will just end up in the trash. I know that in the end these shoes may not be reliable. They may break on me. I know, in the end, these shoes won’t feel good on my feet.

So rather than get caught up in oh those are cute and they’re on sale, I pull back and say hmm, is that how I really want to be spending my life force of money by investing in things, a cheaper product quality wise from a store like Target? So I just say no. That’s a no. That’s going to be a no for me.

So how can you determine what your core values are? Well, we’ve done time study checks in the past, and this is going to be a core value check. For one week, I invite you to reflect nightly on three things. What happened today? What are the things that happened today? Did they leave me feeling good or bad? What kinds of things did I do today? Did I feel useful and purposeful? What were the things that I did that felt useful and purposeful?

Then looking around and seeing the people in my life or that I interacted with today. Are people doing things that I look up to and admire? What kinds of things am I giving my attention to? Did things happen today that I disliked? That I don’t want to be associated with?

As you do this, you will start to notice. So you get to the end of the week, you have these three themes that you’ve been looking at. What happened? Did I feel good? Do I feel bad? Did I feel useful? Did I feel purposeful? Was there something that I saw that I admired or that I disliked? Over the week’s time, you will learn something about yourself. From those things, you will be able to pick out these things are things that I want more of or I want less of.

So, do your core value check. Spend one week reflecting each evening on three things. What happened today? Where did I feel good? Where did I feel bad? Where did I feel useful? Where did I feel purposeful? What did I see that I admired? What did I see that I disliked?

You will discover there are some themes rising up for you. Perhaps it’s creativity. Perhaps it’s learning. Perhaps it’s freedom. Perhaps it’s curiosity. You will notice things. Maybe it’s kindness, maybe it’s compassion, maybe it’s empathy. When you notice these things, these are the things that you can go towards that will be a guiding light for you in living a life of integrity and great purpose.

Check in. What are your core values? Then it will help you in decision making to decide does this align with being the kind of person I want to be? Am I being in integrity with myself? It will help you in deciding how to resolve conflicts. It will help you in deciding with whom to spend your time. Where do you want to cut ties? Where do you want to build ties? What do you want to do with your life?

You can look at your life’s work in vocation and say is this work, this place where I spend the lion’s share of my day, is it in alignment with my core values? Go toward the things that support you in being the kind of person that you want to be, that support you in being the person in the vision that you’ve created for yourself, for the life that you want to live.

Thank you so much. This has been episode 47 of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, I would invite you to share it with a friend. You can also go anywhere you listen to podcasts and rate, follow, and review the show. You can find us at Apple podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere that’s your favorite platform.

When you review and rate the show, it helps the show to grow and for other people to widen our audience. When you share it with a friend, it helps them to know what are your core values? What are the things that light you up? What are the things that you think might be helpful to them? It’s a win-win all around. Thank you so much for listening, and I look forward to talking to you again next week after this episode. So remember, it’s your life. Make it a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.

Enjoy the Show?

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