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The Law of Self-Image

“An individual’s self-concept is the core of his personality. It affects every aspect of human behavior: the ability to learn, the capacity to grow and change. A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success in life.”

—Dr. Joyce Brothers, psychologist

There is one particular client, Sandy, who stands out for me from my days as a career coach. Even though the details of her story were, of course, unique to her, the fears she had about her professional life were representative of the basic fears and struggles of many of my clients, especially those faced with reinventing themselves mid-career due to a poor economy or those returning to the workforce after many years away.

Sandy was a smart, attractive, college-educated woman who was in her early fifties when we started working together. She had spent most of the previous twenty years living in a small Midwestern town, raising four children while her husband held down the same job he’d had since before the kids were born. When her husband got laid off, Sandy found herself needing to return to the workplace for the first time in nearly two decades.

She timidly entered my office and waited for permission before taking a seat. As I reached for her résumé, the look on her face was a mixture of fear and desperation, with just the slightest glimmer of hope. I could almost hear her thoughts: I am a lost cause, but maybe you can fix me.

After only a few moments of conversation, she blurted out, “I have a college degree, but it’s been years since my last job outside the home, and now I’m over fifty.” The statement was somewhere between a confession and an apology. She explained that before her children were born, she’d worked as a services coordinator for a major nonprofit, but nowadays she felt as if she had no skills to offer in a workplace environment. As our conversation continued, her body language and tone of voice, even more than her words, revealed how she felt about herself. She sat compactly in the chair as if she were afraid to take up too much space, and she had trouble maintaining eye contact with me. Her voice was hushed and sounded resigned. But what I heard Sandy screaming loud and clear was, “I’m not worthy. I’m not good enough. Everyone else is more qualified than me.”

Realizing how her poor self-image must be affecting her job search, I said, “Let’s forget about what you haven’t done and talk about what you have done.” She shifted in her seat and sat up a little straighter, then began recounting some of the ways she’d been involved in her children’s schools. She talked about her work with the PTA, and how she had served as the parent liaison for several of her children’s classes. Her pride in these tasks was clear, and she actually beamed when she explained how she had never missed a game or a dance recital. She grew animated when she described how expertly she coordinated the family’s schedules, ensuring that everyone was always on time. At the end of each anecdote, though, she would shrug off my enthusiasm, minimizing her contributions with such responses as, “It was not really a big deal,” or “Well, that’s just what moms do.”

The going was at times arduous because Sandy’s lack of belief in her professional worth was deeply entrenched, but she was committed to the process. Slowly but surely, we outlined how the skills she’d developed in the past few decades could be applied to the workplace, and she began to see and, even more important, believe in her value.

As a professor at a leading business school, I strive to instill in my students a few key tenets. Chief among them is that “perception is reality.” I know that this maxim may sound cliché, but it is also unequivocally true. If the ways you perceive other people become your reality about them, then how you perceive yourself is your reality about you. What you believe about your strengths, weaknesses, knowledge, and skills is what you transmit to the outside world.

A few years ago I had a part-time MBA student named Dave who was a tax controller in his day job. Whenever we did class presentations, Dave was unfailingly enthusiastic about and supportive of his fellow students, pointing out the positive aspects of a presentation even when it had been less than stellar. But when it came to his own performance, Dave had nothing but harsh self-criticism. The rest of his coursework was strong, but he stumbled when it came to giving his presentation to the group. He simply believed that he couldn’t do it well.

The good news is that because our perceptions of ourselves create our realities, we have the power to change these perceptions in wholly positive ways. For Dave, it took viewing several videos of himself making a presentation to realize that he didn’t look as nervous as he felt. I have since received an exuberant e-mail from Dave, telling me that at the last minute he had to fill in for a senior colleague and deliver a presentation to an important client. He was extremely nervous going into the meeting, but he worked hard to prepare and was able to deliver the presentation in a confident manner that impressed the client as well as his boss. “I kept remembering how nervous I was in your class while presenting, but that I looked and sounded all right on camera. And that’s what got me through it,” he wrote to me, adding, “And I even remembered to smile.” Dave had changed his perception of his own reality, and his positive self-image was the conduit for strong connection and communication in a crucial situation.

You Have to Like You First!

To make meaningful connections in an authentic way, you have to project the best parts of your true self. In other words, before you expect others to like you, you have to like you—that is the law of self-image. Many of us are aware of our basic strengths, and can often exude confidence in a variety of situations, but even the most self-assured among us have our moments of self-doubt. The trick is learning how to work through them. One top executive I know confided to me that it took him years to feel as if he was really worthy of playing with “the big dogs.” He recounted how, as he rose up the corporate ladder, he would often find himself sitting in a meeting, looking around and thinking, “Wow, my colleagues are really on top of their game. Can I hold my own with them?” Each time, he took these moments of self-doubt as a challenge to reassess his value and worth and strengthen his self-image by reconnecting with what he knew he could contribute to his workplace, not what he couldn’t. Over time he trained himself to embody this awareness of his assets. His career thrived apace with his positive self-image.

Most of us are much harder on ourselves than we are on other people. We would agree that it is not right to be mean or petty or judgmental toward other people—so why is it okay when we do that to ourselves? Perception is reality, and self-image is self-perception. When we don’t follow up with potential clients because we assume that they have better offers or won’t switch to another business provider, when we don’t pursue a new position because we assume that there are stronger candidates, we are affirming our negative assumptions as our reality. When you find yourself having self-doubting or self-sabotaging thoughts, you need to ask yourself, “Do I want to be right about this? Right about not landing the client or not getting the job?” If your answer is “No,” then you need to change your reality.

Why Self-Image Matters

Before Sandy and I began our coaching sessions, she’d applied to a few jobs but hadn’t landed any first interviews. I was dismayed to learn this, but I wasn’t surprised. It is all but impossible to make someone else believe in your qualifications and value if you don’t first believe in them yourself.

Negative self-perceptions can adversely impact our productivity, our decisions, and even, when taken to extremes, our health. So why do we hold onto negative self-perceptions? There is often something to be gained from indulging in these thought patterns. It may be an instinct to protect ourselves against failure or to avoid repeating past mistakes, a desire not to threaten those around us by upsetting the status quo. Holding ourselves back may keep us safe, but it also means sacrificing how much we can grow and limiting what we can achieve. Creating a positive self-image doesn’t mean eradicating all doubts and attaining perfection. Confidence comes from managing our self-doubts and accepting the fact that we are working on bettering our imperfections, even while appreciating these imperfections as qualities that make us unique and likable.

Once when I was riding the subway, there was a very full-figured twenty-something woman in the same car as me, and when I glanced over at her I was startled by her outrageous outfit. She looked like a 1970s disco queen, with a low-cut turquoise top, gold spiked heels, and big brash jewelry. My first thought was, “What is she thinking?” But then I looked at her face, and suddenly the outfit seemed entirely fetching. She stood there holding the rail, confident and calm, a sparkle in her eye indicating that she knew she looked good, and she did. She was completely comfortable in her own skin, extra tummy rolls and all, and she was showing the world that she thought she was one hot mamma. And as a result she was one hot momma. What we think about ourselves is who we are.

See the You That You Already Are

In the thick of our career coaching sessions, I stopped Sandy at one point and asked her flat out, “So what are you good at?” She stared at me blankly. When she didn’t fill the silence, the conversation continued like this:

Me: I bet that you are very responsible.

Sandy (hesitating): Well, sure, if you ask me to do something, I get it done. I meet my deadlines.

Me: Okay, great, you are responsible. You believe that, right? (She nodded.) Now let’s find another word. Tell me something else that you’re good at.

Sandy (thinking for a moment, then begrudgingly): Well, I am organized. I always know where everything is, and friends frequently ask me to help them devise their own organizing systems. (She watched as I added “organized” to our growing list.)

I’m really good at that stuff. You should see my filing cabinet!

Me (looking at the job description and hunting for another word): Would you describe yourself as strategic?

Sandy (balking and rolling her eyes): No way!

Me: Well, hold on, how do you define “strategic”?

Sandy (shrugging): I don’t know, I guess I picture some CEO sitting behind a desk making big corporate decisions.

Me: So would you define “strategic” as someone who makes important decisions that impact the well-being of others? Isn’t that what you do for your family every day?

At this point Sandy was slowly beginning to comprehend where I was going. She then told me about how she’d helped her daughter choose a college and evaluate the myriad factors that go into such a life-defining decision, and how she assisted her daughter with the scholarship applications that eventually enabled her to attend her first-choice school. At the end of this account she laughed as the import of it all dawned on her. We added “strategic” to our words list.

Most people aren’t this determined to bring themselves down. Sandy’s negative self-image was on the extreme side, to be sure, but because of that she quite dramatically displayed what happens when negative self-perceptions start turning into positive ones. As our conversation continued, Sandy came up with more and more words that she felt truly described her, and as she did so her entire presence was transformed. She no longer sat slouched with rounded shoulders, physically minimizing herself. She grew animated as she singled out words that she could embrace as descriptions of herself. In short, she was choosing her words.

Talk to Yourself, but Be Nice!

We all talk to ourselves, and when we keep telling ourselves something we eventually begin to believe it. This is such a fundamental truth that psychologists have come up with a clinical term for it: self-talk. The concept has proved particularly useful in the field of sports psychology, and numerous studies have shown time and again that the differences between negative self-talk and positive self-talk have everything to do with how athletes perform. Negative self-talk can naturally arise when encountering obstacles, as we all know, and professional athletes are no exception to this rule. But learning how to transform these harsh thoughts into self-encouragement and positive self-talk is what makes the best athletes succeed.

In one sports medicine study, Daniel Gould, Kenneth Hodge, Kirsten Peterson, and John Giannini demonstrated how winning coaches prepared their athletes for competition by modeling self-confidence and teaching athletes to convert detrimental self-criticism into empowering self-belief.¹ In another important study, Dr. Joan A. Finn showed how positive self-talk reduces anxiety, boosts confidence, and increases performance.²

Thoughts such as “I’m no good at that,” “I have nothing to offer,” “It’s too hard, I can’t do it,” and “If I try it, I’ll look ridiculous” become true when you play them over and over in your head in a nonstop loop. Others pick up on and believe what you project and believe about yourself. To increase your authentic likability and forge successful connections, harnessing positive self-talk is key. And the only one who can do that is you.

Change Your Tune

I have always wanted to write a book. For years I composed outlines and came up with catchy titles, but the projects never went any further than that. In my head I had all sorts of reasons why my book-writing dream couldn’t come true: “You don’t have enough to say,” “It’s just too hard,” “You don’t know how,” “No one will buy it.”

I have always been self-confident, yet that didn’t stop these thoughts from permeating my mind. The results of my negative self-talk? For years I took no action at all. To get to the place where I could tackle the task—to the place where you could be sitting there, reading this text—I had to change my self-talk. It was a process of continually reminding myself that what I said to myself was entirely up to me. Along the way I learned that changing my self-talk from negative to positive was not a Pollyannaish, look-in-the-mirror-and-do-your-daily-affirmations endeavor. It was a series of actionable steps that helped me reprogram my perceptions and my sense of self-ability so that I had the courage to sit down at my desk each day and face the scary blank page, regardless of the fears welling up inside me. Of course, self-doubts continued to creep in, and they still do; that is only natural, but I was able to take steps to manage my negative self-talk and the influence it had over me, which freed me to accomplish something difficult that I’d long set out to do.

Similarly, Dave, my former student, had been doggedly struggling for a long while to improve his presentations performance. Once he learned to listen to the inner voices that were telling him he could speak effectively in front of a crowd, and stopped paying as much attention to the voices telling him he couldn’t do it, he was able to wow the client, impress his boss, and, most important, recognize his own professional growth. He wrote to me, “While I was presenting I was able to hold an image in my head of myself as calm and confident, and that made all the difference.”

Now that you’ve gone through the exercise (Live the Law: How Nice Are You to You?) and you have a handle on the content of your negative self-messages, you can start developing the positive messages that will replace them. I’ve learned that three techniques are particularly useful in this process:

1. Be your own best friend.

2. Frame a positive picture.

3. Celebrate the small stuff.

Be Your Own Best Friend

Think back to a time when you’ve had a cycle of negative self-thoughts running through your head, and then imagine your best friend feeling that way about himself and expressing those thoughts to you. What would you do? You would immediately start listing all your friend’s wonderful qualities so that your friend’s negative self-talk could be converted from mean and detrimental to helpful and productive.

Do this for yourself, too; be your own best friend. We all have that bully who appears on our shoulders, whispering nasty self-thoughts into our ears. On the opposite shoulder sits the cheerleader, the one who believes in our worth and reminds us of our successes, strengths, and goals. The next time the bully starts in on a rant, stop it in its tracks, think about what you want to hear instead, and kick the cheerleader into gear. Sandy’s bully was yammering, “You are unqualified, inexperienced, and you will never get a job.” With effort she learned to counter the bully with the cheerleader who reminded her, “You have so many skills you’ve gained from life experience. You are responsible, organized, and strategic in your decisions. An employer would be lucky to have you.”

Over time the process gets easier. As you grow more aware of the negative self-thoughts rising up, you’ll catch them earlier, pinpoint their alternatives, and become better at changing them into positive self-perceptions with powerful results.

Frame a Positive Picture

An important corollary to countering the negative self-talk is learning how to reframe it from bad to good. The glass is either half empty or half full, and remember that whatever your perspective, it is entirely your choice.

When you frame your actions around what you fear and what you think you can’t do, those are the results you’ll achieve. Re-framing thoughts shifts your perspective from expected doom to intended success, impacting the outcomes of your decisions and actions. Embrace your possibilities, not your potential failures. You get what you expect.

The process of reframing has two aspects: internal and external. Internal framing is similar to visualization in that you picture what you want and then mentally rehearse or practice how it might unfold. You coach yourself to think positively about your skill set, your strengths, a task you need to do. Positive thinking leads to positive outcomes.

With external framing, you take your internally framed thoughts and put words to them, sharing them with others to give them validity and weight.

At one point I had a colleague named Yael who was intent on making partner at our firm, even though she’d been there for only eight years and the normal partner track was thirteen years. Instead of giving in to an internal chorus of “Don’t be ridiculous, you’ll never make partner this soon; don’t waste your time,” Yael put her firm belief in her abilities in the front of her mind and flat out went for it. She wasn’t obnoxious or overbearing about pursuing her goal; she was consistent, determined, and assured. She didn’t make partner that first year, but she did in the second, becoming the only person in more than a decade to make partner in ten years. She had internally framed her self-thoughts and actions, and then externally framed them, keeping at it until the two were perfectly aligned.

Celebrate the Small Stuff

As I’ve already mentioned, one of my big dreams has long been to write this book. When I first conceived of it ten years ago, I could see the finish line, but the vastness of the work it would require to get there caused a huge dose of inertia to settle in. The project seemed so much bigger than me, and I felt incapable, overwhelmed, and not up to the task. Before I’d even begun I wanted to quit.

But then I started breaking down the process into individual steps, and suddenly I was able to embark on the journey. Step One: Settle on the book idea. Step Two: Research the publishing process. Step Three: Learn the components of a proposal, put out an ad for a proposal editor, and hire one. Step Four: Write the chapters; and so on. I rewarded myself each time I completed a step, to mark my enormous relief and sense of accomplishment. The rewards weren’t always big ones—some were as simple as an hour of guilt-free TV watching or a phone call to a friend—but they helped me feel good about accomplishing my goals and excited to achieve the next ones. Somewhere along the way, my mindset changed from “Ack! I can’t do this!” to “Yes, it’s going to be difficult, but I know that I’m capable of it and it will get done!”

Progress feels good and has a profound effect on our thought patterns, and therefore on our productivity and our sense of self. Celebrate it!

Fake It Till You Make It Real

At first glance, “Fake it till you make it” seems to counsel inauthenticity, but that’s not the true point of the saying, which is why I like to clear up the confusion by using, “Fake it till you make it real.” The purpose is to try on what it might look and feel like to perceive of ourselves in new ways, or to act differently than we’re accustomed to. By stretching out of our comfort zones—or as some would say, “faking it”—we can grow comfortable with these new modes of thought and action until they eventually become normal or “real” to us.

When I went on my first client call with JPMorgan Chase, early in my career, I was still completely green. I didn’t yet have a website or a company name (not to mention a business card), and I wondered how I was going to possibly convince this huge organization that I was knowledgeable and effective enough to hire. I had no track record to speak of, no real references, and I thought to myself, “Who am I kidding?”

But then I took that thought process one step further. “Okay,” went my self-talk, “so how would I speak and carry myself if I had already been doing this job for years?” I tapped into the confidence that I knew was in there, stemming from my genuine excitement about the prospect of working for this client and all the ideas I’d already generated about how I might help the client, and I put that image firmly in my mind. Then I followed it, acting “as if” I was already where I was striving to be. I never would and did not lie during our initial meeting, but I did choose my words carefully, highlighting my confidence in my ability and underscoring the successful experiences (few as they were) that I already had. And I landed the client.

This is the same tactic Dave used to ace his client presentation, and it’s the same way Yael made partner in an unprecedented short time. “Fake it till you make it real” is another way of actively reframing your thoughts, and by extension your actions, decisions, and motivations. Strengthening self-image is a process, and imagining the end goal is part of what helps get you there.

Working from the Outside In

Clothes may or may not make the man, but they are a powerful communicator of your inner state. If you wake up feeling tired and glum and dress in baggy, shapeless clothes to maximize comfort, you transmit that glumness to the world. On mornings when you feel energized and pull on something bright and colorful, you’ll notice that that energy tends to stay with you throughout the day, and that people communicate a similar energy back to you. It’s a challenge to feel alert and prepared when dressed for the couch. When you dress to feel put-together and sharp, other people will perceive you in this way, reflecting it back to you and strengthening the thoughts you have about yourself.

Self-image is the basis for how you experience—and are experienced by—the outside world. It is directly linked to the law of perception, which is explored in Chapter 3.