Who am I?

What is your self-concept?

Did you ever question that to yourself?

Self-concept is who we think we are, the picture we have of ourselves, plus the picture we think others have of us. Self-concept plays an important part in our overall wellness. It affects the ways we look at our body, how we express ourselves and interact with our friends, and it even influences how we make decisions. The potential for a positive self-concept lies within each of us. Self-concepts can be changed. They are not carved in stone.

Self-image is how you perceive yourself. It is a number of self-impressions that have built up over time: What are your hopes and dreams? What do you think and feel? What have you done throughout your life and what did you want to do? These self-images can be very positive, giving a person confidence in their thoughts and actions, or negative, making a person doubtful of their capabilities and ideas.

It is important that your self-image be both positive and realistic. Having a self-image that is unrealistic can be a drawback, whether that self-image is negative or positive. Sometimes having an occasional negative thought or criticism about oneself can encourage change, hard work, growth and success. Sometimes having too positive an image of oneself can encourage complacency, underachievement, and arrogance. Finding the balance between feeling positive about oneself but having realistic goals is important.

Here are some tips to improve yourself.

  • Be nice to yourself: Make an effort to be kind to yourself and, if you do slip up, try to challenge any negative thoughts. A good rule of thumb is to speak to yourself in the same way that you’d speak to your mates. This can be really hard at first, but practice makes perfect.

  • You do you: Try to focus on your own goals and achievements, rather than measuring them against someone else’s. Nobody needs that kind of pressure.

  • Nobody’s perfect: Always strive to be the best version of yourself, but it’s also important to accept that perfection is an unrealistic goal.

  • Focus on what you can change: It’s easy to get hung up on all the things that are out of your control, but it won’t achieve much. Instead, try to focus your energy on identifying the things that are within your control and seeing what you can do about them.

  • Do what makes you happy: Try to schedule in a little you-time every day. Whether that’s time spent reading, cooking or just conking out on the couch for a bit, if it makes you happy, make time for it.