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Imagine what your life would be like if you were happy, successful and fulfilled. How would you feel? What would your life look like? What would you do? Well, this type of life is possible for you, me and everyone else who is blessed to live in a country where we can all pursue our dreams.

I believe the only way you can achieve this unique combination of life’s greatest joys is if you focus on doing the things that will build your self-image. If you don’t see yourself in a positive way, it will be virtually impossible to be happy, successful or fulfilled, let alone enjoy the combination of all three.

For the sake of this lesson, I define your self-image as the combination of your self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem, self-respect, because they really all do tie together as one.

Here are 5 ways you can build your self-image.

1.  Count Your Blessings— If you will focus on of all the things you are truly blessed to have, rather than your problems and what you don’t have, you will be happier and have a better outlook on your life. This change in attitude will improve everything: your career, your relationships and your self-image. Let me encourage you to make a list of all the things you are truly blessed to have and review it daily.

2.  Be a Person of Integrity—If you do things that you know you shouldn’t do, such as misleading, deceiving or outright lying to people, there is no way you can feel good about yourself. Whether it’s our culture or God’s moral imprint in our DNA, deep down inside we all know what’s right and wrong. Don’t ever allow yourself to be tempted to do what you know is wrong. There is no benefit you can gain to offset the damage your decision will make on your self-image.

3.  Make Good Decisions—One of my favorite quotes from my mentor Jim Rohn emphasizes the value of making good decisions. He said, “Success comes from a series of good decisions make over time, while failure comes from making a series of poor decisions made over time.” When we make bad decisions, not only do we suffer the consequences, but also our bad decisions damage our self-image. Let me encourage you to read my four part series outlining the best process I have learned to make good decisions. The links are at the end of this post.

4.  Commit to Personal Growth—The day I started to listen and read self-improvement material was the day my self-image started to improve. The more I learned about the things I could be do to grow and develop myself as a person, the more inspired and motivated I became. As I began to implement all the lessons I learned, I started to feel better about my self- image and the person I was becoming in the process. Let me encourage you to fill your mind with information that can help you grow and become the best person you can be.

5.  Recognize and Reward Yourself—One of the things I have done throughout my career is to recognize myself for ALL my accomplishments, even things as small as finishing this post. Yes, it always feels good when people are complimentary of the things we do, but in most cases people don’t even know all the little things we do. Stop looking for praise and words of encouragement from others and start giving them to yourself.

Between now and tomorrow when I cover the remaining five ways to build your self-image, let me encourage you to spend some time and think about these five points. While each of them are only the size of one paragraph, their influence on your life can’t be described in words.

“You were not born a winner, and you were not born a loser. You are what you make yourself be.” Lou Holtz

About the Author: Todd Smith is a successful entrepreneur of 30 years and founder of Little Things Matter. To receive Todd’s daily lessons, subscribe here. All Todd’s lessons are also available on iTunes as downloadable podcasts. (Todd’s podcasts are ranked #27 in America’s top 100 podcasts and #1 in the personal and development field.)

To read part 2 click here

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