7. HOW I PERCEIVE OR IMAGE MYSELF WILL AFFECT EVERYTHING I DO.
(Before looking at the questions below, take a few minutes to think about this statement. Invite Jesus to speak to you about what He would like you to notice.)
WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOUR LIFE TODAY THAT YOU FEEL COMPETENT ABOUT AND FIND JOY IN DOING?
WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOUR LIFE THAT YOU FEEL UNPREPARED FOR AND ARE TROUBLED OVER?
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE IDEA THAT YOUR IMAGE OF YOURSELF DETERMINES HOW WELL YOU DO IN LIFE AND LIVE?
HOW DO YOU EXPERIENCE GOD AFFIRMING YOU AND ENCOURAGING YOU?
In Celebrate What's Right with the World, Dewitt Jones says "Our vision controls our perception, and our perception becomes our reality." God created each of us uniquely. We all have the capacity for creating, initiating, learning, achieving, and simply doing. To experience joy, we need to discover how God created us. Knowing this gives us a clear vision of who we are and enables us to function accordingly. But this is not always what we experience.
Often, we experience disappointment and dissatisfaction with our achievements, actions, and reactions. Our performance falls short of our hopes. We fail to meet our goals and dreams and begin to doubt our ability and capacity. Eventually, these setbacks can cause us to doubt ourselves. When we lose confidence in ourselves, we start to see ourselves as unworthy or incapable. We begin to doubt our worth and our abilities, which leads us to stop even trying. We no longer work to do well. We shut down.
But the opposite can also be true. When someone inspires us and helps us believe in our abilities, we will often work harder and accomplish more than we thought possible. We see this often in children. When a parent or teacher instills a vision of potential for the child, the child will often live up to that vision. Conversely, when a parent or teacher is critical of a child, the child will underperform. Even adults can experience this dynamic.
When others believe in us and encourage us, we perform better than when we feel unfit for assignment. We tend to take on the image of ourselves that someone else is communicating and perform accordingly. Our self-image makes a difference because how we live and act flows out of what we believe about ourselves.