careernav.

By Anne Parker

Building and maintaining a positive self –image.

To build and maintain a positive self-image that is to feel good about yourself and project that to others is essential to managing your career. If you don’t think that you are a worthy person deserving of respect and fair treatment then it’s likely that others will sense this and some people may try and take advantage of you. You can probably think of some one at school who was given a hard time because they were seen as a loser, dumb or gutless. The same can happen at work and cause you much misery. So don’t become a victim. If you have a low opinion of your self you can and must do something to change it.

What do you think of yourself?

Without thinking too much how would you rate yourself? Are you very happy with who you are, happy, okay, not happy or very unhappy? If you consider this more deeply there would be some aspects of your self that you rate more highly than others. For example you may believe that you are average at school, excellent at music, hopeless at sport, shy and awkward around most people and terrified of speaking in public, which most people are by the way.

Being good at some things and not so good at others is where most of us fit. but in terms of managing your career it’s a question of what aspects of yourself negatively impact on others and what aspects positively impact on others and therefore your career prospects.

Assessing yourself

In order to build and maintain a positive self-image you first have to know who you are. Be brave ask the question and be honest.
An easy rating system to use is: excellent, very good, good, okay, not good. Also if you draw up a table using the 4 dot points below and the rating system you’ll have a handy reference for review and the basis of a resume.

Key Question: What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Apply the question to the following areas

• interests and hobbies
• skills
• personal qualities
• school subjects

Imagine this:

Imagine that are to give a solo performance at a school concert and then you have to make a speech thanking everyone for coming, the music teacher and the other musicians etc. Giving the performance doesn’t bother you. This you know how to do. You practice and practice till you know the piece backwards and you are experienced in giving performances as you’ve been performing for years but the thought of standing up in front of the audience and speaking brings you out in a cold sweat. You also know that you need to overcome this as your career goal is to become a professional musician. Public speaking, engaging with the audience is a necessary skill you have to acquire or your prospects will be limited.

What can you do about this?

Going through the process of honestly assessing yourself and identifying your strengths and weaknesses is a step in the right direction. Next step is to get some help with aspects of your self that you want and need to improve on. With the scenario above its getting assistance with public speaking skills and it is a skill that can be acquired.

By applying the process of preparation and practice that you have in place for performing at concerts you would in time overcome your nervousness about speaking in public. Feedback is also very useful but only if it’s constructive so choose carefully who you want to give and receive feedback from. Changing this negative aspect of yourself would boost your confidence and enhance your self-image and ultimately your career goal.

So building and maintaining a positive self-image is about honest self assessment and acting on areas that need a bit of work.

Pearls of wisdom

• Hang out with people who are supportive and distance yourself from people who put you down; the last group can negatively impact on your self-image and you don’t need that
• Every day spend a few minutes thinking positively about yourself. 
• Keep a journal of good things about yourself to look back over when you’re feeling low
• Dress to impress; we all feel better if we wear nice clothes
• Treat yourself regularly. Retail therapy works for me or seeing a film