A Coaching Power Tool Created by Payal Rajaratnam
(Executive Coach, INDIA)
Your inner self reflects your outer reality
Concentrate in the heart. Enter into it: go within and deep and far, as far as you can. Gather all the strings of your consciousness that spread abroad, roll them up and take a plunge and sink down. A fire is burning there, in the deep quietude of your heart. It is the divinity in you- your true being. Hear its voice follow its dictates……………………………The Mother, Aurobindo Ashram. India.
How do you describe your ‘Self’? The dictionary meaning of ‘Self’ is a persons essential being that distinguishes them from others.
Just like each of our physical bodies is constructed uniquely and no two people can be the same, similarly each of us has a ‘self’ that is simply ours. It is who YOU ARE.
As we progress through life our ‘self’ starts getting defined by our experiences, environment, learnings, perceived failures and successes. Sometimes we feel the ‘Self” that has developed is not good enough, due to our own and other people’s expectations of ourselves and personal belief of what successful people should be like.
Our thoughts and feelings float up to build pictures of our Ideal Self, who we should be and what we should be doing. Our energy and focus, transfers to matching ourselves to the picture. ‘Should’ becomes a frequent word in our vocabulary and thoughts!
As we pursue being our Ideal self we will experience unhappiness or dissonance with who we are. In this state people always stay discontented and frustrated as there are expectations. Failed expectations bring in negative judgments about ourselves and create disappointments. This affects our morale and our self esteem in a detrimental manner. It leads to thriving in a space where one feels, one is always falling short.
Growing and developing our ‘Selves’
On the other hand as you journey in life you may explore, question, analyze and determine what about yourself serves you best .You may want to build on what you already have or let go of what you don’t need. Here you are adding elements to the existing fabric of your real self. There are no disappointments because there is no lofty Ideal image to reach out to. Instead just a gentle growth: To renew and rebuild.
There is nothing wrong with rebuilding yourself on a model. It works as long as you are in alignment with your deepest values, what you set out to achieve is realistic and built on your strengths and most importantly you do not dismiss who you are.