Today I share my notes on John Maxwell’s Law of the Mirror from a conference I attended where he explains why you must see value in yourself to add value to yourself. The law of the mirror is one of the laws of growth that John Maxwell discusses in his book, The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth: Live Them and Reach Your Potential
John Maxwell’s Law Of The Mirror Video Highlights
What Is The Law Of The Mirror?
John Maxwell’s Law of the Mirror is about self worth. You must see value in yourself to add value to yourself. When you look in the mirror, based on the law of averages, what do you see? How you see yourself determines your potential, how others see you and how you see other people.
Your Self Image Determines Your Potential
How you see yourself determines the lid on your potential. Your self image places a cap on your ability to lead, influence and impact others and ultimately your level of success.
On a scale of 1 to 10, if you see yourself with an average self worth of 5, the lid or maximum potential and the most you can accomplish is limited to that of a level 5. In other words, you cannot accomplish more than what your self-worth allows you to. With an average self-worth, the odds are that you will grow to be an average person and you will accomplish average things.
Of course your true potential may be far greater than a 5, but it doesn’t matter. We don’t succeed according to our potential. But rather, we succeed according to our self-worth and this is a very key principle.
When people look in the mirror they don’t look at themselves in terms of what they can be. They look at themselves in terms of who that are in the present.
Three Self Worth Statements
Regardless of where your self image currently exists, you can raise your self image. To do so you must have these three (3) self worth statements before you can begin to raise your self image:
1. It’s impossible to consistently behave in a manner that is inconsistent in the way that we see ourselves.
Your self-image regulates what you accomplish and what you try to accomplish. If I see myself as a 5, I may try to accomplish things at a 7 or 8 level, but, I’ll remind myself that I am a 5, that I can’t do higher level things and I will revert to doing things at a level 5. So, it’s important to note that how we see ourselves is how we perform.
2. How we see ourselves determines how much we invest in ourselves.
Your self image determines how much you are willing to invest in yourself. If I look in the mirror and see myself as a level 3, the maximum self-investment I will make is to that of a level 3. My self image will keep me from investing at a higher level because I can’t.
How much are you willing to bet on you? How much are you willing to invest in you? Your self-image determines the size of your self-investment. The better, higher the self-image the better, the higher the investment. The lower the self-image the lower the investment.
3. Our belief in ourselves will influence the belief that others have in us.
How you see yourself determines how others see you. How you believe in yourself determines how much other people believe in you. Furthermore, how I see myself is how I see others. Wow! In other words, if I don’t believe in me it will be very difficult for me to believe in you. If I see myself as a 5 I will see you as a 5.
We see others not as they are…we see others as we see ourselves.
This is important because if you sell yourself short, you not only short cut your own growth but your also short cut the growth of those around you.
When you sell yourself short you sell others short.
In order to see others in a higher level you must be able to see yourself in a higher level. Seeing yourself at a higher level requires that you have a higher belief in yourself. This belief must be accompanied with action to raise your self image.
How To Lift Your Self Image
Here are three ways that John Maxwell teaches on how to list your self image.
1. Guard your self-talk.
Be very protective of what you say to yourself. The most important person who talks to you is you. The most important conversation you’re going to have in life is the conversation you have between your own ears.
To improve your self-image you must have only empowering, positive, uplifting self-talk. You need to talk nice to yourself.
As you talk to yourself so you become.
Your self-talk is the profit of what you will become.
2. Each day intentionally add value to people.
When you intentionally add value to other people each day you begin to feel the sense of significance. Success is all about you. Significance is about focusing on others. It’s when you begin to add value to the lives of others that you begin to live beyond yourself. This is when you feel the sense of fulfillment in your life.
Once you have had a taste of significance, success will never satisfy you. That’s a fact. The greatest way to give yourself significance is to pour yourself into others. Add value to them on a continual basis. Everything begins to change about how you feel about who you are what you’re doing. Once you begin to live an incredible significant life.
3. Do the right thing.
This seems simple, but when you do the right thing, motion is a precursor to emotions. When I do the right thing, I feel good about myself. If I do the wrong thing I feel bad about what I’ve done. So, when people want to lift their self-image, do the right thing each and every day.
Law Of The Mirror Summary:
If I see value in myself I’ll add value to myself. If I don’t see value in myself I won’t add value to me. But, if I don’t see value in me, the high probability is that I won’t see value in you.
What happens is this, the law of the mirror basically says this:
If your self-worth isn’t what it needs to be, what it could be and what it should be, then you are not only short changing yourself in reaching your potential, but you are short changing everybody around you in helping them reach their potential also.
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