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Class OverviewNathaniel Brandon put it perhaps even more succinctly: ‘Self concept is destiny.’ This short course is all about taking charge of your self-image and re-creating it in ways that better serve you. (Check out the Top 10 Big Ideas from the class below!) Your ProfessorJames Tripp is a Consulting Hypnotist, Neurolinguist and developer of the Hypnosis Without Trance approach to Hypnosis. He helps people make the changes they want and/or develop ‘personal effectiveness’ in life.How to Transform Your Self-ImageSelf-image. In life, self-image – how we see ourselves and make sense of ourselves in the world – is arguably the single biggest determent of how we engage with life and ultimately what we get out of it. The reason for this is quite simple – generally speaking we will happily step up and do the things we can easily see ourselves doing, whilst shying away and hanging back from the things we can’t. So you’ll more likely go for the job you can see yourself doing, and less likely the one you can’t. Or you’ll go for the relationship you can see yourself a part of, and hang back from the one you can’t. Can you see yourself setting up successful businesses? Negotiating hot deals? Creating wealth? Achieving your physical and health goals? Influencing people? Creating wonderful relationships? Generally kicking butt in life? As Henry Ford put it, ‘Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right’ – do you think you can do it? Can you see yourself doing it? Is that capability part of your story about who and how you are? Nathaniel Brandon put it perhaps even more succinctly: ‘Self concept is destiny.’ This short course is all about taking charge of your self-image and re-creating it in ways that better serve you. The Top 10 Big Ideas1 Escape the Truth Trap Your self-image is essentially generated by all the stories you tell yourself (mostly outside of consciousness) about who you are and how you are. These stories – sometimes called ‘the ego’ – are what we use to make sense of ourselves in the world, and as such dictate how we ‘show up’ in life… and this is why they are so powerful.To transform your self-image, you need to be free to do so, and this means recognizing that those stories are just stories – ways of making sense rather than absolute truths. This can be difficult for people to grasp, but… whoever and however you think you are, this is just how you THINK you are. The true reality of ‘you’ is infinitely richer, more nuanced and more complex than the human mind can comprehend. So ultimately, you just don’t get to know… the stories are all you have! (Better make them good ones!)Essentially, chasing the ‘truth’ about who you are (in terms of ‘personality’, ‘capability’ etc.) is a suckers game. It is un-winnable because the truth is unknowable. So in transforming our self image we want to move beyond this and instead focus on creating and shaping understandings that truly serve us in living fulfilling, rewarding and meaningful lives.Free yourself from the Truth Trap – create and shape understandings that serve you, rather than ‘truths’ that are by their very nature unknowable.2 Shift into Self Authoring For most people, the ‘identity stories’ that comprise self-image are near 100% ‘socially authored’. This means they ‘learned who they are’ from the world around them. Parents, teachers, peers, television, media etc. all told them certain things and acted in certain ways towards them, molding the understandings of self that end up shaping destiny. And truly, some got luckier than others. Some ended up with a self images that would generally serve them in shaping fulfilling and rewarding lives. Others not so much so… but it doesn’t matter!It doesn’t matter because your self-image isn’t fixed. So long as you can escape the truth trap and understand self-image for what it is, you can step into your power to transform it.Remember, you are not who you think you are, so stop identifying with the stories and start identifying with the ‘I’ that transcends them and re-writes them. Shift from being ‘socially authored’ to being fully ‘self-authoring’.3 Stop Using Other People and Circumstances as Mirrors In order to transcend being ‘socially authored’ and shift into ‘self-authoring’, you need to stop treating other people and circumstances as ‘mirrors’ in an attempt to show you things about yourself – they aren’t and they don’t.This means stopping processing other people’s behaviors, judgements and opinions, along with other random circumstances, through your sense of self.So, for example,  if someone ‘blanks you’ at a party remember that this is really a part of their behavior and way of being, rather than being anything about who you are or what you are worth. If someone judges you – calls you stupid for example – this judgement changes nothing about who you are and how you are. Or if it seems every traffic light turns red on you as you journey to work, this means nothing about who you are (you are not jinxed or inherently unlucky!).The judgements, behaviors and attitudes of others can only hurt you when they threaten the integrity of your sense of self. But they can only do that when you let them… So don’t!Now, of course, your attitudes, actions and behaviors etc. will influence how others relate to you, but this is NOT who you are. Just what you have been doing. It doesn’t have to be processed on the level of self and self-esteem.So! Stop looking to others to tell you who you are. YOU choose who you are, not them. YOU choose how you show up going forward, not them. Sure, make use of feedback in making behavioral adjustments, just don’t think it says anything about your inherent nature or worth or anything. It doesn’t.4 Choose How You Choose to Be How is it you want to show up in the world? What kinds of attitudes and orientations do you want to walk through life with? What kind of capabilities and aptitudes do you want to carry with you?Very little about you is absolutely fixed. Sure, some things are easier to shift than others, but there is little about who you are and how you are that cannot be utterly transformed, and transforming self image is always going to be part of the process.Many years ago I generally used to show up scared, anxious, miserable and a total victim of life. Unsurprisingly, this was not serving me well. Fortunately, someone showed me that this wasn’t who I was, just how I was showing up. And that I could transform my life by stopping focusing on who I thought I was and starting to focus on who I was choosing to become.They also taught me to start paying attention to how other people I admired showed up, and to get curious about their values and how they looked at the world, and then to model them – literally ‘try on’ their ways of being. Explore them, experiment with them and adapt them to best fit my needs. You can do this too, and doing so will be transformative on many levels.Start bringing more consciousness to how you would love to be showing up in life and which ways of being might more deeply serve and empower you. Get curious about them and start using your mind and imagination to ‘try them on’.5 Run Movies… And be the Director and the Star Following on from the practice of getting clearer about how you want to be showing up, is creating and running movies in your mind of you showing up that way!You can do this in pure imagination… take time to imaginatively indulge yourself in running these movies of the mind. See them from multiple perspective (from the perspective of viewer, as well as perspective as star).You can also write out scripts for scenes. This is a very powerful way of re-creating yourself as a character that will start firing up new neurological pathways that correlate with who you are becoming (both in terms of how you see yourself and how you show up).6 Build Bridges Sometimes, just choosing to see yourself differently can seem like a leap too far. For example, a person who has seen themselves as ‘stupid’ for much of their life will often find it difficult to simply choose to see themselves as ‘intelligent’. This is, once again, the work of the Truth Trap… they believe they ARE stupid and than in seeing themselves differently they are lying to themselves.Until the Truth Trap has been fully escaped, it can be useful to build brides to new self-concepts rather than attempting to make bold leaps. A bridge means finding and nurturing the perception of the quality that you wish to make part of the new self image.The first move is to shift focus from ‘identity’ to ‘quality’. So in the example of the person who wishes to stop seeing themselves as ‘stupid’ and start seeing themselves as ‘intelligent’ where ‘I am intelligent’ may be a leap too far, ‘I have intelligence’ (at least some!) is usually manageable. A shift from identity to quality.The next move is to owning that quality (‘MY intelligence’) and making a commitment to progressively connect more fully with that quality: For example, a mantra that might support this could be:”I am committed to uncovering, nurturing and connecting with my growing intelligence every day”So here we have created a bridge towards a new self-image that includes a recognition and appreciation of intelligence.7 Create Transformative Mantras The above ‘bridging statement’ is an example of what you might call a ‘Transformative Mantra’ – a simple linguistically structured reminder of a new orientation, understanding or commitment.These are very powerful tools that we can deploy whenever we find ourselves dropping into old and unsupportive thoughts or perspectives. They are slogans that remind us of insights and choices that support us in our transformation.As you choose more and more how it is you wish to be and how it is you wish to see yourself, look to creating Transformative Mantras that keep you orientating in your chosen direction. They are a simple tool, but create them and use them and they will serve you VERY powerfully.To be clear, these are not affirmations. You are not trying to convince yourself of anything or ‘program’ anything in, they are just reminders to reconnect you with choices and perspectives that serve.8 Take Charge of Your Evidence Gathering Processes Evidence gathering is an essential part of our psychological processing for creating and maintaining self-image (along with worldview in general).  It is something we do unconsciously all day every day, and when we consciously harness its power for transformation, it can serve us greatly in our process of self-authoring. But if we don’t, it will work against us due to the phenomenon of Confirmation Bias.Confirmation Bias is the tendency of people to unconsciously filter for evidence that that confirms their pre-existing beliefs, whilst filtering out that which contradicts. When left to it’s own devices, Confirmation Bias works silently all day every day to maintain your self-image exactly as it is.So, when transforming your self image, make a commitment to the conscious gathering of evidence that supports your new self-image. Look for it and log it! Accumulate it willfully! Otherwise, Confirmation Bias will take care of that bit of business, but in a way that will keep you just the same.9 Live Into Your New Self-Image As you are choosing how you see yourself, and gathering evidence to support that, it will pay you to ‘live into it’ as well. This means showing up more and more in a way that is congruent with your newly evolving self-image. Now, interestingly, this often starts to happen all by itself when you follow the ‘bridge building’ and ‘evidence gathering’ part of the process – the more you seek evidence the more you seek opportunities to create evidence.For example, When I decided that I wanted to see myself as an effective influencer, I built a bridge (to connect with my inherent influentially) then sought evidence for that influentially by giving myself a ‘point’ every time I influenced anyone in any way (got them to smile or laugh, or give me free marshmallows with my hot chocolate or understand a perspective or move on a price or whatever). In playing this little game, I would find myself looking more and more for opportunities to influence, and so I started actively influencing more – living into my new self-image and as such supporting it’s growth.You can also choose to consciously live into your new self-image too. Want to be more relaxed? Relax more! Want to be more playful? Play more! And you think that is easier said than done, then just take that as a sign to practice more at doing it!As social psychologist Amy Cuddy has said “fake it until you become it”.10 Do It All Over Again (and again… and again…) Iteration is powerful… it is the engine of true transformation. Through intelligent iteration we learn and adjust and grow. We become progressively more adaptable and effective in making use of what comes our way in life. And from this we become more empowered to create and shape the happiness, prosperity and fulfillment that we desire in life for both ourself and others.So don’t stop changing. Don’t stop learning. Don’t stop growing.Become a more powerful and conscious force in shaping your own life through becoming a skilled self-transformer! Indeed, why not make self-transformation a part of your self-image and live into that! Shift your focus forever from who you are to who you are becomING (present continuous tense). Perennial wisdom says that “mastery is a journey rather than the destination”, and not without good reason. Engage with this, become self-transforming and connect with your power to truly shape your life.