The Self-Concept Manual

A healthy self-concept helps to erase unwanted behaviors, build determination muscle and increases every day well-being. When you have healthy self-concept you are proud of yourself, and that pride carries over into your actions and what other people think of you.
To have a healthy self-concept means to have a good concept of who you are, what your goals are and how you deal with everyday adversity. People with a productive self-concept like themselves and are proud about their accomplishments and dreams in life.

A healthy self-concept leads to higher self-esteem which in turn enables you to deal with most situations and personality types. It is much more difficult to find yourself in an argument when you have a healthy self-concept.
If you like to build a healthy self-concept, you need to think about who you perceive yourself to be. What do you think is your life story? Do you like yourself, your story and your current states?



Disappointment
A great problem that prevents people from liking themselves is their disappointment in themselves. Whenever you fail to face a situation, or you haven’t persisted throughout a problem, you might be justifying that to your family but you’ll always be disappointed in  yourself. We worry so much about disappointing others, but the true price we pay is when we disappoint ourselves. Our persistence and determination in the face of adversity shows exactly how much belief we have in ourselves and in our strength.

Honesty
Without honesty with oneself, one’s actions will never be congruent with your thoughts. What you want in life is congruency - a state where your actions, your thoughts and hopes are aimed in the same direction. When you are completely honest with yourself and doing what you feel is valuable, you will feel energized, authentic and sincere, which in turn makes you proud of yourself and elevates your self-concept.

Virtues
We all have values and virtues we follow - even if we don’t know it. Whenever you get aggravated by people in real life, movies or politics, you think someone is acting against your values. This helps you find out what your values are. Common values for most people are what I like to call prime values: courage, honesty and integrity. So no matter what your individual values are, you will feel pride when you act with courage, honesty and integrity wherever you go. Every time you fail to be brave, honest or do what you say, even in the smallest of instances, you will feel that you carry yourself just a little bit smaller, feeling just a little more insecure about yourself. We create great damage on ourselves when we fail to display our prime values, because it gives us just another reason not to believe in ourselves, our potential and who we can be. You have to act upon ways of behavior you admire, then you will truly like yourself.

Hunger
Having a healthy self-concept of someone who says what he does, someone who is proud and authentic will lead to hunger. The hunger meant here is a hunger for opportunity, for contribution and growth. When we believe in ourselves we appreciate what we are good at and we hope to bring that to others. 
Hunger also stands for ambition or desire that comes with pride of oneself. Most successful people started out with great hunger, because they saw themselves being courageous or making a difference. Just like the original settlers who came to America with nothing, they are focused on what can be, and define themselves by their own courage to change their life. It is the best example for people who gave up their past and everything they had because of courage and the believe that they had in themselves.

It all starts with questions in the beginning, and you yourself will answer those. Start to ask yourself what you believe in, who you think you are, and how you can be proud of yourself. What do you spend most of your time talking about? This gives you a good starting point as to what your current struggles are and where you position yourself as a failure or success.

In the end the place of happiness will be the place where you act on your core values, and you display a behavior you can be proud of. The higher your self-concept, the more you will carry yourself with pride and the more you will believe in who you are and can be. It is nice for the people in our lives to love us and be proud of us, but you will only make a true difference if you can be proud of yourself and therefore love yourself.

For more daily affirmations you can follow me on Twitter @JohannaRude !