Mirror, mirror on the wall.
There’s a story behind that.
This is your daily message from Chad, number 1084, to upgrade your mental game today by telling yourself a better story, because the most important story you hear is the story you tell yourself. This message is dedicated to Lanny Basham.
Here’s the upgrade:
you think performance drives self-image, but upgraded thinking understands it’s your self-image that drives performance.
Here’s the story:
In the classic Grimm fairy tale and Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Evil Queen obsessively consults her Magic Mirror: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” The mirror initially affirms her beauty, but when it declares Snow White as fairer, her reaction reveals deep insecurity. If she would accept the truth reflected in the mirror, she would be in a healthy place. Instead, she compares her self-worth to someone else.
We have looked at John Maxwell’s list of the 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth this week. The 3rd is Maxwell’s Law of the Mirror which states that you must see value in yourself to add value to yourself. A healthy self-image drives improvement. Your self-image, another term is self-concept, sets the ceiling on how much you’ll invest in your own growth.
The Evil Queen is the perfect cautionary tale of what happens when this law is violated. In Maxwell’s law, the “mirror” is your internal self-perception. For the Queen, it’s literal and external. She never looks honestly at herself; she demands the reflection confirm her superiority. When it doesn’t, she rages rather than reflects and grows. Mirrors are truth-tellers. They are tools for providing an accurate depiction of reality. But when used as a measuring tape against others, they are useless.
Comparison kills confidence and diminishes your self-concept. A crayon and pencil are standing next to each other. The pencil is saying to itself, “I’m not colorful enough.” The crayon is saying to itself, “I’m not sharp enough.” Albert Einstein said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” When you find someone constantly comparing to others (just like the Queen), tearing others down to feel better, and playing the victim to avoid investing in real personal development, that person will have a low self-image.
A healthy version of this law would be someone who looks in the mirror and says, “I have value. I’m worth developing,” then takes action to grow — regardless of what others say. Like the crayon, they say to themselves, “I may not be sharp like the pencil, but I am colorful.” Like the fish, they know, “I was made to be in water.” The Law of the Mirror tells you that a distorted self-image stalls growth, because you focus on the wrong things.
The better story to tell yourself is, “I look straight into my mirror for the truth of who I am and what needs work.” If you’re looking to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be, look honestly at who you are. Define your identity at your best and step into that identity before results show up. It’s not fake it til you make it, but do it until you become it.
Tell me a story of how a healthy self-image drives improvement to fromchadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and ask them, “On a scale of 1-10 where would you rate your self-image?” You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in the World, by going to fromchad.gumroad.com. The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are always available at http://www.fromchad.com.
