Human beings are complex individuals and no one can understand this thing much better than we humans ourselves. Human beings have always been described as social animals and it has been proven very true indeed.
People appear to need a society, which they can live in, find their place in the society, and develop meaningful relationships with other fellow human beings. People keep trying to understand other individuals all through their lives but surprisingly, they often fail to understand their inner selves, the purpose of their lives and their relation with their inner selves and identity of the society.
Every individual has three distinctive sides to their personality. Their outer self which they present to the world, their private self which is mostly deep seated somewhere in their personality and forms the core of their inner self. The third side of an individual’s personality is their mirror or perceived self. This is that aspect of a person in the world at large which they them self believe them to be like.
Among these three selves, remains lost our self-identity and identity of the society, which needs to be acknowledged well in time in order to progress and move forward on the path of self-development. A person’s public self, which they exhibit to the world, can often be the most deceiving one. If a person is quite an extrovert and is considered very outgoing by his peers, they are expected to be highly optimistic, high energy, and continually motivated in life.
Nevertheless, in reality, it is very common for an individual to be quite the opposite. In such cases, the concerned person always feels the need to mask their inner self and present an identity of what the world perceives him to be. In the process of constantly putting up with a false exterior, he may lose touch with his inner self and his real identity. In effect, the person acts as they believe the world around them expects them to behave and not their true self.
Our inner self remains hidden to the rest of the world most of the time. It only surfaces when an individual is faced by problems and stimulating challenges in their life. The obstacles and difficulties faced by an individual throughout their lifetime can bring out the best in a person. In such situations, they forget all about their fake exterior and their inner persona takes over. Thus, it will not be an exaggeration to say that our self-identity is best revealed to ourselves and to society at large, when we are faced with troubles and difficult situations in life.
People are often confused between the concepts of self-image and inner self.
By establishing convictions we develop confidence in self so that we can speak with clarity and confidence on any topic we have learned while knowing that we are emphasizing the facts. Convictions, once cultivated, can create a sincere person that is full of unwavering passion to express truth and the system of underlying beliefs. Beliefs are our assurances that help us to abandon negative thoughts that appear from doubt and the unknown.
When people establish their convictions, it gives them a thorough understanding of self and they can navigate throughout society with less difficulty. Convictions give us confidence when we express our beliefs, faith, opinions, and we can persuade others to follow us when our convictions are strong. This means that the person becomes a leader in society rather than someone that follows others path. We therefore become acquainted with our self.
How to build or expand our convictions:
First, if you have already established a measure of convictions you can expand this by researching your subject. If you believe that the sky is blue, research, take notes, and discover evidence that clarifies and proves that the sky is, indeed, blue.
When you build such confidence, it cultivates self-belief, which ultimately creates a humble person that can talk to anyone and is considered approachable. Convictions give us support, since we develop stronger humane traits, such as the ability to assert self, trust, faith, beliefs, loyalty, and so forth. Again, establishing convictions removes all forms of doubt, which makes it easier to develop our self-identity in the fullest spectrum.
We build poise from establishing convictions; such that our confidence escalates while our security intensifies. We don’t feel timidity when in social situations; rather we learn to express ourselves effectively and confidently.
When a person feels insecure, it makes it difficult to acknowledge the self and often the mind becomes cluttered, which makes it difficult to comprehend others or while reading. It also heightens your awareness, which takes you to higher planes of consciousness.
If you have never experienced a higher plane of conscious awareness, then you are in for a big surprise when you reach this point. Instead of using 10% of your brain as the common people do, you will enhance utilization by 30 or even 50%. Some people can expand their knowledge and experiences further. It depends on the willingness to cultivate the entire self-identity and self, to go beyond conventional thinking and allow ourselves to extend our belief of what is possible.
Self-image can be best defined as what we perceive of ourselves to be. It could be wrong or right depending upon how accurately a person is able to perceive their self. However, our inner self is free from all such misappropriations. It is precisely dependent on the way our conscience works and is gradually shaped up after being influenced by many factors. These factors include an individual’s past experiences and the expectations of other people from them.
However, people often tend to ignore the lessons learnt from their past experiences and tend to give much more importance to what society thinks and expects out of them. This is one of the main rationales which prevent them from progressing further in life, and they fail to figure out any meaningful relationship between themselves and the society.