Your personal image is the most important asset you have as it defines you to other people and it is your face to the public. People who will deal with you will base themselves on the image you have projected to them.
The way people perceive you will determine your success or failure in your journey of life. They can perceive you either positively or negatively depending on how you project yourself to them.
The positive image enhances your chances of success while the negative one makes it difficult for you to succeed in life. It is your image in the eyes of other people that makes you unique, attractive, and relevant to them. It is your image that will differentiate you from other people otherwise without your image you are just part of the crowd.
A good image will give you a competitive advantage in your journey of life. Your personal image is a picture of the various aspects of yourself.
Various aspects that influence people’s perception of you
People’s perception of you is shaped by the following aspects among others;
- Personal look;
- Walking style;
- Mindset mode;
- Dress code;
- The type of hairstyle;
- The car you drive;
- Where you stay;
- The places you frequent;
- Talking style;
- Means of communications
- Mission and values and
- Family and friends’ connections.
You can use the above aspects to deliberately project the right image to other people.
Self-image
Your image is the way you are perceived by other people based on your self-image that you project onto them.
Self-image is the view or mental picture of yourself in various aspects including your abilities, appearance, intelligence, beauty, talent, generosity, and personality among others.
Depending on your mindset, you could perceive yourself in either a positive or negative way. Your positive or negative self-image can be seen by other people when you project it to them.
Unfortunately, you have no way of ascertaining how other people perceive you unless they give you the right feedback which is rare.
I will discuss the ways of getting feedback on your image from other people later on in the article.
Improving your self-image
Your self-image is not cast in stone and therefore can be improved. The self-image is very important because what we think determines what we feel and how we react to other people.
The following are the actions you take to improve your self-image;
- Develop a positive attitude towards yourself and life in general;
- Avoid comparing yourself with other people as each person is uniquely blessed for success;
- Develop your leadership qualities
- Reprogram your mind to replace negative thoughts with positive ones;
- Prepare your personal mission, value statement, and personal strategic plan;
- Regularly get feedback on self-image from trusted sources and act on the recommendation;
- Count your blessings in life;
- Get involved in community activities;
- Develop the capacity to confront and overcome challenges and
- Accept your negatives and prepare remedial action for them.
Importance of a personal image
Your image is too important not to care about it. It will either make you succeed or fail in life. The personal image tells a lot about the inner of a person through his or her behavior. You may not wish other people to know a lot about yourself but your image will betray you.
Your image is important for the following reasons among others;
- It is the basis of other people forming a perception about you;
- It plays an important role in establishing networking relationships;
- The first impression about you is based on your image;
- It impacts your personal brand as its quality is determined by your image;
- It enhances your credentials;
- It may influence the way your customers and other people support you depending on the perception they have about you and
- It may impact your morale hence your performance at your work. Your morale for work will be low if you feel bad about yourself.
Personal Branding
Personal branding is a deliberate effort to create a brand identity of yourself to influence other people’s perceptions.
This involves defining and promoting what you stand for as an individual and how you plan to walk your journey of life. You have to position yourself in the way you want to be perceived.
You have to improve your self-image so that other people may have a better perception of yourself.
Improvement of personal branding
You need to appreciate who you are, what you stand for, the values you cherish, and how you plan to live the values as a starting point to improve your brand identity.
The following are some of the steps you can take to improve your branding;
- Determine what you want to be known for;
- Focus more on networking arrangements;
- Improve your visibility;
- Improve your online presence;
- Give public presentations in the area of your expertise;
- Create a personal and professional website;
- Get involved in professional development programs;
- Attending international and national conferences and
- Monitor and manage your brand.
Importance of personal branding
Personal branding has a lot of benefits to you as an individual and to your employer and the following are some of the benefits from it among others;
- It gives you a competitive advantage as your audience will have the right answers to the questions of who you are, what you stand for, and why they should choose you;
- Create a unique identity for yourself;
- It improves your earning potential because of the audience you attract;
- Increases customer and supplier loyalty to you;
- Enhances your visibility;
- Creates business opportunities and
- Attracts competent human resources.
Feedback on personal image
You should aim at getting feedback from sources that you trust and will support you during your journey of improving your image. The feedback on your image will create huge opportunities for improvement if well received and acted upon.
It is important to select your sources very carefully to avoid getting negative feedback that will lower morale. You have to be ready to receive both positive and negative feedback as that is part of life.
Feel free to seek clarification from the people who give you feedback to be sure that you understand the feedback. You should focus on the feedback and its relevancy on your journey of improvement and less on the language and the people who give you feedback.
You could also decide to use professionals with experience and skills to give you feedback.
Can people change their image as a result of feedback?
Feedback motivates, enhances morale, and improves performance if well received and acted upon. It creates huge opportunities for improvement of your self-image and mode of self-talk. Self-talk is the practice of talking to yourself to influence your mental attitude. Feedback enables you to identify areas of focus for improvement,
What can go wrong with developing a personal image and brand identity for success?
The road to developing a personal image and brand identity for success is not a straight one.
You should avoid falling the following traps;
- Copying another person’s image and adopting for yourself;
- You cannot achieve good results overnight hence the need to be patient;
- Not building adequate networking relationships;
- Not having a personal strategic plan to guide you;
- Not engaging with your customers and people who support you to gain their loyalty and
- Failing to focus first to change the negative aspects of your self-image
Conclusion
Improving your image and brand identity makes it easy for other people to have a better perception of you. This results in you having a competitive advantage in the market.