Self-concept acts as an operating system. Is it not?
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Have you checked the force behind all our actions, behaviours, and decisions? It is a self-concept.Someone has labelled herself or himself as a good singer on the formative stage and become true to herself or himself. It is a self-concept.
Self-concept is an aggregate of beliefs that are created during home care, outside exposures, interactions with people in our lives, and the pace of learning. These concepts may be correct or incorrect, depending on factors like challenging one’s own concepts, questioning social norms, setting in new surroundings, and so on.
There is a thin line between our own concepts and perceptions.
In the description of self-concept, someone is just a singer. In the case of self-perception, whatever we say or do is based on evaluation, like "I am proud of the winner of the award in singing" .
In this blog post, there is a focus on understanding self-concept not academically but as a reality of our lives. It works like an operating system. It is not an inborn feature. We learn everything from our surroundings. Self-concept starts taking shape in early childhood, when we are given to understand that snakes may take our lives, for example. Before that, there was no difference between a toy and a snake for a toddler.
Improving self-concept is as important as we are concerned about career, business, status, and stability.
It is seen that people are not growing socially, ethically, emotionally, and spiritually because they carry the same set of formulas and beliefs beyond adulthood as they did as teenagers or youths. They remain sensitive to outside forces and insensitive to their own improvement.
The primary condition is to accept ourselves as we are, regardless of flaws, weaknesses, and inadequacies. Then work on the premise that all persisting concepts are not final but amenable.
As we grow older and gain life experiences, our concepts of life become more specific, organised, and dynamic, provided we are open to learning.
An experiment about self-concept
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A group of thirty people from varying backgrounds were identified to see how much they were reluctant to continue reading apart from professional or highly personalised matters in their 40s. In spite of consistent persuasion for three years, they are still averse to reading anything that is meant to enhance overall awareness. This happens because all thirty people were hooked on the concept that there are no financial or social gains from this burdensome activity of reading, outside of professional or ritual requirements.
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The law of life is a law of belief. When someone is convinced that what they know is more than enough to lead a stable life, where is the space for progressive, extensive, and powerful living? It is a drawback of self-concept. Beliefs are the hardest among all traits where changes occur in the end. Such people are not ready to dissolve the frozen meaning of life. They are not aware of the default settings.
Some people are misers who are not heping others financially all their lives. What is this? It is a self-concept.
Take another example: someone is average in intelligence and, on getting a call to change, gets himself distinguished. What is this? It is a change of self-concept.
The best time to improve our concept is to delve into contradictions. Here we can catch some ideas when the crowd is overlooking. Concepts curl, and we come closer to reality.
The next step is to continue learning at book stalls, bus stands, cloth shops, in trains, on flights, in seminars, social gatherings, and in a variety of settings like that. There are moments to examine our own concepts.
Further failures compel us to discern our self-concept or self-limiting beliefs, which may be a bottleneck by now.
We should be ready to take prudent risks. A larger risk is there when we postpone decisions because they’re possibly erroneous. This risk-taking ability increases as we start modifying our self-concept.
When we live in hopelessness, our self-concept gets deeply firmed. It is said that hope is a walking dream. Never give up hope.
When something is important, we must do it, even if our self-concept does not concur.
Comfort touching the level of self-concept must be addressed as a priority. Comfort is the enemy of accomplishment.
Don’t live year after year on the same level and call it a reasonable life. Here, self-concept is working as a foe.
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In sum
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Our self-concept is a bunch of programmes in our subconscious mind. Be ready to face disruptions in settled patterns. Have a sense of thrill when diving into the unknown. Internal operating systems need servicing and sometimes repair, like machines.
