Looking In The Mirror

Looking In The Mirror

One of my favorite expressions is “if you don’t like who you see when you look in the mirror, then change who you see.”  This doesn’t mean the what version of you but more the who version of you.  When you look into the mirror can you see the who and not the what?  You can’t look at the who in the mirror without using some form of comparison to someone else as a reference point.  It isn’t a fair comparison to use someone else to compare yourself to.  Take a moment and think about the ideal person you are capable of being.  Picture yourself in your greatest form.  Think about the qualities that you would have and the people you would be surrounded by.  Picture the clothes that you are wearing as well as the house you are living in.  Picture the car that you drive and the job that you have.  This is dream time so dream big. 

When you can see yourself in your greatest form compare that to what you see today.

                So now when you look into the mirror you can see two versions of you.  The person you want to be and person you are right now.  I want you to forget everything material at first.  Forget about the house, car, job and clothes and picture yourself just as the who again.  The qualities of that best version of you is what will bring you to the quantities that you want in the future.  Does this ideal version of you have qualities that are easy to like?  Are you influential to others?  Are you kind, compassionate, loving, patient and respected?  Are you a take charge motivated person who gets things done and is proud of your accomplishments?  Now look at the you today.  Do you see the same person? 

Wake up every day and look into that mirror.  See yourself as the best version of you and decide to be that person today.  Completely forget about the other version of yourself and focus only on the best who that is there.  You may not have the power, wealth and influence that you see in that imaginary mirror, but if you continue to look every day it will come.  Every day that you look in that mirror and you see yourself as the best version of you the closer you will move in that direction.  You will start to behave like the version of you that you want to be.  You will see yourself clearer when you do something that is outside the character of who you want to be and you will change it.  It is these subtle changes that you make every day that will put you in the position to receive all the material parts that you saw in your best version reflection.

When you were a child you did lots of things that your parents knew weren’t part of the person they wanted you to be.  If you behaved badly they corrected you.  If you were rude to someone they would talk to you about it and make you apologize.  If they didn’t like the tone of your voice they would quickly correct it.  So now you get to play parent to yourself.  You have the vision of yourself that you want to be and when you recognize that you are not behaving up to that standard it is your responsibility to correct it or make yourself apologize.  So many people go through life without this vision of their best version and they don’t have that standard of comparison to make themselves better.

When I was ten years old my Grandmother signed me and my brother up for a Tae Kwon Do class.  She was always trying to find ways of getting us more active instead of sitting around the house.  My mother was a pretty heavy alcoholic back then and I was exposed to a less than ideal childhood.  In this class I realized that I seemed to have a knack for kicking and sparring.  After only the first couple weeks I was moved up from the beginner class to the more advanced class.  My brother quit at this point so now it was just one kid being transported to class twice a week.  This quickly became a burden and I was taken out of the class but the seed had been planted.  I created my own dojo in the dirt floored basement of our apartment house and I trained myself.  I read magazines and watched every martial arts movie that I could.  Chuck Norris became my hero.  I loved how he always came the rescue of those is need and saved the day.  It was then with that example that I created the image in my head of the person that I wanted to be.  I created the Sensei in the mirror that I tried to be every day.  I developed strong ideals and a strong character based on that image I saw in the mirror. 

Over the years I have had times in my life where I forgot to look into that mirror.  I went through life and let it just pull me along.  The problem is that our society has more negative examples of how to life than positive and I developed some bad habits.  After finding that mirror again and dusting it off I have found that the best version of me is a little different than it was back then but the majority is still the same.  I was pretty surprised to find that when looking back over the years I stayed fairly true to my goal of becoming that Sensei.  I remind myself much more than once a day about who I expect myself to be.  I keep that image in my mind all the time and I correct myself when I make a bad choice.

If you don’t like who you are right now, then find that person in your mirror and see yourself as them.  Keep doing this every day until you are one and the same.

 Thanks again,

Sensei Keith