"If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles." - Sun Tzu   The mind works like paths in a field, your mental grooves and thought process emerges similar to a trail. A trail gets made when a deer walks across it, in one particular path, the whole field is the same but the deer walks across one path, and that one paths grass is a little bit trampled on. So the next animal that goes by takes that same path, again, and it becomes a little bit more trampled and then over time you develop a trail, and this trail is what your thoughts are following over and over. This is similar to how your neurons work too, that once you get used to thinking in a particular cycle like your thoughts love going down that same pathway. Now the work of the self actualisiser is to develop and carve out new pathways across the field or woods. Now I'm going to use another metaphor When an author writes a screenplay, they will have one document where they pen the actual draft that holds the dialogue and scenes, this is the script. However, the writer almost always has a second document - one that often precedes the first. In this second document they have all their notes and ideas about the world the characters inhabit, what each character thinks, what their motivations are, and how those characters (and the world) will transform over the course of the story. This second document is the "script for the script". This script is the self image. So explaining metaphors hearing - the thought process is the pathway and the mind the field And the scene is the situation and the "script for the script" is the self image Now I'm going to go back to the Jack and Bob example I made in my first post I'm also going to link this great Leo video that goes into the self image I've timestamped the video for 03:47 seconds we Leo gets to the definition of self image Here is the video transcript https://www.actualized.org/articles/self-image   "Self-image is a subconscious framework for you how you see life and yourself, and what you believe and what you think is true. This applies to reality and yourself. Every belief that you have is part of your self-image. What you think of yourself is the self-image, but also what you think is possible." This is why its so important, because All serious self work, stems from the self image If you want to achieve your goals, if you want to change your habits, you have to literally change yourself You do this through journaling and by embracing solitude Why is Bob so lazy, why does Bob not care about his health and fitness, or building himself mentally But Jack does Because of their self images Bob would literally have to transform as a man to change his life Quoting the post "Bob who comes home from his shitty job and says "today sucked, time to order some pizza, drink a six pack and watch some tv for the next few hours". " "Jack who comes home and says "I'm going to go straight to the gym, come back and make a healthy meal then catch up on reading and meditate for the next few hours"." For Bob to improve he would have to carve out new pathways through the field, which requires hard work, as it means going the difficult direction. Bob would have to operate on an entirely new script Why? Because Bob's self image, the underlying beliefs he holds about the world and himself are what ultimately cause him to think and act that way. So in this instance, Bob's script might contain beliefs like:   "Drinking and television are great uses of my time" "Drinking and television are the greatest pleasure I have in my life" "It's not worth pursuing discipline or bigger goals, I can't do that and it would suck to try" "On the off chance I wanted to change, I can always do it later, no need to wear myself out right now"   Its these beliefs that hold Bob back from being more like Jack. What Bob needs to do is change his self image, as the self image will change his habits naturally overtime, because that's how the mind operates. Going back to the deer trail metaphor. Once you change the self image you have fully changed as a man or as a woman. To do this I would define the man I want to be, and what I want. Linking back to the first post I made And then make a plan for achieving them Because, as you progress, you are literally carving slowly a new path, and with each milestone, you can't help but see yourself differently. You will change as a person. I would also Journal so you can better see who you are, and to observe your thought process E.g. Your mental grooves, or where the deer's walk through the forest etc... I would also practice daily affirmations to make a clearing through the grass. Repetition is a great way to get the mind to believe something Now all of these posts I've made today link to solitude, I'll make one last post on that and I'll be done for the day Now I don't really have many video links for this post, but I do this one Leo video which I think links in great with this topic - as what its really saying is how to make new mental paths, by finding the most dense greenery and foliage and beginning to walk through them If you have any ways of changing the self image e.g. Affirmations etc... Please tell them Thanks for reading - hope the post helped