“Your life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by change.” (Jim Rohn)
One of my favorite shows is the Emmy Award-winning show “Shark Tank”.
Please click here to listen to the 2-minute audio version of this article on the “Success is a Choice” podcasting network.
Aspiring entrepreneurs make presentations to a panel of five rich and successful business people who decide whether to invest in the product.
One memorable episode was when the rich investors were pitched an idea called “The Skinny Mirror”.
The basic concept was that a person would try on clothes in a dressing room in front of this mirror that would make them look skinnier than they really were. The person would then buy the clothes because they liked the way they looked in those clothes in front of that mirror.
Even though the reflection isn’t accurate, the mirrors are very real. These really do exist. We may not own one of these mirrors, but these kinds of metaphorical mirrors exist in our lives. The skinny mirror doesn’t change a person. It just merely communicates a false reality to them.
Similarly, we don’t always look at ourselves accurately. We don’t always want feedback. We don’t always want to hear the truth or examine our lives. Just like a skinny mirror in a dressing room, we don’t see our true selves.
If the only feedback that we are willing to listen to is that which is pleasing to us then how will we ever grow and improve? The best way to improve ourselves is to put our pride and ego to the side and look at ourselves objectively. In other words, we need to try on clothes in front of a mirror that gives us an accurate picture.
We need to be more self-aware. We need to be more honest with ourselves. Not so that we are self-hating or so that we feel bad, but so that we can become better. The only way to improve is to know what we need to improve upon.
Just like the skinny mirror gives us a distorted view of ourselves when we try on clothes, listening to only “yes” people or never taking responsibility for our actions or even results, can keep up from reaching our true potential. We can’t be as successful as we want to be if we are never growing and improving.
We can’t become who we need to be tomorrow by remaining the person we are today.