Your self-concept is the set of things you assume to be true about yourself: what you are like, what you deserve, what tends to happen to you. Under the Law of Assumption it is the foundation of everything else, because every specific wish has to pass through who you believe you are.

Why self-concept comes first

You can imagine a loving relationship every night, but if you assume you are hard to love, you will keep finding evidence for that. You can affirm abundance, but if you assume you are someone who struggles, struggle will feel like home. Specific techniques work far better once the underlying self-concept supports them.

How to see your current self-concept

  • Finish these sentences quickly: "I am the kind of person who...", "People always...", "Things never..."
  • Look at your patterns. What keeps repeating in love, work and money? Ask what you would have to believe about yourself for that to make sense.
  • Listen to your inner talk. How do you speak to yourself when you make a mistake?
  • Notice what you tolerate. We accept the treatment we think we deserve.

How to change it

  • Choose new statements about yourself. Short, present tense, believable enough to say without flinching. "I am chosen." "I am good with money." "Things work out for me."
  • Feel them, do not just say them. A statement without feeling is noise. Give each a real minute. See the one minute practice.
  • Act from the new self in small ways. How would someone with this self-concept answer that email, set that boundary, spend this evening?
  • Collect evidence. Each day, note one thing that fits the new picture.
  • Revise the old proof. Use revision on memories that seem to argue otherwise.

Self-concept and Inner Authority

A healthy self-concept is not built from other people's approval. It rests on your own knowing of who you are. That is why this work goes hand in hand with Inner Authority.

What to expect

Changing how you see yourself is the deepest work in manifesting, and the most rewarding. As it shifts, wishes in several areas often move at once, because they were all waiting on the same assumption. This is the kind of change that suits a series of sessions; see the session bundles.

Watch: Valerie talks about this in You ARE the Power on YouTube.