Easter, Plastic Surgery & Achieving Your Goals

Whether you're Christian or you take a more secular or even a pagan view of Easter, there are some common themes and symbols associated with Easter that are relevant to your journey to achieve your goals and dreams.

Of course, for Christians, it's about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the northern hemisphere, Easter is associated with the Spring Equinox - the beginning of Spring. Spring is a time of renewal. The bunny and egg are both ancient symbols of new life and rebirth.

I think it's useful to use these concepts of death, resurrection, rebirth, and renewal as a lens through which to look at your growth and development and achieving your goals and dreams.

Dr. Maxwell Maltz was a cosmetic surgeon and the author of Psycho-Cybernetics, one of the seminal self-help books.

Dr. Maltz observed something really interesting. He found that his plastic surgery patients often had expectations that weren't satisfied by the surgery. So even after he had operated on them and made them look beautiful, they still saw themselves as ugly when they looked in the mirror. Dr. Maltz had the insight that it wasn't these patients' external circumstances, i.e. their looks, that made them see themselves as ugly. It was their self-image.

Dr. Maltz said: “We act, behave, and feel according to what we consider our self-image to be and we do not deviate from this pattern. This image not only controls our behaviour but also our circumstances.”

The only problem we have is a self-image problem. Our self-image sets the boundary for our performance. We can't outperform our self-image. You'll never escape from a prison you're not aware you're in.

This is why it's so crucial to do the inner work. If you're not making progress towards your goals, if you're not getting the results you want, if you're not creating the life and future you dream of, it's often because your behaviours and your performance are constrained by your self-image.

So, our self-image determines our behaviours which determines our circumstances.

If you want to create the life you want, you have to get leverage on yourself by going upstream to work on your self-image.

The future can either be an extension of your past or something new you create. When you decide to change your paradigm by refusing to live in the past and instead live in a future that you create, you change your life. Today can be the last day of who you used to be.

But many people refuse to let go of their past to create a future they want. If you keep holding on to the way you used to be or the way you currently are, you can't become the best version of you. If you hold on to your stories and excuses, you can't develop your highest potential. If you fight for your limitations, you get to keep them.

For most people, their future will be a repetition of their past.

They let past experiences define their self-image in a negative way. And so they end up behaving in a way that’s not in tune with who they really are or who they want to be, but only in tune with the limited concept of who they think they are.

They'll just keep doing the same things they did in the past and continue to get the same results they had in the past.

You have to let the old self die. Sacrifice it to create the new self. Let yourself be reborn. Be willing to sacrifice the old parts of you that no longer serve you in order to create something better.

That might mean letting go of limiting mindsets and values, unproductive habits, self-defeating behaviours, and obsolete identities.

You can be like the tree that sheds its leaves in the winter to make way for vibrant new foliage and fruit in the spring.

You have a choice: you can be a prisoner of your self-image or the author of your life.

You can either be passive and unconsciously acted upon by the forces of your self-image, like a cork being tossed around in the ocean, constantly off-balance, feeling like you're a victim of circumstances and you have no agency in your life.

Or you can consciously channel them in the direction you want in order to become the next-level version of yourself, personally and professionally.

You can be the architect of your transformation.

You can be intentional and proactive about it and learn and develop the mindsets, habits, and skills that will move you forward, help you achieve your goals, and create the life of your dreams.

We need you to be at your best, not only for yourself but for the world.

So I invite you to embrace the spirit of Easter and be conscious, intentional and proactive in your own renewal and rebirth.