How do you go about building a healthy, positive self-image? One way is to model the beliefs, habits and behaviors of winners. Winners have a healthy form of tunnel vision. They make a habit of focusing on their infinite potential. Their present circumstances serve to motivate, or else are ignored.

Your beliefs about your potential point directly toward your self-image. Your self-image is simply your picture of yourself, of your abilities, of your worthiness to succeed, of your limits. Some people seem to come by a healthy self-image naturally; most of us need to work on improving how we see ourselves.

The great thing is that there's nothing in the world that can keep you from improving your self-image. You can't do much about what you have believed about yourself in the past or done in the past, but you have complete control over what you'll believe in and participate in now.

What does it take to improve your self-image? The first step is deciding to consciously work on it, deciding to adopt a winners image.

Here are 4 important steps to follow to improve your self-image:

1. Watch what you say to yourself. It's amazing how we'll allow ourselves to say things to ourselves that we would never tolerate coming from someone else. If the mean words that come out of your own mind about yourself came out of the mouth of a stranger, you might be hurt, but you'd certainly think, "This guy's nuts, talking to me like that." If the same mean words were addressed to your child or your best friend, you'd run to their defense with a big "How dare you?" on your tongue. We'll talk soon about how your mind works, but let's just say for now that it's not discriminating in what it believes, if it comes from your own thoughts.

2. Watch who you hang out with. Negativity is contagious, and gossip is a hard habit to shake. Obviously, if you spend time with people who are critical, who tear others down, you'll catch it too - in two ways. You're more likely to think and talk that way about others and yourself, and, those same people probably talk about you when you're not around, too. Surround yourself with positive people, people who are seeking to grow and improve. We really do become like the people we surround ourselves with, so be particular.

3. Watch for the positive. Because negative thinking about ourselves and everything around us is so habit-forming, it can really sneak up on us. Make a point of searching for what is positive, lovely, perfect, wonderful, timely, gracious, and good. Do this about the people you interact with and about yourself. It forms a new habit building, rather than destroying.

4. Watch your tongue. Be very careful about what you say. If you catch yourself berating yourself, or another person, stop. Take a moment, turn around in your tracks, and go the other way. Guard your heart and your lips from speaking evil. People have enough catch-up work to do on their self-image from all they heard about themselves long ago without you adding to it and that goes for yourself, too.

As with everything you do to grow and improve, it takes action and patience to see results. This effort is completely worth it though, because your success in life can never exceed your self-image.

If you want more in your life it's time to forget the past and start NOW to shape a new, winning self-image.