Self concept is your knowledge (or belief) of you—that which you understand to be true. This is different from self esteem (deals more with self worth and self confidence) and self conscious (focuses on mindfulness – being aware of your self – example, you are wearing something you don’t normally, and are aware of people staring at you – that makes you mindful of your physical self).

Self concept relates more to self identity. It is your image of self. I always believed that because of my racial background, I have had to fight for my existence all my life. That is a concept of me that I gained through behaviour, attitude and most importantly through programming (self conditioning and external conditioning —example, by my teachers, parents, school mates and now work colleagues).

Many people feel that it is your self esteem or self confidence that makes you the success (or not) that you are. To some extent, that is true—but not the absolute truth. You could have high self esteem and a load of self confidence but there are things you will do (or not) to be a success.

Your self concept allows you to determine that. For example—you are gorgeous, young person and project high self esteem, self love and confidence. You know you are destined to be successful and your perception of self worth projects that you will do “anything” to be successful. Then, someone approaches you and offers you $1 million a year if you agree to marry and live with a person 70 years old your senior (kind of like Anna Nicole Smith situation). There is also one more thing; this person enjoys eating raw pig’s intestines like normal people enjoy Twizzlers candy. They believe that it is the raw intestine that brings them good health and healthy appetite for loving. Therefore, you must sit with him/her every night to enjoy their favourite “raw” food. Would you agree?

And before you answer the question—there is one more thing; if you don’t stay married to this person for 3 straight years and if you don’t agree to eat raw intestines with him/her then the deal to bag $1 million is off!

The answer will depend on your self concept. Now, you might think I have gone bonkers by setting these conditions, but this is very much inline with what most of the contestants do in the reality TV show “Fear Factor” (is that show still airing? I couldn’t even watch 1 episode of that—it was that disgusting to me. Still, it managed to make a permanent impression into my subconscious!)

If you think you are someone who can eat raw pig intestines every week (if not every day) then you will marry this person for $5 million! And that my friend is self concept in play—and a perfect clarification on the difference between self concept and self esteem!

To put it simply—self concept is who we think we (really) are and what we think we are capable of. If you think you are capable of murdering someone then your self concept of you is that of a Murderer!