Self improvement and success
go hand in hand
How do you know if a person is willing to attain self improvement? This is a question with no definite answer. It will all depend on the individual.
Many people have goals, dreams or ambitions but do not know how to go about achieving them. They may have thought about what would make up self improvement and their ideal life, but have no idea how to even begin to make the plans and take the actions required to make them a reality.
Some people have a vague idea on how to go about self improvement. These are the ones that believe that if only they had a better job, or had been given better opportunities, or met the love of their life, or whatever else, everything would be fine and they would be happy.
They feel that their happiness or lack of happiness is decided by external factors and their thoughts and actions are of little consequence.
Some believe that if only they had more money they could have whatever they want and be on their way to self improvement.
They may have spent little time thinking about what they actually want from life, and do not really believe there is anything they can do to create their fuzzy version of utopia anyway, apart from buying more lottery tickets.
Other people do not even know what they actually want from their lives and may even have little idea what would really makes them happy. They seem to just drift from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year, and do little more than just about get by.
They may have seemingly secure jobs and be earning enough to live relatively comfortable lives. They seem happy enough and have no great ambition to achieve anything more from their lives than they currently have.
Is self improvement important?
The reality is that throughout our lives we are all constantly growing and developing. Circumstances make us grow and develop, even if we do not make the conscious decision to do so.
Up to a certain age, we learn through formal education and we continue to learn through our experiences for the rest of our lives. We have to learn and grow to deal with everything that life throws at us. We all have to go through self improvement.
Modern life moves at a dramatically faster pace than at anytime in history. For anyone living in modern society there are more opportunities to do anything that you want to do with your life than ever before.
But there is also more competition than ever before, and ever changing technology means that there really are few, if any ‘jobs for life’ anymore. It is now normal not only to change jobs quite often throughout our working lives, but even to completely change careers and industries.
Because the workplace is so competitive, people who are ambitious and hungry for success know they need to learn new skills and knowledge to keep ahead of the pack. To attain this, self improvement is needed.
These are the people that will be most likely to keep their jobs, or progress within their chosen field, or that will be readily employable in different organizations or industries.
A commitment to self improvement and personal growth may well be the deciding factor in how anyone’s future will turn out.
10 Quick tips
1. Give yourself permission to dream. You probably had no problem dreaming as a kid. What happened to your ability to imagine and dream about what you want and who you want to be? When was the last time you caught yourself daydreaming and appreciated it?
2. Stop looking outside yourself for happiness. Look inside. Increase your self-awareness. Get curious about who you are at the core. Cultivate and nurture a relationship with yourself.
3. Cover the basics. Take the time to address your personal needs. How can you focus on thriving in your life if you are in survival mode? Set up that meeting with a financial advisor, get your space organized, clean up the details that are wasting your energy.
4. Embrace your past and move on. Shift from “why it happened” to what I want to do about it now. Asking “why” is not a very empowering question. Asking what or how I want to proceed can be much more powerful and produce forward movement.
5. Remember that you are not alone. It is easy to feel overwhelmed with life. Seek support. Read more self improvement articles. They might help you figure about some things that are puzzling you.
6. Remember gratitude. Count your blessings. What is working right in you life? Make a list. Set aside a bit of time everyday to acknowledge what or who you are grateful for. The more you practice gratitude, the more you attract into your life things to be grateful for.
7. Court your passion. You still have your passions though it has been a while since you may have felt it flow. When are you the most alive and joyful in your life? Who do you most admire and what do they inspire in you?
8. Take action and take a risk. All the inspiration in the world is not enough to make you move your life to the next level. It takes inspired action to do that.
9. Keep breathing. You probably forget to take deep full breaths. We have all learned to constrict our breathing in response to stress. According to many self improvement articles, we not only need oxygen to stay alive, we need oxygen to give us energy and keep us healthy. Right now take 5 deep, full breaths.
10. Have fun. Call a friend, take a bubble bath, take yourself to an art museum or schedule a whole day out in nature. Put on some great music and dance till you drop.
|