4 Ways to Significantly Improve Yourself
Ever since I heard Tony Robbins say, “progress equals happiness“, it has stuck with me because it’s so true. No matter what stage you are at in life or how old you are, it is crucial to always improve yourself. That is not to say that you shouldn’t be happy with who you are in the present moment, but we always have room for growth, even if it’s just learning something new.
Here are 4 ways to significantly improve yourself and your life overall.
Inner Work
A lot of times we think external factors will help us improve or be happy. If we could just have that fit body or that dream job or the perfect significant other, we could be the best version of ourselves. The thing is, you can and should be the best version of you without all the external factors. How you feel internally about yourself ultimately decides how you feel and go about life.
One of the best ways to improve yourself is to do the inner work on your self concept. I have a blog post that goes over 3 ways you can improve your self concept. This isn’t always easy and sometimes it’s even awkward, but it’s necessary. I hands down think that the best way to do inner work is through affirmations. I have an entire post about affirmations to help you get started. Affirmations are essentially “I am…” statements. Even if you don’t believe what you are saying at first, say it like you mean until it hardens into fact. This will help shift your perception of yourself.
Some other ways to do inner work include: journaling, visualizing, meditating, or even going to a counselor.
Surround Yourself with Better People
Ever hear, “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”? It’s true! You may have noticed after being around certain people, you start to pick up on their interests, their mannerisms, their attitude, and more. A perfect example for me is my sister. We have spent a lot of time with each other. Obviously we grew up in the same household, but we also chose to spend time together and still do. Even though we have our own differences because we are individuals, we are so very similar. We are both vegan, passionate about animals, really into fitness/health, love self improvement, have the same ethics/moral values, and have pretty similar personalities.
She is someone I like to have in my group of five people. When my sister is around and she’s working on her blog or YouTube channel, I immediately feel the need to be productive too. It’s not a competition at all, but her motivation and actions hold me accountable. It’s not like my sister even says, “hey, you need to be productive”. She actually never says anything, but I just feel the need to level up when I’m around her. We end up bouncing ideas off each other and supporting each other. I absolutely love that!
There are TONS of energy suckers and people who want to bring you down with them. They want you to gossip, complain, and be negative. Maybe they will want you to make poor decisions. Be careful spending too much time around those people as it can transfer to you. I personally have decided I want to spend time with people who are at least on the same level as me or better than me. Again, this has nothing to do with competition or comparing to make myself (or others) feel bad. Energies are contagious. I would much rather spend my time with someone who is hardworking and successful versus lazy and non-productive. If I put myself around people who I want to be like, then I’m more likely to pick up on their habits and character traits to improve myself too.
Consume and Apply Content
With the internet, there is so much great content. Whether it’s YouTube videos, Instagram accounts, podcasts, or blogs there is no shortage of motivating, intelligent content. Additionally, there are plenty of self help books to read. One thing you have to be careful about though is not just being a consumer of the content. Gary V always talks about this. He actually doesn’t want people to consume his content all the time. Once you get his message, he wants you to do something with what you consumed. If you stay in a state of motivation, but lack action, then it’s really just useless.
I see so many people posting positive memes and quotes online only to complain about every little thing on a regular basis that is the exact opposite of that meme they shared. It’s as if the idea sounds good in theory, but they aren’t willing to put in the work to live up to it.
I highly suggest that you journal or take notes when you consume. You can also do an activity/challenge associated with what you learned. For example, if you listen to a podcast about creating positive habits, then you could create a habit tracker to keep up with your habits. If you learned something about mindset, then try to practice what you learned.
Set Goals
Ok, I realize that this is so cliche and unoriginal, but it’s true. Tony Robbins has said, “the future has to be more compelling than the present”. Our brains need goals as it helps keep us motivated and on track. When you set goals and work toward them, you are able to experience accomplishments. I don’t know about you, but accomplishing a goal is such an incredible feeling. When you set goals, you are actually making plans to improve yourself. This is likely the easiest way to achieve self improvement. Then when you achieve goals, it gives you a boost of confidence.
A lot of times we think goals need to be really large or long term. Goals can be simple and short term though. Set a goal to floss your teeth every night, to walk at least 10,000 steps a day, or to read 15 books in the year. Write your goals down and track your progress. There are even studies that show that writing your goals down makes it more likely that you will achieve those goals. So write down your goals, put them somewhere you will see them often, and go after them!
Although these are very simple ways to improve yourself, they do require work. It definitely becomes easier and is worth it as time goes on. The great thing is that you can literally start taking steps today to improve yourself and your life. Go for it!
