42 Practical Ways To Improve Yourself
Are you someone who likes to grow? Do you constantly seek to improve
yourself and become better?
If you do, then we have something in common.
I’m very passionate about personal growth. It was just 4 years ago when I
discovered my passion for growing and helping others grow. At that time, I was
22 and in my final year of university. As I thought about the meaning of life,
I realized there was nothing more meaningful than to pursue a life of development
and betterment. It is through improving ourselves that we get the most out of
life.
After 1.5 years of actively pursuing growth
and helping others to grow through my personal development blog, I realize
there is never an end to the journey of self improvement. The more I grow, the
more I realize there is so much out there I don’t know, so much that I
have to learn. For sure, there is always something about ourselves we
can improve on. The human potential is limitless, so it’s impossible to reach a
point of no growth. Whenever we think we are good, we can be even better.
As a passionate advocate of growth, I’m
continuously looking for ways to self-improve. I’ve compiled 42 of my best tips
which might be helpful in your personal growth journey. Some of them are simple
steps which you can engage in immediately. Some are bigger steps which takes
conscious effort to act on. Here they are:
1. Read a book every day. Books are concentrated sources of wisdom. The
more books you read, the more wisdom you expose yourself to. What are some
books you can start reading to enrich yourself? Some books I’ve read and found
useful are Think and Grow Rich, Who Moved My Cheese, 7 Habits, The Science of
Getting Rich and Living the 80/20 Way. I’ve heard positive reviews for The
Tipping Point, Outliers and The Difference Maker, so I’ll be checking them out
soon.
2. Learn a new language. As a Singaporean Chinese, my main
languages are English, Mandarin and Hokkien (a Chinese dialect). Out of
interest, I took up language courses in the past few years such as Japanese and
Bahasa Indonesian. I realized learning a language is a whole new skill
altogether and the process of acquainting with a new language and culture is a
totally a mind-opening experience.
3. Pick up a new hobby. Beyond just your usual favorite hobbies, is there something new you
can pick up? Any new sport you can learn? Examples are fencing, golf, rock
climbing, football, canoeing, or ice skating. Your new hobby can also be a
recreational hobby. For example, pottery, Italian cooking, dancing, wine
appreciation, web design, etc. Learning something new requires you to
stretch yourself in different aspects, whether physically, mentally or
emotionally.
4. Take up a new course. Is there any new course you can join?
Courses are a great way to gain new knowledge and skills. It doesn’t have to be
a long-term course – seminars or workshops serve their purpose too. I’ve been
to a few workshops and they have helped me gain new insights which I had not
considered before.
5. Create an inspirational room. Your environment sets the mood and tone for you. If you are living in
an inspirational environment, you are going to be inspired every day. In the
past, I didn’t like my room at all because I thought it was messy and dull. A
few years ago, I decided this was the end of it – I started on a “Mega Room
Revamp” project and overhauled my room. The end result? A room I totally relish
being in and inspires me to be at my peak every day.
6. Overcome your fears. All of us have fears. Fear of
uncertainty, fear of public speaking, fear of risk… All our fears keep us
in the same position and prevent us from growing. Recognize that your fears
reflect areas where you can grow. I always think of fears as the compass for
growth. If I have a fear about something, it represents something I’ve yet to
address, and addressing it helps me to grow.
7. Level up your skills. If you
have played video games before especially RPGs, you’ll know the concept of
leveling up – gaining experience so you can be better and stronger. As a
blogger, I’m constantly leveling up my writing skills. As a speaker, I’m
constantly leveling up my public engagement abilities. What skills can you
level up?
8. Wake up early. Waking up early (say, 5-6am) has been
acknowledged by many (Anthony Robbins, Robin Sharma, among other self-help
gurus) to improve your productivity and your quality of life. I feel it’s
because when you wake up early, your mindset is already set to continue the
momentum and proactively live out the day. Seth recently wrote a waking up
early series which you should check out to help cultivate this habit.
9. Have a weekly exercise routine. A better you starts with being in better physical shape. I personally
make it a point to jog at least 3 times a week, at least 30 minutes each time.
You may want to mix it up with jogging, gym lessons and swimming for variation.
10.
Start your life handbook. A life handbook is an idea I started 3 years
ago. Basically, it’s a book which contains the essentials on how you can live
your life to the fullest, such as your purpose, your values and goals. Sort of
like your manual for your life. I started my life handbook since 2007 and it’s
been a crucial enabler in my progress.
11.
Write
a letter to your future self. What do you
see yourself as 5 years from now? Will you be the same? Different? What
kind of person will you be? Write a letter to your future self – 1 year from
now will be a good start – and seal it. Make a date in your calendar to open it
1 year from now. Then start working to become the person you want to open that
letter.
12.
Get out of your comfort zone. Real growth comes with hard work and sweat. Being too comfortable
doesn’t help us grow – it makes us stagnate. What is your comfort zone? Do you
stay in most of the time? Do you keep to your own space when out with other
people? Shake your routine up. Do something different. By exposing yourself to
a new context, you’re literally growing as you learn to act in new
circumstances.
13.
Put someone up to a challenge. Competition is one of the best ways to grow. Set a challenge
(weight loss, exercise, financial challenge, etc) and compete with an
interested friend to see who achieves the target first. Through the process,
both of you will gain more than if you were to set off on the target alone.
14.
Identify your blind
spots. Scientifically,
blind spots refer to areas our eyes are not capable of seeing. In personal
development terms, blind spots are things about ourselves we are unaware of.
Discovering our blind spots help us discover our areas of improvement. One
exercise I use to discover my blind spots is to identify all the
things/events/people that trigger me in a day – trigger meaning making me feel
annoyed/weird/affected. These represent my blind spots. It’s always fun to do
the exercise because I discover new things about myself, even if I may already
think I know my own blind spots (but then they wouldn’t be blind spots would
they?). After that, I work on steps to address them.
15.
Ask for feedback. As much as we try to improve, we will always have blind spots. Asking
for feedback gives us an additional perspective. Some people to approach will
be friends, family, colleagues, boss, or even acquaintances, since they will
have no preset bias and can give their feedback objectively.
16.
Stay focused with to-do lists. I start my day with a list of tasks I want to complete and this helps
make me stay focused. In comparison, the days when I don’t do this end up being
extremely unproductive. For example, part of my to-do list for today is to
write a guest post at LifeHack.Org, and this is why I’m writing this now!
17.
Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals
(BHAGs). I’m a big fan of setting BHAGs. BHAGs
stretch you beyond your normal capacity since they are big and audacious – you
wouldn’t think of attempting them normally. What are BHAGs you can embark on,
which you’ll feel absolutely on top of the world once you complete them? Set
them and start working on them.
18.
Acknowledge your flaws. Everyone has flaws. What’s most important is to understand them,
acknowledge them, and address them. What do you think are your flaws? What are
the flaws you can work on now? How do you want to address them?
19.
Get into action. The best way to learn and improve is to take action. What is
something you have been meaning to do? How can you take action on it
immediately? Waiting doesn’t get anything done. Taking action gives you
immediate results to learn from.
20.
Learn from people who inspire you. Think about people you admire. People who inspire you. These
people reflect certain qualities you want to have for yourself too. What are
the qualities in them you want to have for yourself? How can you acquire these
qualities?
21.
Quit a bad habit. Are there any bad habits you can lose? Oversleeping? Not exercising?
Being late? Slouching? Nail biting? Smoking?
22.
Cultivate a new habit. Some good new habits to cultivate
include reading books (#1), waking up early (#8), exercising (#9), reading a
new personal development article a day (#40) and meditating. Is there any other
new habit you can cultivate to improve yourself?
23.
Avoid
negative people. As Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of
the 5 people you spend the most time with”. Wherever we go, there are bound to
be negative people. Don’t spend too much of your time around them if you feel
they drag you down.
24.
Learn
to deal with difficult people. There are times when there are difficult people you can’t avoid,
such as at your workplace, or when the person is part of your inner circle of
contacts. Learn how to deal with them. These people management skills will go a
long way in working with people in the future.
25.
Learn from your friends. Everyone has amazing qualities in them.
It’s up to how we want to tap into them. With all the friends who surround you,
they are going to have things you can learn from. Try thinking of a good friend
right now. Think about just one quality they have which you want to adopt. How
can you learn from them and adopt this skill for yourself? Speak to them if you
need to – for sure, they will be more than happy to help!
26.
Start a journal. Journaling is a great way to gain better self-awareness. It’s a
self-reflection process. As you write, clarify your thought process and read
what you wrote from a third person’s perspective, you gain more insights about
yourself. Your journal can be private or an online blog. I use my personal
development blog as a personal journal too and I’ve learned a lot about myself
through the past year of blogging.
27.
Start a blog about personal
development. To help others grow, you need to first be
walking the talk. There are expectations of you, both from yourself and from
others, which you have to uphold. I run The Personal Excellence Blog, where I
share my personal journey and insights on how to live a better life. Readers
look toward my articles to improve themselves, which enforces to me that I need
to keep improving, for myself and for the people I’m reaching out to.
28.
Get a mentor or coach. There’s no faster way to improve than to have someone work with you
on your goals. Many of my clients approach me to coach them in their goals and
they achieve significantly more results than if they had worked alone.
29.
Reduce the time you spend on chat
programs. I realized having chat programs open at
default result in a lot of wasted time. This time can be much better spent on
other activities. The days when I don’t get on chat, I get a lot more done. I
usually disable the auto start-up option in the chat programs and launch them
when I do want to chat and really have the time for it.
30.
Learn chess (or any strategy game). I found chess is a terrific game to learn strategy and hone your
brainpower. Not only do you have fun, you also get to exercise your analytical
skills. You can also learn strategy from other board games or computer games,
such as Othello, Chinese Chess, WarCraft, and so on.
31.
Stop watching TV. I’ve not been watching TV for pretty much 4
years and it’s been a very liberating experience. I realized most of the
programs and advertisements on mainstream TV are usually of a lower
consciousness and not very empowering. In return, the time I’ve freed up from
not watching TV is now constructively used for other purposes, such as
connecting with close friends, doing work I enjoy, exercising, etc.
32.
Start a 30-day challenge. Set a goal and give yourself 30 days to achieve this. Your goal can be
to stick with a new habit or something you’ve always wanted to do but have not.
30 days is just enough time to strategize, plan, get into action, review and
nail the goal.
33.
Meditate. Meditation helps to calm you and be more conscious. I also realized
that during the nights when I meditate (before I sleep), I need lesser sleep.
The clutter clearing process is very liberating.
34.
Join Toastmasters (Learn public
speaking). Interestingly, public speaking is the #1 fear in the world, with #2 being death. After I started
public speaking as a personal development speaker/trainer, I’ve learned a lot
about how to communicate better, present myself and engage people. Toastmasters
is an international organization that trains people in public speaking.
35.
Befriend top people in their fields. These people have achieved their results because they have the right
attitudes, skill sets and know-how. How better to learn than from the people
who have been there and done that? Gain new insights from them on how you can
improve and achieve the same results for yourself.
36.
Let go of the past. Is there any grievance or unhappiness
from the past which you have been holding on? If so, it’s time to let it go.
Holding on to them prevents you from moving on and becoming a better person.
Break away from the past, forgive yourself, and move on. Just recently, I
finally moved on from a past heartbreak of 5 years ago. The effect was
liberating and very empowering, and I have never been happier.
37.
Start a business venture. Is there anything you have an interest in?
Why not turn it into a venture and make money while learning at the same time?
Starting a new venture requires you to be learn business management skills,
develop business acumen and have a competitive edge. The process of starting
and developing my personal development business has equipped me with many
skills, such as self-discipline, leadership, organization and management.
38.
Show kindness to people around
you. You can
never be too kind to someone. In fact, most of us don’t show enough kindness to
people around us. Being kind helps us to cultivate other qualities such as
compassion, patience, and love. As you get back to your day after reading this
article later on, start exuding more kindness to the people around you, and see
how they react. Not only that, notice how you feel as you behave kindly to
others. Chances are, you will feel even better than yourself.
39.
Reach out to the people who hate
you. If you ever stand for something, you are
going to get haters. It’s easy to hate the people who hate us. It’s much more
challenging to love them back. Being able to forgive, let go and show love to
these people requires magnanimity and an open heart. Is there anyone who
dislikes or hates you in your life? If so, reach out to them. Show them love.
Seek a resolution and get closure on past grievances. Even if they refuses to
reciprocate, love them all the same. It’s much more liberating than to hate
them back.
40.
Take a break. Have you been working too hard? Self-improvement is also about
recognizing our need to take a break to walk the longer mile ahead. You can’t
be driving a car if it has no petrol. Take some time off for yourself every
week. Relax, rejuvenate and charge yourself up for what’s up ahead.
41.
Read at least 1 personal
development article a day. Some of my readers make it a
point to read at least one personal development article every day, which I
think is a great habit.
42.
Commit to your personal growth. I can be writing list articles with 10 ways, 25 ways, 42 ways or even
1,000 ways to improve yourself, but if you’ve no intention to commit to your
personal growth, it doesn’t matter what I write. Nothing is going to get
through. We are responsible for our personal growth – not anyone else. Not your
mom, your dad, your friend, me or LifeHack. Make the decision to commit to your
personal growth and embrace yourself to a life-long journey of growth and
change. Kick off your growth by picking a few of the steps above and working on
them. The results may not be immediate, but I promise you that as long as you
keep to it, you’ll start seeing positive changes in yourself and your life.
Celestine Chua
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/42-practical-ways-to-improve-yourself.html?ref=mail&mtype=newsletter_tier_2&mid=20170901&uid=687414&hash=707e797f7e757e6d794c856d747b7b3a6f7b79&utm_source=newsletter_tier_2&utm_medium=email&action=click
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