[self-im-proov-muhnt, self-]

ExamplesWord Origin

First recorded in 173545

Dictionary.com UnabridgedBased on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Random House, Inc. 2018

Another said just the act of spending money on self-improvement made him determined to break out of his shell.

Education is a series of hoops to jump through, not a process of self-improvement or self-discovery.

When first genomics started, we figured the result would be self-improvementliterally.

On the Limits of Self-ImprovementVanity Fair, October 2007 There's an entire micro-economy based on the pursuit of betterment.

Forget Oprahwe should all be watching Pixar movies in our quests for self-improvement.

But self-improvement is a dull game when there is no one to applaud your score.

The rest of his life was occupied in study, in self-improvement, in piety, and in good deeds.

It was from the Gurneys he caught the infection of self-improvement.

Fifteen minutes a day devoted to self-improvement, will be felt at the end of the year.

Quin's desire for self-improvement soon became an obsession.

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Online Etymology Dictionary, 2010 Douglas Harper

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Self-improvement | Define Self-improvement at Dictionary.com

I say all of the time that if you arent focusing on self development, you are just sitting on the sidelines of life.

So the question becomes, are you happy with your life? Regardless of how you answered, you have the power to make your life better than it is today.

The power to do so lies within each of us. All you need is a little nudge to get started. Because of this, I have compiled a list of 20 self improvement tips for you to start making a part of your everyday life.

Why 20 self improvement tips and not 3 or 5? The reason is because everyone will start with what they feel most comfortable with first. If I were to only list 3 tips, some people might not be interested in trying any of them.

But with 20 self growth tips, chances are you will find something to start with to improve your life. From there you can move on to another tip and another, and so on.

The great thing about this list is that all of the tips I list to better your life are easy to start doing. It wont take you weeks or months to begin applying them into your daily routines.

So what are you waiting for? The first step to your best life begins now!

The first self improvement tip is learning to love yourself. Unfortunately for many, this is easier said than done. You have to learn to accept who you are and that you are beautiful just the way you are. Youre not supposed to look like Brad Pitt or sing like Adele. You are supposed to simply be you.

All throughout our daily lives we have others put us down for who we are, what we wear, or what we believe in. They are against you. You need to be for you. If you are against you, there is no hope of living an amazing life. Learn to become your own ally and not your worst enemy.

Tell yourself how special you are every day. It may be hard at first, but as time goes on, it will become easier. Learn to recognize what talents and qualities you have that are special and believe me, we are all special in our own way.

For me, this tip was tough. I started out looking in the mirror and telling myself how great I was. It felt weird. I didnt believe it. But a funny thing happened. After doing this day after day, I did begin to believe it. It felt good to say and soon I was excited to do this step.

It has had a major impact on how I see myself and carry myself. I encourage you to follow through on this tip and experience the power of it.

I make it a point to exercise a few times a week. When I do, I feel great. Working up a sweat and lifting weights makes me feel good about myself and improves my mood. Not surprisingly, when I am busy and cant make it to the gym, I find I am less motivated in general and my mood sours.

If you go to the gym and dont feel anything, I encourage you to lift heavier weights, to put yourself beyond your comfort zone. Many people go light either because they dont think they can lift as much as they really can or because they fear they will get big and bulky.

I am here to tell you that you can lift more than you think and you wont get big and bulky, unless it is in your genes or you are taking some artificial supplement. Ive been lifting heavy weights for 15 years. I am nowhere near big and bulky.

When you lift heavy weights, your body exerts more effort and you release more endorphins into your system. This is what makes you feel better and improves your mood. When you just go through the motions, you body doesnt respond because it isnt being worked.

With this said, if you are brand new to lifting weights, definitely go light to start so that you dont injure yourself.

If you are going to work out, you might as well eat well too, right? I find when I am working out, I eat better. When I stop working out, I eat poorly. Its a simple cycle really. I lift weights, I feel good about myself, I eat well and the cycle repeats.

Most times you are feeling like crap because you are eating highly processed, sugary foods. Try to eat healthy just for a week. Limit your sugar intake and eat more natural foods like fruits and vegetables.

The first day or so might be hard, but give your body time to adjust and you will be amazed how much better your life will be. That drop off of energy in the afternoon you always experience will no longer happen. You wont wake up tired any longer. You just have to give yourself a few days to adjust.

For me, I started out with a goal of just eating more fruits and vegetables. I didnt have a set goal, other than to figure out how to increase my consumption of these foods.

I added a banana to my breakfast and I put some shredded spinach into my eggs. I was scared at first, but you really cant taste the spinach.

For snacks, I would eat an apple. At lunch and dinner, I would add in more vegetables. I dont think I am anywhere need what the food pyramid calls for with these food groups, but this strategy works for me.

Just play around with it and figure out what routine works best for you. Even if you just make it a point to drink water instead of soda and skip out on a doughnut for an apple you will be doing yourself a world of good.

We are all creatures of habit. We follow the same routines, day in, day out. This makes life easier for us, but also makes us lazy. To spice things up, you need to change your habits. Im not talking about refraining from brushing your teeth, but maybe brush with the opposite hand.

Instead of taking the same way to work every day, try a new way. Make Tuesday nights family night. Find simple ways to change things up in life.

The more you can do this, the more you keep your mind and body on its toes and it has to keep learning. Going back to the exercise point above, its the same idea. If you never increase the weight you lift, your body adapts to the exercise and is no longer being challenged and not growing.

Another great way to change your habits is to start your days off right. Learn how to master your mornings and you will see a positive impact on the rest of your day.

Little daily self improvement goes a long way towards achieving success in life. It doesnt seem like it at the time, but these small changes compound and add up over time.

While you change your habits, you should also focus on setting goals for yourself. Where do you want to be in one year, or three or five years? Dont just write them down, but visualize these goals. Make the goals a part of you.

I have some long term goals for myself. Ive gotten so good at visualizing them that I can see specific details. For example, when I was visualizing my dream house, I could see blades of grass when I closed my eyes and thought of the house and yard I wanted to own.

Dont get upset if you cant do this right away. Start small and just begin to visualize.

The key to setting goals is making them manageable. I used to set annual goals and would fail miserably. I started to break them down into smaller, monthly goals instead.

For example, if my goal was to save 25% of my income this year, I would divide this amount by 12 and my monthly goal would be to save this amount.

If I were trying to pay off my debt, then I would have an amount I would want to pay off each month to hit my annual goal.

By focusing on the shorter time frame, my goal never got lost in the day to day of life.

Newsflash you are going to fail. You are going to fail many times in life. Failing is OK. In fact, you should embrace failure. When you stretch beyond your comfort zone, you are growing as a person. It is only natural that you will fail. Dont fall for the lie that failing is bad.

Think about failing when you were little. As a toddler, we have to learn to walk. If you ever watch a toddler learning to walk, she falls down many, many times. In other words, she fails countless times. Why is a child failing to learn to walk OK but you failing to learn a new skill as an adult a bad thing? At the end of the day it is still failure.

Dont believe the lie that failure is a bad thing. It is only a bad thing if you never learn from it.

Be willing to try new things, give it your best shot and if you fail, take the time to step back. Reflect on the reasons that led you to fail and try again. As you progress, you are growing as a person.

This is my favorite of the tips to improve yourself. You need to know who you are and what you stand for. In other words, you need to create a personal mission statement. Dont mull over creating the perfect mission statement here. Just come up with something that identifies who you are and what you are about. As time goes on, you can modify it.

My mission statement talks about being a healthy person that always looking for the positive in life. Again, nothing complicated and there is room for improvement, just like with life.

If you need help with creating your personal mission statement, click here.

The next of the self improvement tips is that you need to be thankful for all that you have. Why are so many people living in debt? Because they are chasing happiness. They think that happiness comes from things. They dont realize that happiness comes from within.

Its the same with the quote success leads to happiness. It doesnt. Happiness leads to success. Be happy with all that you have. Odds are you have it better than the majority of people.

Try to take a few minutes at the end of each day and think back on what happened and acknowledge the positive things in your life and be thankful for them.

They dont need to be important events either like scoring a raise at work. They could be as simple as getting to run around outside with your kids. Whatever it is, large or small, important or seemingly unimportant, be thankful for it all.

The more you do this, the easier they will be to identify.

Learning a new skill breeds confidence in ourselves. When we learn something new, we get excited and are eager to learn more. This increases our self confidence and we grow and want to learn more. Its a cycle that fuels itself.

So what is it that you have always wanted to learn but always put off? Write a short list of things and then start working on learning those new skills.

Dont be fearful of how difficult it may be. You can easily learn new skills on the internet watching videos, taking free courses or workshops at community colleges and stores, or by reading some books.

If you are an introverted person, challenge yourself to be more social. Im not suggesting you try to change yourself from being an introvert, but having social confidence is a great skill to have.

Challenging yourself is a great tool when it comes to self development. By learning new things, you grow as a person.

How will you find time to learn those news skills you wrote about above? Easy, stop wasting time. I bet you could easily carve out a few hours in your day to learn a new skill. Its all about shifting things around. Most notably, stop watching so much TV! Studies show that too much TV watching is harmful to our health.

How do you stop watching so much TV? For some, you will have to take drastic measures, like canceling your cable. For others, delaying the show works. Delaying is what works for me.

My wife and I have a DVR. We set up the DVR to record all of the shows we want to watch. Surprisingly, we never watch half of the shows on the DVR. Not because we watch other shows, but because we really arent that interested in watching them.

Take some time to understand how you waste time and become more productive with your time. Read more. Learn about something new. Spend more time with loved ones. These are self growth activities that will lead to happiness and success.

Reading stimulates the mind. Do you know how many books I read two years ago? Zero. That falls in line with the numbers from 2015 that show 27% of Americans didnt read a single book.

This year so far, Ive read 5. How do I find the time to read? Simple. I turn off the TV 30 minutes before bed and read. I dont miss anything important on TV and it helps me to prepare for a good nights sleep.

To get started reading and to stick with it pick out some books in niches that interest you. If you like mystery novels, then search out some short books in that niche. You can also check out my resources section for a list of my personal favorites.

The goal isnt to read as many books as you can, but rather to get into the habit of reading. If it takes you two months to read a book, then so be it. The goal is more about reading than the number of books you can complete.

Along with learning new skills and reading, you should fill up your new found free time by meditating for 10 minutes per day. Some may think that meditating is a waste of time, but I find that clearing my head of all of my thoughts and just being present has a huge effect on my mood and happiness.

There are various forms of mediation, so you are sure to find one that is right for you. As you start out with meditation, take things slow. For some people (myself included) it took some time before I was able to clear my mind and really get good at meditating.

What ended up sticking for me was starting off very slowly with a short amount of mediation time and making my sessions longer as I improved.

For more tips for beginning meditation, check out this post.

Once you get the basics down regarding meditation, you will be amazed at the positive impact it has to improve your life. It quickly resets your mind and emotions and you come out of a mediation session feeling fresh and revived.

I mentioned in a previous tip about learning to love yourself. You will always have critics, including yourself. You need to learn to deal with any negative thoughts and emotions you have.

At first, you may find this difficult to do. But over time, controlling your thoughts will become easier.

Understand that negative thoughts will always be with us. They create a problem when we allow them to fester inside and ruin our day. So there was bad traffic this morning. Instead of letting it fester inside and taking that anger out on others, learn to brush it off. Dont allow it to ruin your entire day. Its a day you will never get back.

The same idea applies when others are rude or short to you. You dont know what is happening in their life. Maybe they got into a car accident. Maybe they are getting divorced.

Most times that arent angry at you, they just take it out on you because they havent dealt with the issue effectively enough. Dont let their actions ruin your day.

You will fail. You will struggle. Life will be hard sometimes. But you have to keep pushing through. This builds character. When you push through a hard time, the next hard time you encounter will be easier to get through. Why? Because you proved to yourself that you can get through anything.

That belief is a huge part of daily self improvement.

Another tip to help push through tough times is to take it one day at a time. Too many times we go through a rough patch and think this is what our life will be from now on. This isnt the case.

Take things one day at a time, and try to focus on the positive things from that day. In time, the tough times will pass.

As mentioned above, part of pushing through tough times is all about accepting change. Nothing in life is forever. Things are constantly changing. We age every day, the seasons change every 3 months. Its part of life. The sooner you can accept that change happens, the sooner you can begin to be the best you possible.

While it isnt always easy to accept change, the sooner you do, the happier you will be.

Along the same lines of accepting change is also learning to accept the past. What is done is done. Nothing you can do now will ever change the past. Its part of history. The only thing you can do is learn from the experience and move on, push forward. Forgive and move forward.

If you cant learn to do that, you will never become the best person you can be. You will be focusing on the wrong things, the things you cant change instead of the things you can change.

Let go of the past and focus on the good things you have now and the great things in store for your future. Your past made you who you are today, but it doesnt have to define who you will be in the future.

Part of self improvement is giving without obligation. When you give, be it food, time, your money, you show that the world is a decent place. You also increase your self-esteem and feel good about yourself and the world in general. Learn to pay it forward.

Note that I mentioned giving your time in addition to money. Volunteers are always needed to help out. Dont think for a second that you cant afford to give. You have the most valuable asset of all to give, your time.

We all have those we look up to. Find a mentor who is successful at what you want to do and learn from them. Many successful people are more than willing to help out those who ask for help and are happy to take you under their wing.

By doing this, you will get great insight into what traits and habits make a person successful and what things you might be doing now that are holding you back.

Just be certain you work hard. While many people are willing to mentor, they dont want to feel like you arent trying. So be sure to give all you can so you can learn everything you can.

Of all the tips to improve yourself I list, this is the one that is the toughest to begin using.

The old saying, you are the company that you keep, is true. If you are always hanging around with unmotivated people, you too will be unmotivated to succeed in life. On the other hand, if you hang around with successful people, you too will find success.

I have personal experience with this. I knew of a person in college. When I visited them over the summer, they were lifeless and uninterested in doing anything. It turns out all of her close friends at home were just skating by in life. Many of them dropped out of high school.

But when she was in college, with people that were motivated to become something in life, she was inspired, successful, and the life of the party. After college, she moved back home, isnt using her degree and is just skating by.

The theme was her friends. The company she kept dictated how she was as a person. She finally got the courage to move away from home and her life changed. She got a great job in her field, met a great man, and now is Vice President of the company and has an amazing family.

Are there people in your life you would be better off no longer spending time with? I understand that pushing people out of your life is hard, but it is your life and you need to do what it best for you, regardless of how difficult it may be.

At the end of the day, reflect on what happened. Was it a good day? Even if bad things happened, find ways to spin them into something positive. In other words, dont let the negative thoughts take root in your mind. Be thankful for all that happened to you today and vow to be an even better person tomorrow.

Start out noticing big things that happened since they will be the things in the front of your mind. But dont overlook the little things like the amazing weather, the person that let you go ahead of them in line, etc. All of these things are things to be thankful for.

When you do this, you remember things that happened, that in the moment seemed insignificant. But these events had an impact on your overall day. By reflecting on them, you keep them in the front of your mind and can use them to improve yourself.

If you can follow these 20 self improvement tips, I am confident that you will become a better, more confident person in life. What have you got to lose other than how your life is now? Isnt a better life worth the risk?

As I mentioned at the start of this post, take your time with these tips and cherry pick a few here and there to start with. Dont overwhelm yourself by trying to tackle every tip at once. That is a recipe for failure.

Start small and slow and build other tips into your daily life as the weeks progress. Before you know it, you will start to see a change for the better. This will motivate you to keep pushing forward, improving yourself and improving your life each and every day.

Youll come to find you have more energy, are happier and are more successful, all thanks to a few self improvement tips.

Read this article:
20 Self Improvement Tips That Will Change Your Life ...

The thought of transforming yourself into a better person can be daunting especially if youre older, and youve had several interventions, and you do not feel as energetic as you were when you were a fresh-faced (or pimply-faced, as the case may be) teenager. Dont fret. Even if you take it a day at a time, you will find that the opportunities to become better than you are, right now, are actually, right there. These are just 10 ideas to help you on your way.

1. Think positive.

Start your day, your week, your month or your year on a positive note. Think of all the things you can accomplish. Dare to dream. Every new milestone is a beginning: take stock and give yourself a pat on the back for what youve accomplished so far.

2. Finish what you start.

Read a book: finish a chapter a day. It could be a subject youve always been interested in but has nothing to do with your work or your daily information-gathering. Attempt a home project something you can do over the weekend that will clearly improve your home. Complete your shopping and chores early, and get instant gratification for a job well done.

3. Leave the comfort zone. Face your fear.

Confronting a fear is one way of challenging yourself. Doing something that you are afraid of every day is a way of pushing yourself to grow. It doesnt have to be dangerous (like skydiving) but it has to be something you know will be hard for you to do, but will also be good for you (like public speaking).

4. Exercise at least 30 minutes a day.

Youve heard about the benefits. Now its time to experience them. Exercising will not only make you healthier and stronger, it will make you look good, and you will also feel good.

5. Meditate.

Exercise your mind. Meditation helps you tackle your inner demons as well as readies you to face the world. If you want to battle depression, anxiety, sleep disorder, and personality issues, meditation is one effective remedy.

6. Quit a bad habit.

You know that there are some activities you engage in that are bad for you (such as smoking or binge-drinking), and that there are some people who bring out the worst in you (toxic frenemies, the gossip girl, the enabler buddy) now is the time to let go of them. Surround yourself with people who bring out the good in you, or who, like you, are seeking to improve themselves via healthful action.

7. Find your passion. Fall in love.

A surefire way to be happy is to fall in love and be passionate about something or somebody. Give yourself license to be in love. There are only so many years in a lifetime, and it would be nice to spend some of it with people or a significant person whom you love. There are only so many waking hours of the day, so do something that you love and that makes you happy.

8. Make someone else happy.

This can be a daily recurrence, or a big-time once-in-a-blue-moon deal. Either way, making someone happy is the surest way to feel good about yourself, to feel youve made a difference. It could be as simple as finding a way to compliment someone every day, or doing someone a favor for the week, or orchestrating something major that you know you can do, with some effort, and you know will be most appreciated.

9. Save a life.

Some of us first responders such as firemen, cops, and medical personnel are in a unique position to save another persons life. But it should be noted that even those in unlikely positions are also given the opportunity to save a life the passerby who pulled a youngster out of harms way, or the friend who refused to let her drunken companion drive, or the kid who adopted a stray cat or dog. When its your turn, step up and do your part.

10. Be grateful.

Its so easy to forget that there are so many reasons to be grateful to be alive. At the end of each day, look back, and say thanks. End on a positive, life-affirming note.

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The power of your subconscious & unconscious mind are incredible. Here, we show you the vast benefits waiting under the surface, and how meditation is the best way to dive in, explore, and harness your deep mind. See detailed chart.

When it comes to what the human body "can" and "can't" do, a revolution is well underway. From extending life, to conquering "unconquerable" diseases, to rewriting genetic code, meditation's latest scientific findings are incredible. Become superhuman.

Why is meditation such a powerful anxiety reliever? From building neurotransmitters, to quieting mind chatter, to cooling the amygdala, this highly in-depth article discusses why anxiety is no match against meditation.

Known as the worlds happiest people, scientists love studying meditators' magnificent brains. From transforming psychology, to fully rewiring thought, to massively upgrading physiology, here we discuss why meditation dominates depression.

Even if you get the recommended eight hours each night, you may not be sleeping deeply enough to fully recharge your battery. Here, we discuss why so many of us have insomnia, and why meditation is the best solution to sleeping like a log.

Why dont meditators have addictions? From urge surfing, to masterfully dealing with stress, to uprooting deep seated emotions, to giving us a natural high, to unplugging naturally, here we discuss why meditation eradicates addiction.

Understand the degree to which meditation dramatically upgrades your body's stress response, effectively making you immune to anxiety, depression, addiction, and more. What is the secret to reaching deep, highly beneficial meditation? EquiSync.

Through a process called "Neurogenesis," doctors have discovered that our brain's "neuron count" is not set for life. Meditations well-proven ability to generate a "neuron fortune" has massive implications & big benefits.

Brain Power, Memory, & Focus

Did you know that your brain power, intelligence, memory, & focus can be dramatically upgraded, no matter who you are? Here, we discuss why scientists keep studying the marvelous meditating brain, and how you too can tap these awesome benefits.

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Be Your Own Life Coach: 10 Ideas for Self-Improvement ...

The worlds perception of human psychology has changed and evolved a lot during the last couple of decades.

However, in spite of all this knowledge, a lot of people still mistakenly believe that self-improvement means reading a few books and then starting to change your life on your own. But the truth is that the discussion is a lot more nuanced than that.

Personal development can be pursued in a variety of ways, from joining support groups to following positive examples from your peers and so on. There are as many alternatives as there are people in the world, and we all have some sort of untapped potential just waiting to be explored.

Its no secret that popular culture has been promoting the better you concept for so long, it has now become a clich of sorts.

And according to common myths on the topic, being the ultimate version of yourself means always performing bigger and better than others, and doing it constantly. However, such misconceptions are more of a drawback than anything else.

Buying into the generalizations and stereotypes sold by many self-proclaimed self-help experts can lead to massive burnouts caused by an excessive drive to always best other in everything.

In reality, self-improvement doesnt imply anything of the sort. In order to not allow this way of thinking to harm your progress, you need to come to terms with the actual facts.

Although it is mostly true that any change, no matter how small, should come from inside you, it shouldnt become a me against the rest of the world type of endeavor.

This is a widely-encountered misconception that is, unfortunately, a clear recipe for disaster in most cases, and heres why.

Constant rivalry brings nothing but trouble. Thus, instead of competing with others and constantly comparing yourself to them, you should try to learn from them. Other people who are in a similar position as yourself should be your allies, not your enemies. Its easy to forget this when youre faced with a challenge, so make a mental note of it right now.

Although just about anyone can benefit from the positive effects of personal growth, its no secret that mental illness patients are one of the risk groups who need it most.

Regardless of whether youre dealing with anxiety, clinical depression or even borderline schizophrenia symptoms, taking control of the situation on your own is a great source of comfort.

Due to this, self-improvement can be truly beneficial for those trying to come to terms with their disorders, especially when said disorders pertain to matters of the mind. And the first step lies in identifying your problems. What drives your negative behaviors and patterns of thought?

After you discover that, its a lot easier to pursue change.

Although medical resources in this area are scarce at the moment, there are still some out there that you can try. For example, Mental Health America has plenty of self-help tools readily available for those who struggle with poor mental health and want to pursue change on their own terms. They come in the form of worksheets, actionable plans and so on.

Nevertheless, this doesnt need to start with you, and you dont have to go at it alone.

While its important that you keep the personal focus on this journey, there are external factors which can help you go through such a major development. In fact, studies show that joining self-help groups can be an important ally for anyone in this battle.

Participants tendencies for substance abuse and overall symptoms reduced in intensity over time thanks to this type of therapy, and so did the rate of hospitalization among them. This goes to show that self-improvement is something that can be externally motivated as well, and said motivation can be anyone: a friend, a family member, a partner or another group member.

So far, weve established how important taking control of your life can be when you struggle with mental illness, but also in general.

There are many ways in which self-improvement truly does a lot to change your life and pave your way towards success. Here are the most important three benefits of undertaking such an endeavor.

When youve become determined to believe in yourself and your goals, beautiful things can happen. One of them is the fact that your self-esteem will grow before your very eyes. And motivation can come from anything: a book, a colleague or even your favorite TV show.

Use your surroundings as an example worth following and your dreams will become attainable.

Setting yourself up for success every day from the moment you wake up until you go back to sleep is a classic and essential approach, but its also one that becomes impossible when your ambitions are low.

To begin following a steady route in life, you will need to welcome the power of self-improvement and accept that there are a lot of things that lead to it.

When youre stuck in a toxic loop, good things tend to avoid you because of your mindset. But when you open yourself to change and allow your mind to flourish and expand past its previous limitations, thats when new opportunities appear as well.

Once they do, dont be afraid to take them. It will be scary at first, but it will also be worth it in the long run.

Being brave enough to seize the day is one of the most important qualities a successful person can have. So, if thats your goal, then you need to work hard for it and not let any sort of adversity bring you down.

The path towards becoming a better you is a rocky one, but the final destination will take your breath away.

Self-improvement has the potential to make you more confident, stable and successful, as well as open up a new world of amazing possibilities in front of your very eyes. But in order for this to happen, you will need to find the proper motivation to regain control of your life.

And while this certainly wont be easy, the end results will be worth it.

Here is the original post:
Should Your Self-Improvement Start With You? | Wealthy Gorilla

Andr, January 24 (The month of January was devoted to improving productivity)

It was 9am and I was walking up the familiar staircase for my final day of the Landmark forum. Coach B. turned to look at us: If you really want to change your life, you need to recruit.

On Tuesday we were going to have our graduation, and we had been asked to bring along friends and family and encourage them to sign up.

Now lets handle this marketing thing, Coach B. said. Its just about sharing something important with the people you love. Its not sales.

But what if they think its a cult, a skeptic in the audience asked.

Well, they are the ones who need it the most, Coach B. responded.

But what if they say no, someone else asked.

Tuesdays graduation is an opportunity to move forward and share your transformation. Its not about marketing, Coach B. said firmly.

Having dealt with the marketing thing, Coach B. turned to the audience once again. People immediately started to volunteer their stories.

I was a stripper and hid it from my family, a young woman yelled out.

My parents dont know Im gay, a middle-aged man admitted.

The tragic stories piled up. Coach B. turned to the last member of the audience who had shared their story. Youve wasted your life on meaningless kaka, he said firmly. You go around trying to convince other people of your story just so you can feel right. And its screwing up your life.

Was that my problem? Was it my bullshit story?

Throughout the rest of the morning Coach B. kept returning to this theme. You are addicted to your stories, he said. If they disappeared, youd think you would die. The reality is that if your stories disappeared, youd discover yourself.

After another hurried break, Coach B. asked when we were really able to be ourselves.

Painting, one person yelled out.

When Im sewing, another person added.

Skiing, said a third.

How long do you spend skiing? Coach B. snapped back.

A week or two a year, the skier replied.

And how much of that time is actually spent on the ski runs? A few minutes? Youre living for a few minutes every year? Your life has been a complete joke. He was grinning now as he turned to the audience. So, youre wondering what you got from this course. What you got was this: Youre a joke. Your life is empty and meaningless. Youre not going to get anywhere. And theres no hope.

Amazing! 480, three days, and it could all be summed up in the message that my life was a complete joke.

Coach B. started practicing jazz drumming on his chair. He turned to the audience. Were chasing It through the whole world. This is It, he said gesturing around the room. And It doesnt mean anything.

The dozen assistants who had been lurking at the back started handing out small sheets of glossy paper with quotes printed on one side including Shakespeare and Kurt Vonnegut. Coach B. riffed on Macbeth: Your life has been full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I still cant believe that this is it, an audience member called out in a sad voice. This is shit!

That is It, Coach B responded, smiling as he circled in on her.

Baby, this is It, he added.

She sobbed.

Theres nothing now. Nothing to do. Nothing to say. If you can get that all right now, youre home baby. Youre whole. Complete, perfect.

Coach B. paused, rocking on his heels. Tears rolled down the womans cheeks.

How do you feel, the Coach asked.

She breathed out, Quite relaxed.

Just be with me, Coach B. said, taking her hands. They looked into each others eyes like two long separated family members standing on the abyss.

He clapped her on the shoulder and looked to the audience. You can only create from nothing. With your words. But the most important thing is this: you make promises to yourself that you know how to keep.

When we walked out of the room, people were overawed. Many seemed euphoric, as though they had finally found meaning in their life. From what I understood the basic message was that: all is nothingness, there is no meaning, so we can create anything by just saying it.

When the show finally drew to a close, the participants milled around, hugging each other. I headed for the door. As I sat on the train on the way home, I read through the quotes on the glossy white handout again. They included part of a poem by e e cummings: Everything (dreamed & hoped & prayed for months & weeks & days & years & forever) is Less Than Nothing (which would have been something) what got him was nothing.

Carl, February 21 (The month of February was devoted to improving the body)

It was early Sunday morning when we climbed over a young man sleeping outside the train station. The streets were empty and desolate. The sky was grey. Snow lay thinly on the ground.

We found the door, a small sign outside reading Athletic Club and walked down a steep flight of stairs. I placed my polished Blundstones next to a mountain of sneakers and walked into a room, lined with benches and lockers. A couple of sturdy weightlifters in grey hoodies looked my way. I changed into my singlet and warmed up. My name came over the speakers. I marched through a long corridor and down a couple of stairs into the main hall. My coaches were following me.

One minute, the speaker said.

I walked down, into the big gymnasium, stopped by the bowl and covered my hands in magnesium, stepped out, onto the podium, my back against the Swedish flag, looking out at the three referees, sitting a few meters away from me, and, behind them, the audience.

Beeeeee. 30 seconds.

I gripped the barbell, back straight, chest up. I pulled the barbell vertically, and, as it reached the level of my knees, I jumped, making the weights fly up into the air. Meanwhile, I threw myself underneath the barbell, knees bent and arms stretched, catching the barbell above my head.

Beeeeeee.

I dropped the barbell onto the ground, looked at the judges, then the scoreboard. I had passed. My two personal trainers cheered from the side. I had made my first correct lift, and it felt great.

After a two-minute break, I returned to the podium, now attempting 40kg. Same procedurebarbell over the knees, stretched arms, jumpanother correct lift.

Then 45kg. Attempting a personal best. I pulled the barbell with all my power, got it flying up into the air, above my head, but, as I was going to catch it with my straight arms, something went wrong. It was too heavy. My arms folded and the barbell, with all its weight, fell down, with menacing force, straight onto my head.

Bang!

Then onto the floor.

Boom!

I turned around and stumbled out, feeling dizzy. One of the functionaries ran up, asking how I was doing.

Fine I said, my voice breaking a little. I touched my head. No blood.

Attempt failed. The barbell fell on his head, I heard over the speakers, as I disappeared into the corridor, back into the small gym.

I was disappointed, humiliated. My coaches tried to cheer me up.

No time for weeping. I had to get ready for my next set of lifts. Clean-and-jerk.

My name came over the speakers. I passed 40kg without a problem, asking for 50kg, my existing personal record. Easy. I felt strong, my self-confidence returning.

Put on 60, I heard myself say to the functionaries. This wasnt the plan. The plan was to make 45kg in snatch (which I had just failed), and 55kg in clean-and-jerk (hence reaching a total of 100kg).

Take it easy now, relax, the agile coach said.

No Carl, dont relax. Use that adrenaline and go out and kick ass the beefy coach intervened. You can do this!

I was feeling strong. My adrenaline pumping. Yeah, lets kick ass.

I walked out, straight onto the podium, with more than a minute to go.

Cmon Carl, you can do it, I heard people shouting from the audience, clapping their hands. I grabbed the barbell, staring straight ahead. All sounds disappeared. Nothing was there; nothing except the weights, and my body, which felt strong, stronger than ever.

I got myself into position. Chest up. Straight arms. Shoulders over the barbell. And then, with all of my strength, I pulled the weights, gave it a perfect hit with my hips, and then jumped, as high as I could. The timing was good. I could feel how the barbell was flying high up into the air, landing on my chest. More shouts from the audience. Some applause. Cmon you can do it. I squatted and jumped, once more, as high as I could, pushing the barbell up, throwing myself underneath, with straight arms. Adrenaline still pumping. The barbell was there, I could feel it, above my head. I could feel my face turning red. My hands were tightly wrapped around the steel.

Beeeeee.

I dropped the barbell onto the podium. I had broken my personal record with 100kg. As I jogged off stage, I couldnt conceal my joy, and stretched my arms above my head.

I ran up to my coaches. They hugged me. Was this the happiest moment in my life? I came second to last. Well, I was last in my weight group. But that didnt seem to matter. It felt like a great victory. I had done 100kg in total. 40 in snatch, and 60 in clean-and-jerk. I felt a strange impulse to write a letter to my publisher who had rejected my book and tell them I could lift a 100kg in total. Eat that, pricks!

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Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement, by Carl Cederstrm ...

What is Self-Improvement?

The term self-improvement broadly refers to the act of improving yourself, but it can also be applied to a number of different topics. Self-improvement can include personal development in terms of leadership skills, goal setting, visualization skills, organizational skills, time management, and mind power. It helps us defeat negative thoughts that prevent us from believing in ourselves. It teaches us to convert our negative thinking into thoughts that empower and inspire us.

Why we need self-improvement

Self-improvement can help us make positive changes in all aspects of life. Here are some of the most important advantages of self-improvement:

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What is Self-Improvement? - International Life Coaching ...

Praise for Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement

"A comically committed exploration of current life-hacking wisdom in areas ranging from athletic and intellectual prowess to spirituality, creativity, wealth, and pleasure." The New Yorker

"An absurdist masterpiece." The Guardian

"Beautifully observed and incredibly conceived, this account of a self-imposed ordeal has the chilling quality of a true nightmare. It is the dark side of the moon of Tim Ferriss." Tom McCarthy

"Two crazy people try numerous crazy strategies, all so I don't have to. I call that a result!" Lee Child, author

"A good-natured, thoughtful, and often comic joyride." Kirkus Reviews

Praise for The Wellness Syndrome

Carl Cederstrm and Andr Spicers brilliantly sardonic anatomy of this wellness syndrome concentrates on the ways in which the pressure to be well operates as a moralising command and obliterates political engagement... These authors would no doubt agree that there is nothing wrong with being well or wanting to be well. But, as their deeply humane and persuasive book shows, being told to be well is a different matter entirely. A society where wellness is obligatory is a sick one. Steven Poole, The Guardian

"When I read their angry, hilarious book, The Wellness Syndrome, I felt like I was being shaken awake from a dream. Helen Rumbelow, The Times

My underlying scepticism about society's single-minded quest for physical perfection was validated when I came across The Wellness Syndrome. Like me, the authors don't have any gripes about wellness per se but what they are concerned about is how wellness has become an ideology. The more we focus on our own wellness, the book argues, the more we alienate others and the more isolated we become... By spending so much time looking inward, in a relentless pursuit for the ideal body and state of mind, we pay less attention to the wider world and its ills. Gabrielle Monghan, Irish Independent

Short, brilliant and bracing, The Wellness Syndrome is the Brave New World de nos jours, a mordant satire on our contemporary mores... I pray that the authors will put a lot of life coaches (and celebrity chefs and similar fraudsters) out of business. Andy Martin, Literary Review

The books great virtue is its lightness of theoretical touch, which combines Darwin-award style tales of idiocy with punchy commentary to make for the kind of readability conducive to cult status among undergraduates. Gerald Moore, Radical Philosophy

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Desperately Seeking Self-Improvement: A Year Inside the ...

Self-improvement or personal development is a conscious effort that is focused towards getting yourself out of the mundane banalities of life. This is when a strong desire prevails that takes you where you want to be, helps you grow into the person that you have been longing for and allows you to elevate your life by bringing positive changes.

Self-improvement, therefore, is the path that leads you to a happy and healthy state of being. It tries to help you develop your personality in such a manner that even makes people around you happy too. Thus, if you want to fulfill the goal of achieving an invigorated self, you must also be ready to undergo various challenging physical and emotional situations.

This is how an attitude of constant personal development helps you:

Want to start walking this path? The following are self-improvement skills that will provide you with abundant long-term benefits:

Time management is the first step towards self-improvement, for it is important that you balance the conflicting demands of time. You have to equally give time to your professional and personal life.

Once you have identified to improve how you manage your time, you can begin to adjust your routines and patterns of behavior. When you start organizing your time in a better way, you increase your efficiency and ability to utilize your time where it really counts.

In order to be productive in terms of managing your time, you need to prioritize your goals and shut down distractions like emails, co-workers, and social media.

When there is stress, your sleep habits are normally getting disturbed as well. Today, many sleep disorders like insomnia are having negative implications for peoples health. Insomnia, in turn, is associated with many life-threatening diseases such as cancer, chronic pain, hypertension, arthritis, fibromyalgia, and depression.

Sleep is also very important for resetting your body and brain functions. There are many animals that go into hibernation in order to reset their bodies. For example, Grizzly bears and polar bears go for six months in hibernation; or snails can hibernate for as many as three years!

Clearly, sleep is important for every living being as much as it is for humans. Maybe we should learn a little bit from nature.

The power of listening is a highly valuable asset that builds strong relationships and requires you to improve your attention span along with disciplining yourself. Whether you are at a partyor at your workplace, you just dont want to be heard, but to be truly listened to as well.

Active listening is such an important habit that it can even help you get ahead in your career. When youre mindful, youre fully concentrated, you engage in and absorb whatever someone else says to you. Hence, it is a great way of earning the trust and respect of your peers and friends.

Pay attention to what people say and it will help you understand issues, come up with better solutions and deal with problems in a more efficient way.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is an important step towards self-improvement. When you combine your good nutrition with physical activity and exercise, you basically choose a healthy body as well as a healthy mind.

When you know an action will have a positive impact on your health, you are greatly motivated to perform it. Moreover, while doing so, you will also motivate your family and friends. When you focus on keeping yourself healthy, you are choosing to accumulate more strength in terms of going on a hike, playing your favorite sport and enjoying things and people around you.

In a few words, if you have a healthy lifestyle, youll gain energy, improve your attention span, and even develop a more pleasant mood.

When you are compassionate, you have the motivation and desire to help a suffering person. However, the ultimate aim of being compassionate is to improve your life by helping others improve theirs. Be sure that this will give you peace and inner happiness!

Compassion is the perspective of assuming the best in others. It ensures that you choose to remain happy by making others life happy. When you focus on serving others, you gain a better perspective on your own problems. This way, you can work through your own feelings rather than simply live with them.

Want to help others improve their lives? Become a yoga instructor! Its easier than you might think, there are hundreds of yoga teacher training courses available on the web.

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5 Outstanding Self Improvement Skills You Should Start ...

How successful we are at selling ourselves, our products and our services depends on our ability to stand up and be heard. What often prevents us from telling our story successfully is not our inability to articulate what we do, or how strongly we believe in the value of what we offer. Instead, it is simply the fear of speaking in front of an audience. Being nervous while presenting can put a dint in your credibility and have an adverse effect on achieving your business goals.

To manage the fear of speaking in public, you need to first understand the root cause of the fear. One of the best explanations comes from Scott Berkun, in Confessions of a Public Speaker. "The design of the brain's wiringgiven its long operational history, hundreds of thousands years older than the history of public speaking ... makes it impossible to stop fearing what it knows is the worst tactical position for a person to be in," Berkun says. That "worst tactical position" is standing alone, in an open place, with no place to hide, without a weapon, facing a large group of creatures staring at you. As Berkun puts it, being in this situation "meant the odds were high that you would soon be attacked and eaten alive ... Our ancestors, the ones who survived, developed a fear response to these situations."

Understanding that our brain can't tell the difference between a real threat (a pack of wolves about to attack you) and an imagined threat (a group of your peers watching you present) is the first step to overcoming the fear. This awareness can help you manage the "false alarm" that happens in the absence of real danger. How so? As you feel your heart racing when you first start your presentation, you can consciously and deliberately interrupt the fear response with a quick deep breath and a rational thought, "This is just a false alarm." The more you get into the habit of interrupting the fear response as soon as you feel it happening, the quicker you'll prevent it from being your default response every time you present in front of a group. You must ingrain in your mind the thought that the fear of public speaking is simply a misfiring of the caveman "fight or flight" fear response, and that you can overcome this.

Here are 11 practical tips to help you manage performance anxiety so you can focus on your key messages:

When you worry before a high-stakes presentation, you may have a tendency to ask yourself negative questions, such as "What will happen if I forget my material?" or "What if I mess up?" This form of self-talk is like throwing gasoline in a room on fire. All it does is heighten your anxiety. Replace these negative questions with positive ones. Take an inspiration from Seymour Signet, a specialist in helping people overcome public speaking anxiety. He advises to ask yourself: "What will happen if I knock it out of the park?" You can view more of Seymour's tips in his video "Ask Yourself Good Questions." Give this a try; it will calm the noise in your head.

When you know your material well, there's a tendency to get sloppy when practicing a speech: You might flip through the slides, mentally thinking about what you are going to say, without actually rehearsing out loud exactly what you plan to say. This results in a presentation that's not as sharp as it could be and might cause you to be nervous once you have 100 pairs of eyes staring at you. You can also forget some important sub-points and key soundbites.

For a high-stakes presentation, do this at least five times, at spaced intervals, to encode your material in long-term memory. It's also crucial that you practice your transitionsthe words that link one idea in your presentation to the next. These are easy to forget if you don't practice them and you end up with a staccato presentation. Transitions are the silken thread that guides your listeners through your story. Some examples: "Now that we have established ..."; "This leads us to ..."; "My next item is particularly crucial ..."

Knowing the sequence of your slides so you can anticipate and announce a slide makes you look in control. Nothing erodes your credibility faster than having to look at a slide to know what you have to say next. Being perceived as credible boosts your confidence and reduces your anxiety and the fear of failing.

One reason people often experience anxiety before a presentation is the fear that they'll be asked questions that might be difficult to answer. Don't get caught off guard. Think carefully of what potential questions might arise and rehearse your best answers. Go one step further by creating slides for some potential questions about complex issues. You can include in your slide important information, numbers, stats or even a pertinent graph or pie chart that would be helpful to the audience. If such a question arises, it's quite okay to say, "I anticipated that you might be asking this question. Let me display a slide that will clearly show ..."

A study at Harvard University showed the value of visualization in developing a skill: Two groups of volunteers were presented with a piece of unfamiliar piano music. One group was given a keyboard and told to practice. The other group was instructed to just read the music and imagine playing it. When their brain activity was examined, both groups showed expansion in the motor cortex, even though the second group had never touched a keyboard. Visualization is a powerful mental rehearsal tool that peak sports performers use regularly. Einstein, who's credited with saying that imagination is more important than knowledge, used visualization throughout his entire life. Take advantage of this tool and visualize yourself successfully delivering your presentation. Concentrate on all the positives of your presentation, and visualize the talk, in detail, from your introduction to your conclusion.

Instead, as Jerry Weissman puts it, "treat every presentation as a series of person-to-person conversations." The more you remind yourself of this, the more you can shift your focus away from the fear-inducing thought that you are required to perform.

This simple advice cannot be emphasized enough. When you're nervous, you breathe rapidly and shallowly. This is telegraphing to the audience that you're not confident. Slow and measured breathing is a sign that you're in control. Before you go to the front of the room, concentrate on taking a few, slow breaths. Repeat this a few times. When you start to speak, remember to pause and breathe after you make a point. Psychiatrist Fritz Perls said it powerfully: "Fear is excitement without the breath."

Harvard Business School Professor Amy Cuddy discovered that simply holding our body in an expansive pose for as little as two minutes results in a higher level of testosterone in our body. Testosterone is the hormone linked to power in both animals and humans. At the same time, the expansive pose lowers our level of cortisol, the stress hormone. In her TED video presentation, Cuddy shows a number of expansive poses, such as spreading your legs, placing your hands on your hips, or striking the CEO pose: legs resting on desk, and arms behind your head. You can apply this advice before a presentation to lower your stress level and give yourself a boost. Instead of hunching over your notes or BlackBerry, find a spot where you can have some privacy and adopt an expansive pose: Make yourself as big as you can by stretching your arms out and spreading your legs, or stand on your tiptoes with your hands in the air.

In "The Kings Speech," a movie about the true story of King George VI, one of the successful strategies the speech therapist uses to help the king overcome his stuttering is the use of pauses. Pausing helped the king regain his composure whenever he was gripped by anxiety. When you feel anxious while presenting, consider pausing more frequently. A few strategic pauses between points have a calming effect.

Your anxiety level is increased when you misinterpret the audience's facial expression. In normal conversation, we're accustomed to getting feedback from the listenera nod or a smile here and there that signal approval. But when we present, audiences listen differently. They're more likely to give the speaker a blank stare, which doesn't mean they don't like what they hear; more often than not, it simply means they're concentrating on the message. This is especially true of audience members who are introverted.

You can get more tips for managing presentation anxiety in my book, Presenting with Credibility: Practical Tools and Techniques For Effective Presentations. There's a Japanese proverb that says, "Fear is only as deep as the mind allows." Put your mind on developing your key company messages and crafting your story. Replace time expended on worrying with time spent on preparing thoroughly for your presentation, by knowing your material cold, and practicing it beyond the point of pain. Then go out there and win them over.

Read more articles on presenting to a group of people.

Photo: iStockphoto

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11 Easy Ways to Finally Overcome Your Fear of Public ...

Self-improvement is a journey. A pleasant, exciting and rewarding journey; and its taking you from the acorn to the oak tree, from the brook to the river, from a blank canvas to a masterpiece: the best YOU.

Because you are here, I guess, you already started your self-improvement journey, or you have a strong desire to do so.

Either way, you have made the first step, and that counts the most because this first step is the moment when you realize how amazing you can be, how beautiful and fulfilled your life can be, how great, rewarding and inspiring can be your contribution to a better world.

When your boss, your friends or whoever else is changing around you, your life is pretty much the same. When you are changing, then, your life is changing.

You grow and become extraordinary in life by accomplishing the most ordinary things.

Be like a river that starts its journey from a shallow brook and ends it into the deep ocean, or an acorn that becomes a majestic oak tree.

Allow yourself to become whoever you want to become.

If there is destiny, know that it has more than one version, and it is up to you which version of your destiny you get to live. Your desire to improve yourself is setting the course and the pathway of your destiny.

Your life belongs to you.

Are you living up to your potential?

Are you living the best version of your destiny?

Are you putting forward the best you?

Life is a gift. A gift that only a small minority of seeds receive.

Self-improvement is about honoring that gift; making the most out of it, building a happy, prosperous life and contributing to the well-being of others along the way.

We are living amazing times; your personal growth can make a change not only in your life but also can be powerful motivation for others.

Join us, so you dont have to walk alone in your journey.

On UpJourney you can find in-depth information and self improvement tips.

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Allow us to walk with you on your journey to self-improvement, success and become the best version of yourself.

Originally posted here:
What is Self Improvement?