What is self-improvement and where do you begin? This article will delve into various benefits of self-improvement and also provide some ideas on where to begin.
What is self improvement?
Self-improvement is a journey of changing yourself for the better. There are several different areas in life that make up the whole of your experience. Various people have come up with more or less aspects, but I think the following list is fairly comprehensive:
work
finances
family
social
mental
fun
emotional
spiritual
health
character
contribution
The whole idea of self-improvement is to work on developing a more positive attitude, better skills, and more supportive beliefs in each of these areas. Only you can really decide what each of these areas mean to you, and your definition and the importance you place on each area will continually change and evolve with you.
Why work on improving and developing yourself?
Would you rather be happy and broke, or rich and miserable? Ultimately, if most people really stop to think about it, they would rather be happy. We usually want to get that new item, or do or become something because we think it will make us happy. Material goods and social status only bring fleeting happiness. The new home or car or wardrobe will eventually lose the appeal it initially had and will fall into the routine of life. Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to tell you that you should devote yourself to a life of poverty, what I'm getting at is that sustained happiness comes from the inside out. This is where developing yourself comes in. If you develop each area of your life it will help you become a happier, healthier person on a more sustained basis and you'll eventually come to find that it's possible to be both wealthy and happy.
If you understand that money and status don't bring lasting happiness then it makes sense why there are so many areas listed above. How happy would you be if you're financially secure, but you're not healthy enough to enjoy it, or your relationships and family life are in ruins? All of these areas need at least some focus at all times. To be truly successful, all areas of your life need to be working well for you. The next few sections will give you some ideas on where to start. Future articles will deal with specifics on how to do it.
1. Start with your weakest area
Take some time and go through the listed areas of your life and rate them on a scale of one to ten, one being the worst and ten the best it could be. Your lowest scoring area will be where you need to put the most energy and focus. If your finances are your worst scoring area, then they should receive the most attention. Keep working on improving this area and periodically review and rescore yourself in the different aspects of your life. Once you've brought your finances up to a point where they are no longer your lowest scoring area, then you shift your focus over to your new lowest score.
One bonus is that you may find that by improving one area of your life, there will be some spill over of improvements in other areas of your life. Going back to the example of finances being your weakest area, let's say you've begun working in this area and things are starting to improve for you. You may start to see your social life, family life, emotional health and physical health improving as well. More money will allow you the resources to do more social activities, there will be less monetary stress within your family and you'll be under less stress due to financial difficulties which will improve both your emotional and physical health.
2. Start with your physical health
Physical health affects all areas of your life so this may be a good area to start. If you're in better shape and better health physically, the benefits are tremendous. You'll have more energy available to work on your financial situation, do social activities, have fun, do things with the family. Improved physical health also benefits your emotional health due to the chemicals that exercise and proper nutrition releases in your body. It will also benefit you mentally and improve your ability to think and focus. It could help you socially because you'll look better and have more self-confidence. You'll develop the habits of setting goals and being disciplined which are habits that can help you in all areas of life. And it will likely extend your lifespan and help reduce your chances of getting ill. Overall, the benefits of better physical health are hard to beat.
3. Face your fears
If you want to see some dramatic changes in your life fairly quickly, face your fears one by one. Determine what your greatest fear is and face it. As you start progressing at overcoming your fears you'll develop a huge sense of accomplishment and your self-confidence will grow as well. Fear is usually what keeps us stuck in certain areas of our life. As you overcome your fears, you'll start to see yourself move forward again.
Conclusion
Please keep in mind that making changes in your life is rarely something that happens overnight. You need to look at this as a long-term investment in yourself. Many readers are probably thinking that this whole idea of self-improvement seems like it would be to much work. You're certainly welcome to think this way and keep doing what you've been doing. But before you do, take a look back to the last five years of your life. Did you enjoy them? Were you as happy as you would have liked? Would you do them over again without changing a thing? If you answered 'no' to any of those questions, then you need to seriously consider making some changes. Unless you start changing things now, the next five years won't be any different than the last five. The time is going to pass either way, so why not make good use of it? You'll be glad you did.
Copyright © 2007 by Colin VanderMeulen, www.developingyou.net |
