Have you been wanting to become a better friend, partner, family member, or even a better person for yourself? Every day can seem like a constant uphill battle in striving to become the best version of yourself. If you are looking for ways to start your self-improvement journey, this is the blog for you!
Following these five steps can provide you with guidance to jumpstart your journey to becoming your ideal self.
1. Become more self-aware
Self-awareness is your conscious understanding of why you feel or act a certain way. Being self-aware entails your ability to evaluate the way others may perceive you. Studies have shown that individuals who have high self-awareness develop better decision-making, relationship-building, and communication skills and tend to be more confident in themselves.
Tips to gain self-awareness are:
- Start a personal journal. Journaling is used as an outlet for people who have trouble expressing difficult emotions out loud. Writing them on paper allows a person to gather their thoughts cohesively and grasp a better understanding of how they are feeling.
- Set time for self-reflection. After an argument or a stressful experience, think to yourself about how you reacted and what you could have done differently for a more desirable outcome. When a similar occasion happens again, you will be better prepared to handle it with ease.
- Ask for feedback. Ask friends or family members to tell you about yourself. From their responses, you may learn about some strengths you may not know you possess or areas of improvement to work on.
2. Challenge yourself and take risks
Set daily goals to accomplish based on what you want to improve for yourself. For instance, if you want to become a better communicator and advocate for yourself, try to set a goal to initiate conversations during a networking event. If you want to build stamina, set a faster record for yourself every day during your morning jogs. Achieving these small milestones will ultimately push you to become more ambitious and serve as motivation for you to continue pursuing bigger goals.
A quote that has always resonated with me is the idea of living your life with “oh wells” instead of “what ifs”. Instead of being fearful and avoiding an opportunity because of the uncertainty of its outcome, take a chance on the challenging opportunity that arises. If everything works out how you expected, great! If not, you will not live with the regret of thinking “what would have happened if I did?” With every experience, both good and bad, you can always learn from it and grow into a better individual.
3. Recite positive affirmations
Positive affirmations are phrases a person recites to themselves in order to replace negative thoughts with positive thinking. According to the Association for Psychological Science, reciting positive affirmations to yourself can help mitigate feelings of anxiety, stress, and defensiveness. It is important to note that the repetition of affirmations, however, will only work if you truly believe they are true.
Based on your personal needs, your affirmations can change over time. Tailor your affirmations to what your personal goals are and what you would like to accomplish. Need help coming up with some? Here are a list of positive affirmations to start with.
4. Be more forgiving to yourself and others
As humans, we all make mistakes. When mistakes are made, we tend to be hard on others, and even harder on ourselves. Letting go of grudges you have with yourself and those around you is key to bettering yourself, as these can stunt your personal growth. Thriveworks suggests the following 7 steps in order to forgive:
- Acknowledge the hurt.
- Consider how the pain has affected you.
- Accept that you cannot change the past.
- Determine whether or not you will forgive.
- Repair the relationship that was affected.
- Learn what forgiveness means to you.
- Forgive the person who wronged you.
5. It’s okay to prioritize yourself
Prioritizing yourself can look very different for each person. One way is to set boundaries for things you are not comfortable with or cannot compromise. Another way is to take a rest day when you are feeling burned out or stressed. Set some time out of your busy day to practice self-love and self-care on a regular basis to ensure you are in the best place physically, emotionally, and mentally.
The Bottom Line:
Becoming your best self takes time and patience. Therefore, have grace with yourself and others in the process.
