The Ultimate Guide to Self-Improvement

How to Begin Taking Charge of Your Life

Self-improvement cannot be achieved in a day, a month, or even years.

It is the constant willingness to work on yourself. A dedication to true self-love.

Self-improvement not only makes you a better person. It creates a light inside of you that radiates outward and shines onto others, improving their lives as well.

It is a Journey. One where you will discover your true purpose and serve humanity simply by showing up as your best self every day.

In the earlier stages of my life, I did whatever came my way. I studied because it was expected of me, I then went on to being a high school teacher because it was my first Job Application that got accepted.

And for a long time, that is how my life went on. Always going with the flow, being a people pleaser, and being taken advantage of.

Nevertheless, deep down I had desired. For my life, the person I genuinely wanted to be remembered as and my duty towards the people who love and support me. I also have desires to give but I cannot give from an empty cup.

When I started my journey to self-improvement, my perspective on life changed. My goals no longer seemed like far-fetched dreams. They became possible. I started acting instead of only imagining.

All this while I was working on my physical appearance and terming it as self-love. But I now know that self-love is the discipline to work on myself from within. Hence, I started my Journey to self-improvement.

What you will find in this article

The Ultimate Guide to Taking Charge of Your Life teaches you the step-by-step journey to becoming your best self.

That journey involves discovering your ideal self- the person you wish to be remembered as and what you want to be known for.

Based on that, you will learn how the right actions to take for achieving your goals and becoming your best self.

How to start your journey to Self-improvement

Imagine your Ideal Self

Think about who you would like to be remembered as.

What does your ideal life look like? And if someone had to give a speech about you, what would you want them to say?

Try not to compare yourself to someone else. That is, do not say that you wish to be like Beyonce or your friend who has a nice car.

Simply think of yourself.

If you were to be living the life you dreamed of, what does it look like, and what do you see yourself doing?

Think of it as role playing.

You can write about your ideal self in your Journal or just think of it when you are in the shower. You do not have to act it out just yet.

But think of what you would rather be waking up to or doing or even wearing- anything that would create your ideal self.

The task here is to plant an image in your mind of the person you wish to become on your self-improvement journey.

Note the Areas in your Life that will require improvement

With the image of your ideal self in mind, it is time, to be honest with your current self.

When you imagined your ideal self, what do you see yourself doing?

Do you look a certain way? Have a specific job? Are you traveling? Or Having dinners with your family?

These are just examples because only you will know what your ideal self is like.

My only advice is that you put your character before material gains.

Identify the difference between what you do now versus what you are doing as your ideal self.

Choose an Area to get started with

It is time to begin actively working on your self-improvement journey.

Let’s say that as your ideal self, you are spending quality time with a family member or friend but right now you don’t. You can begin working on this area of your life by prioritizing a visit to them every other weekend instead of only visiting on holidays.

You can also consider selecting the one area that you think would help one or more of the other areas in some way. For example, your ideal self might be to not have a 9-5 job, have the time to be adventurous and learn new skills; and have spontaneous family dinners.

Working towards being financially secured might be the best area to work on since it will fuel your ability to be relieved of actively working at a 9-5 job, giving you more time to dedicate to traveling, learning new skills, and having family dinners.

Set ONE Attainable Goal for the chosen area to work on

The two keywords here are; One and Attainable.

People generally have multiple goals at any given time in their life. But if they intend on achieving any, they will have to start with just ONE.

Focusing your attention on too many areas to work on at once can become overwhelming and cause burnout. Then you end up achieving nothing.

You must be willing to meet yourself where you are at and then take small steps to build upon that.

Someone who is Jobless can become a self-made billionaire but only after securing a way to bring in an income.

Motivation comes from results.

So, break down your main goal into smaller attainable goals and expand as you go.

Create a System for Achieving that Goal

No goal can be achieved without a system.

What you do in your daily life, determines your chances of accomplishing your set goal.

On your journey to self-improvement, you might decide to learn a new skill. Therefore, you make it a priority to spend an hour a day taking an online course that would teach you all you need to know about that skill. Then, once per week, you spend 2 hours acting on what you learned from the online course that week. Eventually, you become more knowledgeable about the skill and move from being a novice to an expert.

That, right there is called a system and is an important ingredient for achieving any goal.

Learn more about How to create systems to achieve goals here.

Make the System Your Priority

Once you have a system in place for achieving your set goal, it is important that you make that your priority.

Your job now is to act.

Self-improvement requires discipline and consistency.

This means that you must

• Create new habits that are in alignment with your goal,
• Surround yourself with like-minded people, or
• Plant yourself in places and situations where you will find the encouragement and inspiration to keep going.

A current goal of mine is to better manage my time. Unfortunately, even though this is something I really want to achieve, I still procrastinate and dedicate huge chunks of time to scrolling social media, watching YouTube videos or Netflix shows I do not even enjoy.

To better manage my time, I came up with a system of creating a written daily activity checklist that includes time for leisure after I’ve completed my most important task for the day. Additionally, I only watch Netflix at dinner time with my partner and I engage in YouTube and Instagram content that are a source of inspiration for me to keep pursuing my goal.

It would not always be a perfect system but that is why discipline is so important.

When you are Comfortable, Add on a New Goal

In the past, I would spend the end of my year thinking about all the areas of my life that I wish to improve. Which is basically every area. My Dailygreatness Journal supports this with designated pages for writing down my goals for each area.

In the past, I would write down a goal for every area that I wish to improve within the year. But every time I would look at the page, I would become overwhelmed by how much there is to do. I would end up following through on nothing and feel like a failure.

Now, I choose one area and write down my goal for it. Then I would create the system for how I plan to actively work on my goal.

When I feel comfortable with how far I have come with achieving that goal, I select another area to begin working on.

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