Improve yourself
Regular exercise is of utmost importance to our health and you must set aside time regularly to maintain our personal hygiene. However, our bodies aren't the only things that require exercise. For a healthy lifestyle you must also dedicate time to critical thinking and self-reflection.
If your mind is left unattended, it remains stagnant and before you know it, you are submitting to a life of mediocrity. The mind is a terrible thing to waste. In school you can only learn so much. Instead of relying on mainstream sources to educate yourself throughout adolescence, dedicate your entire life to education.
Ways to improve yourself
1. Questions
2. Take risks
3. Maintain relationships
4. Learn languages
5. Rise early
Self-Improvement Tips that Promote Self-Awareness and Growth toward a Better Future. Make Learning and Self-Improvement Your Top Priority
In order to make lasting change in the world, we must stop trying to change others and look within ourselves to make that change by remembering these three golden rules to life:
1. Question Everything
Maybe you can remember one or two teachers telling you this when you were in high school: you should "question everything" and that a creative mind is a healthy mind. However, the truth is that our education system doesn't want you to ask "why?"
Modern education wants students to memorize and repeat what they're told. Students are encouraged to think one way, by listening and following orders instead of asking questions. Grades are incentivized to those who best retain the information they are told. There are no rewards to those who ask the questions to gain a better understanding. By asking questions all the time "you will never learn", they say, but the opposite is true. By accepting things stated as facts only because a teacher says so, your mind remains stagnant and no real education takes place.
Keep an open mind — You sometimes get so caught up in the mundane, noisy, irrelevant nonsense showed on television and in newspapers that you lose track of the bigger picture. You get wrapped up in one topic, become obsessed with it and define your beliefs around the opinion of an important person of high status.
Soon you will just become a mindless sheep incapable of independent thought. Don't fall into the trap of believing everything you are told the minute you hear it. Everything, even the "official" and "common knowledge" should be questioned and left open for interpretation.
Your journey for the truth is never-ending — By questioning everything, you are never satisfied with only one explanation. Your mind is always open to new possibilities and you are curious about the secrets this world holds. You respect other people's voice and you treat each conversation as a new, potential learning experience.
You keep your beliefs subject to change and constantly revise your opinion on a moment-by-moment basis. Everything you hear you take into consideration and over time you filter out the true from the false.
2. You Have to Fail to Succeed
In a society obsessed with winners, many people fail to understand that losing serves a purpose that is just as important as winning. You must fail many times to eventually find success in whatever avenue you take in life. You must take risks and potentially end up falling flat on your face to learn lessons vital to success. By never taking risks you miss out on those lessons and never reach your true potential. The truth is, schools don't teach you that. Modern education doesn't reward taking risks if you fail. All that matters in the public's eyes are the results, never the journey that got you there. However, when you accomplish everything you've ever dreamed of, the things that will feel most satisfying is remembering that point of life when you were at your lowest. Your failures motivate you to achieve success. So, contrary to popular belief, winning is not everything. Never be afraid of trying new things and putting yourself out there. Your courage is your compass for self-improvement and self-help.
Opportunity rewards the self-aware — You learn growing up that if you work hard, you can accomplish anything. Nonetheless, this is not necessarily true. You need to know exactly what you want before reaching your goal. Opportunity isn't always on schedule, but it tends to reward people who have figured themselves out and know what they want. You must accept the fact that there is an element of chance associated with opportunity. More often than not, knowing what you want and pursuing it will get you results. Don't underestimate the value of research. You must know where you are headed at every crossroad in life. Understand that others are striving for the same goals. There is competition no matter what you do or where you go. Sometimes you must go against the grain to achieve success.
3. Never Burn Bridges
The world is a smaller place than most people think. Whether you live in a big city or the countryside, understand that everything you do has consequences. When you are in public, make sure you are ready to meet someone new and make a good first impression. Whatever you do, never burn bridges! Keep all of your relationships open-ended. What this means is that you shouldn't completely cut off contact with people. Welcome everyone into your life and keep the door open for them to contact you. Never end things or else you risk closing the door to a possible opportunity. Since the world is a small place, every bridge you burn has unintended consequences considering that people often share mutual acquaintances.
Everyone on earth is interconnected — Despite all of the racial, social, and cultural stereotypes, people are not so different from each other. When you learn to live peacefully alongside others, you open up a whole new world you never thought existed. The value in treating everyone with respect is measured by the respect you receive. You will start to see humanity in a different light. Co-existing is the key to a healthy lifestyle. When you co-exist, you see the positive aspects of each individual and you see aspects of people that you want to model yourself after.
4. Learning New Language Will Give You Access to New Opportunities
If you think the world is a small place because you see the same people and do the same things every day, that's your own fault. Because the world is actually a very big place, with possibilities that are limitless for yourself. Are you sure that you are doing everything possible to make your life the best it could be? Consider trying a new language. Study it, hear it, speak it. The work is hard and sometimes boring but the rewards are immense. And you will see the rewards next time you take a trip to your target destination. You will better be able to soak up new cultures with that language acquired. You will have access to people and places you wouldn't have earlier. You will have new different job opportunities and ways to spend your time and you will wonder why you didn't start doing this at an earlier age.
Time to stop being lazy and start picking up new skills — Most people don't learn a second language and ignore one of the best life improvement tips. So they are stationary in their lives, never moving and happy in the same place. Or at least they think they are happy. If you think you would be happier knowing less and having less different experiences in life, then don't bother learning a new language. Traveling the world and speaking to people of other cultures is a mind-opening experience that I think everyone should experience.
5. Wake up Earlier
I'm not a big proponent of that living and breathing success fad that's telling people that they need to sacrifice sleep in order to be successful. However, there is some truth to the theory that early risers are more successful in their life. Add this to your daily self improvement goals. Ideally you want to wake up at dawn when the sun starts rising. If the thought of waking up at 5 or 6am scares you, then consider the benefits of doing so. Having that extra hour or two in your day really makes a huge difference. Your productivity and quality of life will increase. Maybe it won't feel good at first but the health benefits of waking up early consistently beat that of sleeping in way too long on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Soon you won't even need an alarm clock. You can just wake up to the light from the rising sun through your window.
The early bird catches the worm — If you cultivate your early rising habit for longer than a week, you will start to notice the benefits and the momentum from a healthy morning will carry over into the afternoon and night when it's time to sleep. It's really the way we were meant to live, before window curtains and alarm clocks came into the picture. Early rising is an excellent self improvement plan, and not doing so is teaching your body to go against something that is instinctual. Think of what you can do in the morning with all that extra time.
