For those of us who are on a mission of self-improvement, often we can strive for too much perfection. We think of something we want to accomplish, and then put a lot of “plans” around it.
Late last year, I personally made several New Year’s Resolutions. Now I normally do not make or even believe in “resolutions”, especially ones based around the new year, because they seem artificial and forced. I also like to start exactly where I am, in that moment. But I made a few resolutions anyway. Well, New Year’s Day came and guess what? I never started on my resolutions. I know exactly why – and there are several reasons.
Lets talk about it as we discuss some Easy Steps to Self Improvement.
Start Now
Nothing kills a goal faster than time. You have heard the old expression, “Don’t let grass grow under your feet.” When it comes to improvement and goal setting, this is certainly a saying to remember.
When you make a goal for yourself, start immediately! You don’t have to literally start that minute, but at the very least, start the next morning you wake up. The reason we want to start now is because it immediately trains us to do that thing. Lets take waking up early as an example. If you make it a goal to wake up at 6:00am, the worst thing you can do is procrastinate by waking up late the next morning. By doing this, you have done two things:
- Trained yourself to wake up late
- Immediately given yourself negative feedback by not accomplishing a small goal
Both of these things represent obstacles to success in any endeavor. This is why we START NOW!
Get out there and make it happen. You will gain some positive feedback and you will feel good about yourself after you are done.
Make the changes easy
In a former life, I was a collegiate and semi-professional tennis player. I spent nearly 20 years improving my game. One thing I learned through all of that practice, is you never learn anything overnight. Success comes through doing easy things a little at a time.
There was a point I needed to improve my kick serve because I was not getting enough spin on the ball. It took me several months of practice and re-learning to fully integrate the new serve into my match play. I had to:
- Toss the ball a little more out in front of me
- Learn to use more wrist to brush up behind the ball
- Use more legs to push up and out
- Understand this serve is not based on power, but control and finesse
First, I started using my legs more. This was a small and easy change that I could incorporate into all of my serving. If I made the changes small and gradual, they would feel more natural and thus be easier to implement. By contrast, if I had attempted to do all four of the above things at once, it would have been a very frustrating experience, and I likely would never have improved my serve.
This is the kind of process we have to implement to make any major change in our lives. However, the important thing to understand is that it does not come all at once. Using our example above, we can start implementing our habit of waking up earlier by setting our alarm just 15 minutes earlier than normal. This is an easy but gradual change that has an immediate positive impact.
- Waking up 15 minutes earlier is a victory because we accomplished it
- It gives us an extra 15 minutes to get some small, random things done in the morning
- It impacts our normal work because we are more awake and less stressed than we were just one day prior
Maybe after a couple of weeks we wake up 30 minutes earlier instead. This moves us closer to our final goal, which could be waking up at 6:00am. Whatever your goal is, make the changes easy and you will find it is less challenging to accomplish it!
Make the improvements small
Another very important part of the improvement process is small, but gradual changes. You cannot change your entire lifestyle in a day as that will only lead to frustration. Lets look at how we can make small improvements that add up to big success.
If you made a goal to get up and walk in the morning, just do that. Don’t go out and buy a FitBit or Apple Watch in order to count your steps. Don’t wait for a class to begin next month, or wait for the sale on workout clothes to come along. Just get up and walk. Most phones will count your steps anyway – carry it in your back pocket or in a fanny pack. Any clothes will be just fine to walk in.
By adding things you need to do AROUND your goal, you scale the complexity, and therefore make it harder to attain. We can address this by just making small adjustments.
You do not have to count your steps to get up and walk for 15 minutes. Look at your watch or your phone and walk for 15 minutes. Then you are done and have accomplished your goal. As you improve and stick to your new routine, if you want to get a watch or a step tracker then do so, but don’t wait to start walking until then. Maybe next week you walk for an additional 5 minutes. But for now, just start on your large goal with a small, but easily attainable step.
don’t be too hard on yourself
Improvement is hard – lets be real. Nothing worth doing is ever easy. There is also a psychological impact that comes with making goals too complex.
We have been talking about how to make our goals simple and easy to attain. Adding to that, realize that failing is part of the process. You will fail! The quicker you understand that, the easier on yourself you will be. Learn to forgive yourself quickly and put your head back up and look forward.
We might reference the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3:13
“Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead”
Paul had failed like all of us do. He had made mistakes that even cost people their lives. But he knew that if he allowed his mistakes to weigh him down, he would never be able to fulfill the mission Jesus had for him.
We should look at our lives the same way. Forget your failures and the things that weigh on you. Start now and “strain forward” to what lies ahead and the new person you can be.