It is so easy to want to remain in our comfort zones - lay in bed all day or longer, go to our usual jobs or business places doing the same thing over and over again without an extra effort to look inward.
The responsibilities of life - the hustle and bustle for daily bread - have always come before our well-being. The care for our inward self - spirit, soul, mind and body - has been relegated to the background.
Just as your jobs, career or businesses matter, you also matter. You are the most important person in your life hence the need to invest in yourself wisely.
Just as we ensure our jobs and businesses are secured, we must also try to ensure our mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being are in good and perfect condition as well.
Prioritizing self-development impacts every area of our lives positively but this takes extra effort stepping out of our comfort zones. We must learn to take on the responsibility of prioritizing ourselves above all else.
The impact of self-development is not automatic but a gradual process over a period of time being intentional of our well-being. It takes time and dedication to get to live the kind of life you ought to.
It takes lots of courage to step out of our comfort zones and move into emotional discomfort to live a better life out of the ordinary. To get an overall self-improvement is to aim for daily sustainable small wins that eventually add up over time.
You can decide to promise yourself that everyday, you must do something for yourself aside work or business in order to improve your mental, spiritual, physical and emotional well being.
The economy has so brought us to a point where all we now think of is how to survive the day in search of daily bread that we forget that other aspects of our lives matter.
The act of self Improvement can be discomforting because it stretches us out of our comfort zones but it is what leads to growth in life as well as makes life beautiful and meaningful.
Every time and every day you improve an aspect of your life - even if it's just one percent - leads to fulfillment and the achievement of goals bring beauty into our lives.
WAYS TO IMPROVE YOURSELF DAILY
1. GRATITUDE : The first point of call for me in the journey self-improvement is the art and act of gratitude. Gratitude is at the heart of living a fulfilling and a happy life.
When we regularly take out time to appreciate the beauty of life and give thanks, we attract more goodness into our lives. Practicing gratitude is like planting the first seed towards the journey of self-improvement.
Gratitudes helps you stay grateful and content with what you have while at the same time helps you avoid being bitter over what you don't have. Until we learn to appreciate the little things in our lives, we will never see the bigger things happening to and in us.
Developing the act of gratitude and engaging in the art of gratitude gives your life a whole new meaning. It makes you see and appreciate the beauty of life.
2. JOURNALLING : Gratitude and journaling go hand in hand. Journalling is the act or art of writing down things you are grateful for at the end of each day.
There is no day, I do not have something to be grateful to God for. The gift of life, the food we had, the favours we received from people, the new persons or old friends we came across, the goal whether small or big we smashed for the day are all worth being grateful for and journaling.
Journaling helps us see the good things in our lives, it helps us appreciate life, stay grateful to God, see and appreciate our little wins.
3. READ BOOKS : In the journey of self-development, reading of books can not be underestimated or overrated especially in your areas of interest or passion.
Reading is one of the easiest ways to learn. You can learn about people, cultures, events - past and present - just by reading books.
In your area of interest or passion, you need books to scale through. It is commonly said that "no one has monopoly of knowledge." You do not have all it takes by yourself to realize your dreams, goals, passions, visions and purposes , you need to learn from others and one major way of doing this is through books.
The more we read the more we learn new things, and when we apply what we have learnt to our lives, we gain more wisdom and insight into life.
Challenge yourself to at least read a chapter of a book daily at a time most convenient for you, read a blog post or articles that are encouraging for you to live your best life.
4. EAT HEALTHY : What you eat has way of influencing how you feel. Eat fresh and cooked meals most of the time instead of regularly eating of junk foods. Make efforts to infuse vegetables and fruits in your daily diet to enhance your daily living.
It is commonly said that "you are what you eat." This simply means, what you put into your body is what makes up your body so what you eat most of the time will determine how healthy your body will be to function properly or improperly.
5. EXERCISE DAILY : Ensure to add movements to your daily activities. A sedentary lifestyle does more harm to the body than good.
Even while at work, you can add little bits of exercises here and there. Of recent, I discovered exercises I can do at work while sitting down and it has been helpful. Search the internet for exercises you can do even at work and begin to engage in them.
Regular workouts improve your your health which leads to a long life span and a better quality of life in all areas of your life.
6. SET GOALS : Set goals for yourself and pursue these goals until they are achieved. Smashing goals make one's life meaningful and beautiful.
Build resilience to beat obstacles that may come along the way trying to prevent you from achieving these goals. Be patient enough to see the success of these goals even when you don't see it at the beginning.
Set big goals for yourself and break these big goals into smaller and achievable parts that you keep up with daily. These smaller goals become part of your daily routine till you hit the bigger goal.
7. CHANGE YOUR MINDSET : Have a change of mind from the negative to the positive and a growth mindset as from a fixed mindset. Take conscious steps to adjust how you think. Learn to see things from a positive angle.
Having a change of mindset gives you control over circumstances or situations you may find yourself in. For instance, a positive mindset is believing that there is good out of every bad situation and that things happen for a good reason.
A growth mindset set is a mind that believes in the development of potentials, skills and talents as against a fixed mindset that believes in being static in skills or potentials. A fixed mindset does not believe in growth.
8. HAVE A MENTOR : Have mentors that you can easily listen to and learn from. Mentors must not necessarily be physically with you. Mentors can be anyone - far or near - whose life impact yours positively. People you can learn from daily. One mentor I listen to everyday who does not even know me is Joel Osteen.
9. PRAY OFTEN : Prayer is a spiritual tool God has given to us to aid our growth in life but unfortunately, so many of us do not see the importance of prayers in our lives as there is always this rush to get out of the house every morning in the pursuit of our daily bread.
Prayer draws us closer to God on daily basis. It makes us realize we can't do things on our own hence the need to be dependent on God through prayers.
Prayer is simply communication with God. We can actually discuss with God through prayers, ask for his guidance in our quests, pray for forgiveness, pray for the fulfillment of our dreams and achievement of set goals.
Prayer can change anything in life as well as lead to growth. It helps keep our hopes and faith alive believing we can achieve anything we set our hearts to.
10. GET ENOUGH SLEEP AND REST : Too many of us hustle so much that we forget to give ourselves the needed sleep and rest.
I truly do not joke with my sleeping time which is usually between 10pm - 4am. Anything short of this can make me go haywire the next day.
I wouldn't' be myself if I don't get the needed sleep the body deserves and it would be accompanied with headaches. Until I repay my sleep with the amount of time lost initially by sleeping earlier than I do the next day I wouldn't be myself.
We need to learn to unwind, relax, get enough rest and sleep so we can face the next day rejuvenated. Of what use it is if we can not take care of our body to live long enough to enjoy all our labour and hard work.
11. ACCEPT CHALLENGES : One of the most difficult things to accept in life are the challenges we go through yet they lead to growth in life.
Growth is available in every moment of our lives - be it good or bad - even in moments when it feels like it's impossible to come out of the difficult moment.
How we respond to these challenges or what we do with them will determine how well we come out of them. You can either allow these challenges to build you up or push you down. You either allow them make you or mar you. Your responses and attitude in moments of challenges will determine how well you come out if it.
When we accept challenges with a positive mindset, we experience growth mentally, emotionally and psychologically. We come out well refined in life.
Challenges bring out the best in us. They make us realize the potentials we never knew we had or help us develop the ones we know we have.
I have come to realize that, the best version of ourselves come into display after we may have gone through difficult moments in life.
12. COMPLIMENT YOURSELF : Learn to compliment yourself for every goal achieved. You don't need to wait for anyone to validate you before you feel like you have achieved something in life. You need not wait for anyone to motivate you before you forge ahead. Learn to be first your own motivation before anyone else. You are doing much better than you think even when no one sees that.
13. CELEBRATE YOUR LITTLE WINS : After all said and done, never forget to celebrate your little wins. Celebrating your little wins motivate you to keep going on. It encourages you to want to do more and helps you realize you can do better.
Self-improvement is not a one off thing that yields result automatically but an ongoing process that leads to growth, contentement, joy and happiness in life.
Quote for the day - "Everyday is a chance to get better."
0 Comments