Self-Improvement means enhancing your own value or worth.

Self-Improvement is the process where you learn from the mistake of yours or others and be a better version of yourself. Where to begin is the problem many of us face right now. How and where to begin the improvement journey, what changes small or big should we apply in life.

The main problem is information overload which the majority of the population face during self-improvement.

When we think about Self-Improvement suddenly many factors come at once like-meditation, gym, confidence, communication skills, and many more and our mind can’t decide on that which leads to freezing. Here the procrastination comes on the way, we procrastinate work on the next day and so on…

Before starting the Self-Improvement journey Identify yourself with four simple steps:

Write down the following answer in notebook:

Start with an introspection. Ask yourself what you need to improve to get a better life and success. Write down all the things on paper. If possible, make a chart.

Find a solution on how to get those skills and procedures by researching on google. Having proper research and ideas is important.

Find a good source to learn those skills. Example: if you are lacking humor watch the best t.v shows and comedians on youtube.

Get the inspiration at a regular interval to be motivated by youtube or TEDx. Start moving to your goal slowly and slowly.

Here is the first step to self-development :

Make a chart in which making two-column one is what you want to improve in yourself and another is an obstacle you would face or the procedure for achieving that goal.

If you try to write the whole thing which is in your mind suddenly you are getting the path to achieve.
Improvement Obstacle/Steps/procedure
Looking good Hitting Gym-Get a Gym Membership

Contents [hide]

0.1 Take a Baby Steps:(First steps to Self-Improvement)
0.2 Say NO To Procrastinate:
0.3 Find a permanent source of happiness:
0.4 Meditation:
0.5 How to meditate?
0.6 Basic Technique for meditation:
0.7 Where to meditate?
0.8 What should be the position of your body?
0.9 How long should I meditate?
0.10 Social Anxiety:
0.10.1 Some points to keep in mind for good body language
0.11 How to move your body?
0.12 Reading:
0.13 Being kind and Funny:
0.13.1 Giving Back to Society: Is the best way to be kind
0.14 How to be funny?
0.15 Communication Skills:
1 Pick up a new hobby and adding skills:
1.1 Overcome your fears
1.2 Workout for Self-Improvement
1.3 Share this:
1.4 Like this:

Take a Baby Steps:(First steps to Self-Improvement)

Start your self-improvement journey with small things with easy obstacles. Because if you face hard obstacles at very first you would definitely procrastinate. So start with an easy goal or realistic goal. Having a vision is important but a realistic goal is more dominant.

After making the chart, start with small and practice it daily-

Always start with small changes to organize your surroundings. Like cleaning your smartphone junk, cleaning your p.c, cleaning your room, making your bed, etc.

Tackling small obstacles will increase your confidence level, willpower, and you would become more disciplined. You won’t feel the power of these small changes but long term it makes drastic changes.

Organizing things gives you mental clarity and makes you focus.

Having perfection in the self-improvement journey is unrealistic and imaginary. No one gets perfection in anything. The Fact is you improve day by day and be perfect from older you.
Say NO To Procrastinate:

Stop Procrastinating: Use 3…2…1 Rule to get any task completed with focus.

3…2…1…Rule: Whenever you have an impulse to act on a goal, you must do so within 3 seconds otherwise your brain will kill the idea and you will start to procrastinate. So the next time you want to get started on something, count down in your head: 3, 2, 1 — and go!!

STEPS:

Any task in which you are thinking again and again while doing some other task.
Start to count 3…2…1 when you say 1 stop there and stop whatever you are doing.
Complete your leftover task which makes you unfocus from the present.

The main aim to stop procrastinating is to live in the present.

Like if you are hungry then count 3…2…1 and go for some food. If you are watching T.V and thinking about the mail you have to reply count 3…2…1 and do it right now.

The main purpose of this rule is to stop procrastinating. Make it a habit. This rule acts as a stimulus for the brain, as we need someone at every moment to guide ourselves. By this rule, you challenge your own mind and nothing is as important as defeating your own mind.
Find a permanent source of happiness:

How to be Happy is the primary and most important aspect of life. Many billionaires aren’t happy with the money they earn, they don’t have the inner satisfaction and their whole life passes away with working and earning money. There is some temporary source of happiness but it won’t last forever. As self-development is a life-long journey.

Wanting: It is something you need for temporary happiness, it will decrease with time.

Suppose as a teenager, when you get your first smartphone or laptop you would be really super happy but with time passes by your source of happiness changes and it is natural. Thus wanting is not a criterion of happiness.
Happiness Vs Time Graph

One of the best source of happiness is meditation and calming the mind:
Meditation:

Mindfulness is the key to happiness from the inside. The majority of people train physically their body but not their brains. They always complain about not improving. Train the hell brains as you do to your body. The best and effective method is meditation. As there are enormous scientific studies on meditation which I am not going to discuss.

Benefits of adapting meditation:

Physically changes your brain: Studies say that meditation for just 8 weeks increases brain size in three beneficial areas.

Basically, you train all your cognitive aspects of the brain. Take 8 weeks’ challenge to see changes.

Left Hippocampus is responsible for learning ability, ability to retain information.

Posterior cingulate cortex is responsible for ability to control how your mind wanders.

Temporoparietal Junction is responsible for compassion, empathy.

Amygdala is responsible for fear, stress, anxiety,emotions, survival instincts.

For self-development you don’t need to learn those terms.It is for making fact more science based and proven.

It reduces bad emotions: Stress, Depression, Anxiety. Meditation helps you to manage stress, decreasing the side effect of stress.

Little stress is good as it builds pressure on you and pushes you to cross your limit to achieve the goal.

Helps you to overcome bad habits: Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex is responsible for will power. Meditation stimulates growth in this part of the brain.

It helps to concentrate and focus. It increases the ability to focus.

Extremely healthy: Meditation decreases the amount of C-Reactive Protein in the blood and drops in inflammation in the body decrease blood pressure.

Meditation protects the length of your telomeres and slows down Aging.

It makes you happier. Meditation produces positive emotions.

How to meditate?

There are different types of meditation, so start with mindfulness or start to focus on breathing techniques to remain the focus. Learn from youtube. Usually, I prefer meditation songs to remain the focus.
Basic Technique for meditation:

Observe the feeling of air flowing through your nose.

Observe the transition between inhale and exhale.

Thought wonders when you meditate but take back your focus to observing the breath.
Where to meditate?

You can meditate anywhere while lying on the bed, sitting on the couch, etc. But the ideal way to meditate is to sit on the floor with a straight back, it will keep you awake.
What should be the position of your body?

Leg/Feet should be Criss-crossed or on top of each other.

Arms/Hands should rest on your thighs. Hands relaxed on top of each other can be cupped’

Head facing forward with Eyes closed recommended for beginner/easier to focus.
How long should I meditate?

Time becomes slow for the newcomers, they wonder about how much time left for the session every moment. Start with 5 minutes and aim for 10-20 minutes daily. 10 minutes is optimum.
Social Anxiety:

The majority of people have social anxiety as we always worried about everyone except yourself. Lack of confidence is the primary reason for social anxiety. We are always worried about what others think. Analyzing Body language is a way to get rid of similar anxiety. So try to improve your body language to self-improvement.
Some points to keep in mind for good body language

Your feet should be shoulder-width apart and your toes pointing outwards the person to whom you are taking.

Closed body language shows lack of confidence, defense, fear.

Open body language shows to relax, calm, confident.

Hands and arms: Do not lock your hands, do not insert your hands in your pockets, do not hold hands to another one, do not hold the cup in front of the chest. Put your hand relaxed on the side of the torso.

The chest is the area where most people tend to have issues with. Chest out with shoulders back, neck in line with the body. Use hands while talking makes you more approachable

Head should be heading forward, up head shows arrogant and down shows submissive

Eye contact is crucial for portraying confidence, follow 80/20 rule- holds 80% of the time and 20% to wander the vision. Makes you confident and interested during an interaction

The 80/20 rule prevents you from coming off as creepy or too strong.

Smile: smiling with teeth with all the time seems forced, the subtle grin projects aura of overall well being and happiness.
How to move your body?

The shower you move the more confident you look. Slower means more approachable and confident like you are the boss.
Reading:

People always learn from the surrounding. The more time you spend with others the more you learn mindset skills from others. It is said the more you spend time with successful people the more you learn from them.

If you don’t know any of the successful people around you then books play a major role in that. A book is a summary of the whole life of a person that no one can teach. You can learn from their mistake. idea, mindset, experience. 75% self-made millionaires reported they read at least 2 books a month.

You should read to train your mind as you workout to train your body. Reading rewires your neurons and fibers of your brain. Reading a book once a month is equivalent to doing a workout a day in a month. Challenge yourself to read books daily. Click Here to know about speed reading and level up your self-improvement journey.
Being kind and Funny:

Being kind and generous is important to live to fullest and for inner peace.
Giving Back to Society: Is the best way to be kind

Self-development is not selfish. When you take control of your own life, you’re not only improving yourself but also improving relationships and life to become a better parent, partner, son, daughter, and professional.

By improving yourself, you didn’t only improve your life but also influence the other’s lives. Example: To become financially independent you contribute to your family expenses that are the first step to give it back to society.

We always complained about the country organization and want to see change. But we just don’t want to be the one to change. Stop being average and change other’s lives.

Bring a smile on other’s faces which is the best inner satisfaction. Start contributing to society by helping NGOs or educate others by spreading the right knowledge.
How to be funny?

Humor-the ability to surprise the audience by creating a connection between things. Improve your humor to develop funniness in yourself.

Some kind of Humor and delivery:

Exaggeration- It is the easy form of humor. Just take an observation about something and exaggerate it way out of proportions. The more Absurd the comparison the funnier it is.

Misdirection-When you lead people to believe a conversation is going in one way and then you surprise them by going a completely different way.

Storytelling-Unexpected punchlines.,funny events depend on your story telling.

Teas-Point something about a person and poke fun at it.You have to be very careful about teasing people because it can easily come off as mocking. Have good intentions behind the jokes, don’t try to humiliate anyone.

Sarcasm: Say something that is obviously the opposite of what you are thinking.

Puns: Exploit the different possible meanings of a word or words that sound alike but have different meanings.

Role play: You pretend to be someone or something else, It’s even more fun when people get what you’re doing and pretend with you. This works fine with children.

Improve deliver: smile or smirk/ Never be the first person to laugh at your joke. Adjusts the humor to the audience.

Nervous body language will kill your fun vibe, avoid talking too fast, don’t fidget, open up your body, have confident body language, and tonality.
Communication Skills:

The best way to be good at communication skills is to Be efficient with your speaking, try to eliminate all fillers like.umm, you know, I guess, we’ll ah those are useless.

Use pauses instead of fillers.

Conversation threading is an ability to branch off into different topics.

Use statements instead of questions.

Have a good intention behind conversation.

Pick up a new hobby and adding skills:

Learning something new requires you to stretch yourself in different aspects, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally.

It is a refreshing moment to learn something new and out of your comfort zone, it may be cooking, pottery, Italian cooking, dancing, wine appreciation, web design, singing, guitar, or any sports.

Trust me it really helps to relieve from mental stress and get you out of a normal schedule. Time becomes slower while learning something new.

Do research about your interest and write down on paper with a learning source. Click Here if you want to know more about side-hustle.
Overcome your fears

All of us have some fears. Fear of uncertainty, fear of public speaking, fear of losing something, fear of talking in front of others mate, fear of risk, etc.

All our fears prevent us from growing. I know it is not an easy task and it takes time.

Like if you are afraid of public speaking then work on public speaking. I always think of fears as the compass for growth. With fear, you can’t live life to the fullest. Basically overcoming fear is the main aspect of self-improvement.
Workout for Self-Improvement

The workout is the majority of the most simple and favorable changes people do. Believe me, hitting the gym or doing some intensive activities change your overall appearance and confidence.

Working out teaches us discipline, moral values, hardworking, analyzing, time management. Unintentionally you improve your life skills. Hitting the gym for an hour is enough.

Author's Bio: 

Y.C.C

We're passionate about finding the proven ideas about Productivity, Life Growth, Social Skills and Personal Development. Want to know how to become successful in life. That's what we're here to help you with.