Faced with the task of improving our life, we perpetually stumble across myriad of advice out there that says what should our approach be like, what should we consciously engage ourselves into, what kind of habits should we adopt along the road.
And while all of this leads to an improvement in the end of the road, it’s usually the long run we are talking about.
That’s why we have the feeling that there is nothing we can do that can immediately change our current position in the game of self-improvement.
The thing is, there is.
Instead of worrying ourselves with all the things we should do in the beginning, we should start worrying about all the things that we shouldn’t do.
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1. Stop consuming too much information
If you are headed towards personal growth, then chances are that you, same as I and any other individual out there, are trying to consume as much information about it as you can.
Stop doing that.
You see, being creatures of comfort, our subconscious mind doesn’t allow us to change things and make progress. It rather forces us to procrastinate and stay in our comfort zone.
And this inherent nature of ours manifests itself in the form of reading rather than doing and asking rather than implementing the already known and familiar.
The moment you start implementing what you already know will change the game for you.
But in order to do that, you must first reduce your source of information, and take only as much as you can process at one time. -
2. Stop going to bed late, and waking up even later
If you are about to witness success in life, you must learn how to get up early. You will have more time, be more success oriented, more prepared for the day ahead. This is also a great remedy for stress, and actually the game changer in time management.
That being said we must all learn how to get up early, and stop wasting our time in the middle of the night doing nothing.
Stop delaying going to bed earlier and you will notice great benefits almost immediately.
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3. Stop finding excuses
We are prone towards looking for excuses, that’s just a habit of ours. Delaying things that must be done in order to improve, is something we are good at, but something that crushes our rate of improvement on the long run.
It seems like we are not only preserving status quo, but taking a step back whenever we were about to go forward.
For starters forget about excuses and go against them even if there are some. Try not to make one today at least.
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4. Stop complaining
Similar to the one above, this behavior is even more dangerous. By complaining we are assuming a victim status for ourselves, and over time we tend to identify with that status.
The end result of which, we are retrograding rather than improving.
Realize that you are in control of your life, and you shape it with your actions, thoughts.Learn how to stop complaining and assume control over your life. Once again, try not to make a single complaint today and notice how you immediately enter a different state of mind.
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5. Stop with all the unhealthy habits
It’s pointless to go for a hike, and then stop on the summit in order to light a cigarette. Pointless to exercise like a madman just to go out that night and eat as much as you can, drink more booze than you can handle.
Unhealthy food, not exercising, drinking too much, staring in the screen for too long… This will just hinder your improvement and you will never even have a chance in the start. Think about something that really corresponds to an anchor dragging you back and get rid of it.
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6. Stop being around people that don’t share your frequency
If you thought that self-improvement is confined to individualism, you were off by a long-shot.
You see, it’s hard nowadays to detach from society for better or for worse. But on one hand, having people around you that don’t share your passion for improvement will constantly drag you back, while on the other having people that are the same as you in terms of goals and aspirations, will push you forward a great deal.
The best thing to do is to get away from those who don’t share your frequency, and then it’s easier to attract the other ones. Don’t be afraid to say no to someone.
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7. Stop being obsessed with productivity
Being too much obsessed over productivity will prove counterproductive in the end of the day. You will realize in the end that beating your head in order to become more productive will in turn make you less productive, and trying to fight all that clutter all the time will create even more clutter.
Just take things easy, and stop being obsessed with being productive.
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8.Stop over doing
This one is similar to the one above, but different to a slight extent. You see, starting to improve we are quickly realizing the benefits of different approaches towards it.
We learn about how much of a benefit healthy diet can provide, how much difference can exercise make our life. What we must realize though is that everything is good only if not in excess.
I learned this the hard way, when couple of months ago I injured my knee trying to squeeze more running into my schedule while preparing for the 5K run, not resting my body enough.
Balance is the key to all success and happiness, so stop over doing.
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9. Stop being preoccupied with the lives of others
That’s why I use Facebook less, that’s why I try to embrace individualism as much as I can.
Being concerned with the lives of others is a powerful addiction that some people out there find very hard to overcome.
Being preoccupied with what is happening in the lives of people that we know is leaving us with less time to focus on our lives, our improvement. It also changes our mindset and makes us more talk oriented rather than action oriented.
If I was to give an advice what to do, I would advise you, same as myself, to turn more towards yourself, and reduce the sources of information that point towards the lives of other people.
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10. Forget about coziness, and leave your comfort zone
Nothing can be achieved if we leave things the same they were before. By that logic we must change them.
Change every aspect of our life as much as we can towards better. But change, being as it is, takes us out of our comfort zone and often giving us a headache.
As I like to say, we are creatures of comfort, and as such we tend to prevent change, trying to self-preserve status quo.
Therefore, we must realize that immediate comfort and pleasure must sometimes be sacrificed for better results in the end. Don’t avoid change on the basis that you are not comfortable enough with it.
Improvement is not something that is done overnight. And being an ongoing process, it can last long enough that we should replace random action with discipline and habit.
However, it’s useful to differentiate the things dragging us back when we give our best in order to sprint forward.
It’s pointless to try to improve, if you have a lot of weight tied to your tail, dragging you back.
Only by unloading all the baggage and abandoning all the negative habits can we really start to see some change in the path of self-improvement and in our lives as a whole.
Image credit by: MorBCN