The value of self-improvement

You might wonder why this website is named the daily habit.

Between all the core values to center our life within, and between all the keystone habits; there are two habits that I consider to be the solid foundation of any enterprise.

The foundation to pass from being a person whose life is just passing in front of them and become a goal getter, or a person truly satisfied and in love with their journey.

In my perspective those two values are self-awareness and self-improvement.

Self- awareness allows you to question your beliefs, your doubts, your scripts. It allows you to know yourself better and to understand why you do things the way you do them.

It makes you humble and open to learn. It is easier to develop emotional intelligence when you practice self-awareness.

I think about self-improvement like the daily habit for achieving success. Once the foundation of self-awareness is made, it takes daily consistency to work in self-improvement.

When you improve yourself, you improve everything around you as well; and indirectly you are making the world a better place.

How can you get started in a self-improvement journey?

Let's take a look at the basics.

1. Self-awareness: A good system to become more self-aware includes habits and practices like self-talk, positive self re-assurance, meditation, positive affirmations, journaling, introspecting, asking and answering certain questions such as:

Am I ok?, how can I handle x situation better?, what advice would I give to someone going through what I'm going? What should I stop doing in order to achieve what I want? Am I being fair with my partner? Am I being a good colleague?

2. Develop a system / Habits: I think the most important tool in any self-improvement goal or journey, it would be the development of a system or habits that will let you stick to your self-improvement path.  Developing systems and habits gives you a sense of direction and control when a situation comes up or when life happens.

You can develop systems to know well before hand, how you should react to certain situations; it might not work as expected the first couple of times, but it gives you a plan, and with time it will smooth your reactions and it will be worthy.

In terms of habits, the so called keystone habits should be the ones to develop first.

Keystone habits give you momentum which at the end it's a ripple effect. You change one thing, which starts to change your view about everything and it inspire you to change even more things.

3. Motivation is overrated.

That is the reason we try to develop good habits (step 3). It is very hard if not impossible to have a huge amount of motivation every single minute of life. As Mark Manson mentioned in his book the subtle art of not giving a f*ck; motivation should be seen as a reward rather than a requirement to start anything important in life. Developing a good system / habits allows you to just do it. It is almost automatic. And it is amazing.

Do you imagine a life where you don't have to wait to feel like doing something in order to get it done?. It saves you so many headaches, eliminates procrastination and when you start the task, you start feeling motivated and accomplished. It creates a sense of strength. A sense of overcoming what otherwise could have been procrastination. 

4. Nourish your body and soul: Any self-improvement journey should take into account improving your mental and physical health. Your health and your body is your primary resource to keep the good work going on.

If you get so focused in your goals or self-improvement journey that it starts to be detrimental to your health (sleeping less, eating bad), you need to consider how much this will affect your plans and journey sooner than later; and it is better to invest a couple of hours to get a good night sleep than getting burned out at the end of the month, and end up losing time, energy and health. Hopefully, with the first step "self-awareness" this shouldn't happen, since it should give you a big sense of self-preservation. But this is so important that I decided to make it an individual point.

                                  

5. Take the time to enjoy the fruits of your work before going to the next goal.

Someone told me recently, that it is OK to have the kind of personality that is looking to achieve, achieve, achieve all the time. Many of us when are done or have "mastered" something, we are prone to think "OK, what's next?". That's fine, but you should consider taking a time to breath and enjoy your results, to recognize your advances, to give yourself a pat on the back for the good work. You can be your best ally or worst enemy. Choose wisely.