What 2 Years Of Self-Improvement Has Taught Me

It has been roughly 2 years since I began the journey down the rabbit hole of self-improvement, along the way I have learned many things about not only myself but life as well. 

Deciding to inflict genuine change within myself was the best decision I have ever made, my life has completely changed since.

One blog wouldn’t be enough to talk about all of them, so I have chosen to write about a couple that have been at the forefront of my mind as of late.

Rising Standards 

Something I have recently come to learn is that self-improvement might just be a never-ending journey, which as I’m writing it, actually seems pretty obvious.

How can self-improvement have any sort of satisfying ending? Life is constantly changing, the circumstances we find ourselves in are forever evolving giving us a continuous array of mountains to climb.

Once you have reached the top of a mountain, you find out that it was only a false summit, or it only gives you the opportunity to see the next mountain. But what else are you going to do?

What would be a better option? Never starting the climb to begin with? Or sitting on top of a mountain with a cocktail in hand admiring the view for the rest of your life? Both options do not appeal to me.

Once we get used to a standard, or successfully overcome a challenge, it’s only natural to continuously look for the next.. Without something to face head on and attempt to overcome, we are stagnant, letting external things that are out of our control dictate what happens to us.

Recently, I have noticed this within myself. Whenever I reach a new standard, once I become used to a new level or I have reached the top of a mountain, I’m no longer okay.

I can’t explain the feeling, but it’s like a loss of purpose, a loss of reason. The ironic thing about it is it starts to make me question the point of anything, even the good things. The moment I identify a new mountain to climb, and commit to it, the feeling dissipates.

This will, I hope, be the fire and drive I need in order to get to where I want to be in life, or it could result in a lot of counselling and therapy someday. Either way, I love the climb, so I’m going to keep climbing.

It’s All A Consequence Of Action

What do we hope to achieve when deciding we’re going to commit to improving ourselves? To become a better person? Something I have learned on my own journey is that regardless of what it is you want to change, it will only be changed as a consequence of a corresponding action. 

Let's just choose some desired traits people hope to build:

Discipline: Discipline is doing what needs to be done, regardless of how you feel. But we start off without discipline, so the only way this trait is built is through taking action first. 

Self-belief/confidence: If you do not believe in yourself or are not confident, you have to give yourself reasons to change your mind, otherwise how are you going to convince yourself that you’re wrong? To build self-belief, do something, start small, succeed, do something harder, succeed, and on and on. In other words, take action. 

Purpose: Many people are looking for purpose, a reason to be on earth, a life's mission, but are struggling with the fact they haven’t found it yet. In order to see or find something you haven’t yet found, you need to do something you haven’t yet done. Through taking action and trying new things, you find what you’re looking for.

Although there are many more, these are three that have the power to propel people forward, through acquiring and building on these, we are then able to apply what we’ve learned to other traits we’d like to build. 

If you find yourself wanting to improve but not knowing where to start, the most important thing to do is something, it really does not matter what it is. If you choose the wrong thing, great, you’ve learned a valuable lesson that can be applied to the next thing. Just start somewhere, everything falls into place if you keep going.

By finding out what you don’t like, you subsequently find what you do like. 

Infestation

Self-improvement, once begun, starts to infest every aspect of your life like a plague. This sounds like it couldn’t possibly mean anything possible, but it does.

What I mean is once you start to improve some aspects of your life, you start to want to do the same in all aspects. 

Improving oneself can be completely addictive as after experiencing what it’s like to successfully change for the better, that feeling of achievement and success tends to be continuously sought after.

Although it tends to be mostly positive, I feel the need to mention the downsides of it too. The problem with many people when they begin self-improvement, and I’m speaking from experience, is that it’s difficult to know when to stop.

Self-improvement can and does get taken too far, people can start to beat themselves up for not completing something or for not making as many forward steps as they’d like. This is completely normal, but it does need addressing. It’s important in times like this to remind ourselves that if we truly want to continue bettering ourselves, it would be better to not cause enough stress that we stop altogether.

Remember that small steps every day for years are better than big steps for a month.