Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.
- Mark Twain
The denotation of self-improvement is pretty self-descriptive: Self-improvement is the improvement of one's character, knowledge, or status by one's own strive. It's the pursuit to make ourselves better in any and every facet of life.
The world we live in requires constant improvement, which may sometimes be very stressful.
Self-improvement almost always starts with self-awareness and the ability to transform your habits.
"One need self-awareness before he can achieve self-improvement."
There are various ways for self-refinement:
-Wake up early.
-Get out of your comfort zone.
-Meditate.
-Be grateful.
-Think in a positive manner.
-Let go of negative patterns.
-Pick up a new hobby.
-Start reading books.
-Overcome your fears.
-Acknowledge your flaws.
-Write a letter to your future self.
-Set Big Hairy Audacious Goals.
-Quit a bad habit.
-Cultivate a new habit.
-Avoid negative people.
-Learn to deal with difficult people.
-Commit to your personal growth.
-Turn your limitations into opportunity.
Life should be full and meaningful, with abundant opportunities for growth, success, and happiness. But instead, you're probably faced with burdening constraints that lock you down like deadlines, never-ending todo lists, low energy levels, and the expectations of others.
Limitations are a part of life, but you don’t have to live in their shadow.
Therefore, pick one or a few to start doing today.
If you want to see yourself improving, you must take some actions.
You all may have read many inspirational stories, as these are powerful reads.
The great thing about them is that they’re so easy to understand, and there’s always a moral at the end of the story.
Whether they’re true stories or not is another thing, as many of them are legends supposedly hundreds of years old.
However, the stories that I’m talking about are so powerful and inspirational that many of them really do get you thinking and even leave you speechless at times.
I’ve been reading plenty of these short stories in the past couple of weeks and found the lessons behind them truly wonderful. So I have decided to share one of them with you.
"The Elephant with Rope"-
A gentleman was walking through an elephant camp, and he spotted that the elephants weren’t being kept in cages or held by the use of chains.
All that was holding them back from escaping the camp, was a small piece of rope tied to one of their legs.
As the man gazed upon the elephants, he was completely confused as to why the elephants didn’t just use their strength to break the rope and escape the camp. They could easily have done so, but instead, they didn’t try to at all.
Curious and wanting to know the answer, he asked a trainer nearby why the elephants were just standing there and never tried to escape.
The trainer replied;
“when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”
The only reason that the elephants weren’t breaking free and escaping from the camp was that over time they adopted the belief that it just wasn’t possible.
Moral of the story:
No matter how much the world tries to hold you back, always continue with the belief that what you want to achieve is possible. Believing you can become successful is the most important step in actually achieving it.