I love bettering myself. What’s the point of life if not to grow as a human and to become the very best you can be? For me, that looks like a lot of different things: becoming more efficient, managing my time better, eating healthier, being fit, reducing my carbon footprint, etc. I’ve watched documentaries, collected autobiographies of those I admire, read self-help books, and basically just consumed everything I think could potentially be relevant in hopes finding those little nuggets of wisdom. That process is unfortunately like finding a needle in a haystack – the vast majority of the self-help industry is just aesthetically pleasing covers with pop-culture references about concepts we’ve heard a million times over. So, if we already know the answers, why aren’t they sticking? Why isn’t every person who’s ever read a self-help book perfect?
In my experience, the answer is simple – when you finish reading a book, you put it down and move on. All of the concepts in those books only work if you implement them into your daily routine and practice them until they become habitual. But change is hard and very often, we’re looking to erase bad habits that are so ingrained in our lives that we need a full sixty days to just break that habit, never mind even replacing it with a new one. We fail not because we’re weak, but because we were never even set up to succeed! Through trial-and-error, plenty of time during the pandemic, nuggets I’ve collected over the years, and my sports psychology classes (I love them so much), I’ve finally found a process that works for me. It’s not perfect and it means nothing unless you put work into it, but I wanted to share some steps I’ve used to create lasting, positive change.
This entire article might not do anything for you. You might pull a small nugget from it that helps you form your own process. You might love the entire thing. Nonetheless, for those on a journey of self-improvement, I’ve learned that everything adds value, even if it’s simply realizing that something definitely doesn’t work for you. Let’s get into it.
- Deciding What you Want
This seems like it should be obvious, but I realized that for the most part when I read self-help books, I approached them with a fairly broad mindset of just wanting to become better. What does that even mean? What does a perfect person look like to you? For me, it’s waking up early, getting work done ahead of time, working out every day, spending time with family, and making time for activities that fill my bucket. Before you can create lasting change, you need to actually define what you think that perfect person look like and honestly assess whether or not it’s something you think you can achieve.
2. Assess What You’re Already Doing
It’s also hard to create change if you don’t exactly know what it is you want to change and why. I knew I wanted to improve my time management and efficiency every day, so I had to take a deeper look into where I was spending time and where I was losing time each day. For my class, we had to complete a daily time log, in which we recorded everything we did in a day and for how long. I recorded three days and found that on certain days, I was really good at managing my time and getting tons of things done! Others…not so much.
I’d get lost on social media or procrastinate longer assignments that I was dreading. I started focusing on the habits and tendencies of those “bad” days. I found that I got less done on days that I laid in bed scrolling through social media for thirty minutes after my alarm went off. Those days I also tended to not outline a list of tasks for the day and very often ended up not working out. By doing this, I identified some problem areas that I could focus on changing.
If you’re interested in trying out the time management activity, send me an email at tspence210@gmail.com and I’ll share it with you for free, along with my own examples!
3. Be Honest with Yourself
In a perfect world, when we decided to make changes, we’d snap our fingers and magically be more fit or eat healthier. We don’t live a perfect, easy world. As naturally self-centered beings, we have a tendency to overestimate our own abilities. This is often where I struggle the most and place the most judgement on myself. Say I decide that I want to start waking up before 7:30am, so I simply set my alarm and assume I’ll get up despite the fact that I might have been waking up at 9am for the past few months. When I end up hitting snooze every morning, I’m frustrated and eventually give up, claiming I’ll never be a morning person.
It’s not surprising that I’ve failed, I’ve set goals that are really hard to achieve for where I’m at right now. It is critically important that you remove judgement from your goals and go easier on yourself when you’re trying to change up daily routines. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t set goals that challenge us – just know that we’re creatures of habit and those can be really hard to break. There’s something to be said for getting in the habit of creating change, but until you can acquire that skill for quicker, bigger changes, be honest with yourself about what you can accomplish given your current circumstances.
4. Do the Damn Thing
This is the hardest step with the potential to be incredibly rewarding. This is when you work to hold yourself accountable as you push through that uncomfortable period of change. The most important part of this step is to remember that change isn’t always a linear process – there will be days that you don’t work out or continue to procrastinate on that impending assignment, and that’s ok! When we punish ourselves for our perceived failures, we make ourselves less likely to bounce back and continue working towards our goals. There’s a difference between holding ourselves accountable and punishing ourselves. Make your comeback stronger than your setback and leave those self-deprecating thoughts behind.
5. Keep Track
People (and especially athletes) are good at improving measurable things. Write your goals down and keep track of when you achieve them. It could be something as simple as putting a checkmark on your calendar for every day that you ate healthier. We’re so much more likely to accomplish goals that we write down and who doesn’t love that boost of serotonin when you cross something off a list or put a checkmark next to something? Keeping track also allows you to reevaluate your goals, enabling you to either challenge yourself further or dial back a little.
Parker’s Bonus Tip: Know Your Cheat Codes
You know yourself best, so use that knowledge to your advantage – what are the things that motivate you? Or better yet, how can you trick yourself into motivation? It can be something as silly as playing your favorite hype-up music while you do chores or more seriously, hydrating the day before a big run, so that you can’t use dehydration as an excuse to give up the next day. Use everything at your disposal to give yourself the best shot at success as you can.
If change was easy, everyone would do it and we wouldn’t have such a booming self-help industry. Talking control of your life is such an empowering feeling, but at the end of the day, the advice I give doesn’t matter. It comes down to whether or not you’re willing to put in the work. Are your goals worth the discomfort?
Today’s post is dedicated to my Great Aunt Linda, who was a constant beacon of positivity throughout my entire life.