Is Self Improvement Necessary?

The are a lot of people out there that think that self improvement is of no importance, use or value. They believe that the self improvement industry itself is bogus; That all self improvement coaches are taking your money and results are never achieved. Everyone is entitled to their opinion for sure. However, the fact remains that if we want to make a positive change in our lives, self improvement is necessary. We can wish or just hope. This will not help us change for the better. Action is needed.

What am I Improving?

In order to create something in our lives, we need to go from point A to point B. Where I am now to where I want to be. For example, if we want to improve our relationships, how do we do this? There obviously is a way, right? We can think about it, but to obtain certainty of a method that would work to achieve our goal of improved relationships, we could simply go to the library (for free) and read books about the subject. So, what has occurred? We had a need to fulfill. We decided that we wanted to fulfill the need and, we sought a method for improving ourselves to obtain that result. The rest is all about applying the method and noticing if we are getting the desired results.

What if I Fail?

I have great news! We can only totally fail if we stop trying to get the result. We must keep trying until we get the result. Why do most people give up? From my experience and learning, we stop trying because we start to associate a lot of pain to not getting the result we wanted. Most people do this after the first or second attempt. I have a question for you: What if we associated more pain to the consequences of not getting the result we wanted? That would motivate us to keep trying, right? So failure comes only when we give up. Remember, just because you did not produce the result you wanted, does not mean you are not improving yourself and it does not mean that you are a failure. What it means is that you now know what does not work and you can move on to produce another result that can get you what you want. See - you are improving!

Constant Self Improvement is the Key

So what does self improvement do? From my experience, self improvement is about learning to conduct ourselves in a manner that helps us achieve our personal goals. These goals are in our health, relationships, spirituality, finances, career, communication, beliefs, contribution and leisure time. For example, if all I want to do is wake up in the morning, peek in on my kids and kiss my wife before I embark on an hour commute to work and then return back home after 10-11 hours - I am fully entitled to live this way, if I want to. I know this is a generalization, but if I wanted to improve this situation, I would need to change something. I would have to look at the beliefs I have that are driving my behavior. Is it fear of failure or loss that is driving me to live this way? Am I afraid that my boss will not give me a good raise if I leave work too early (based on his beliefs)? The question that I would ask is, what can I do to improve this situation? From my experience, improvement starts from within. Self improvement begins with changing our thinking. Our thoughts are causes that are put into effect by our actions, which yield the results in our lives and literally create our destiny! To improve our lives then, we must improve our way of thinking.

Final Thoughts

Self improvement is useful as you can see from the examples in this article. If you want something bad enough, you can only achieve it if you believe you can. Remember, if you believe that you cannot do something, you are absolutely right! Believing that you cannot do something will stop you dead in your tracks. You will not even attempt. Imagine if Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein or anyone for that matter believed that what they wanted was not possible. These people were not considered geniuses because they were born that way. They made distinctions through and through in their lives from facts! The facts are that everything that has come into existence on this earth has come from human thought and action. The pyramids, skyscrapers, space travel, cell phones, you name it. If there is a will, there is usually a way. Facts can never be refuted. The law of cause and effect is always working – we need to learn, evaluate and take action to improve our lives and it all starts within ourselves.