Blog for Self Improvement

There are particular moments in life that when you wish you could depend on anybody’s self improvement advice. But even if they gave it to you with the best intentions, in case anything goes wrong, you are always going to blame those persons.

That is why specialists strongly advise you, every time you find yourself at a crossroads, to always take the decisions by yourself.

The question arising is: how can we know how to take it and which is the best solution?

No matter how young or old you are, you must have gotten to a point in your life when you have to take a big decision, which will probably affect your entire existence.

There is no doubt that there are certain moments in life when you feel helpless and disoriented and believe you could use some self improvement advice in order to figure out how to proceed with your life.

The answer is never simple. However, there is one self improvement advice that can be of great help and employed regularly will have great results.

It is called meditation and it has been used for centuries in certain rituals and by ancients civilizations. Even in old and famous books, like the Bible, people are invited to meditate, to discover and fight the evil in us and by knowledge to gain control over our decisions and our lives.

How do we proceed when meditating?

First of all, you need to be away from any source of distraction. You cannot analyze your deepest feelings and thoughts and watch a movie at the same time.

Secondly, you need to ask yourself a series of questions that will help you to better determine who you really are. The questions should relate to everyday aspects.

What do you like doing?  

What made you most proud of yourself during your entire life?

What is it that you always wanted to do and you never found the time?

What role does money play in your life?

What is it more important for you, you family life or your career?

How much do you depend on others?

If you are worried about a certain decision, let all the questions be related to that issue. If you are just confused when asking the questions, think about the common topics that one has to deal with during his life.

Do not forget to write down the answers. Try to concentrate and to be sincere. After all, nobody will judge you.

All these questions will help you determine exactly where you stand and what is it that you want form life. All you have to do is to get the right interpretation of your own replies.

In order to do that, help yourself to a coup of tea or your favorite coffee and take the time to analyze them thoroughly. Mark with a red pen whatever you find pride worthy answers and with a black one the things that do not make you proud.

Post the list somewhere where you can see it more than once a day, or post it in more than one place.

You will notice that, step by step, even unwillingly, the black things on your list will start turning red. Do not forget to renew the list when most of it has turned red! It is the best way to always be aware what your expectations from life are.

Take this simple self improvement advice and see the positive results for yourself.

If only self improvement advice were free and scattered around everywhere, then there will be no problem regarding life, happiness and success. But then again, this is life. And it does not work that way.

What would you do if you are trapped in an environment that you do not want to be in?  What if you are sick and tired of your job?

What can we do to solve this dilemma?

It is possible to take inspired and motivated action to survive your present situation and live the life you always dreamed of.

It is not that easy though.  You will have to come out of your comfort zones to discover potentials and opportunities waiting for you.  You have to conquer your fear and take calculated risks. You have to stay focused and persevere despite the difficulties you will encounter.

Success does not come easy.  It takes heart, passion and time. Experience is also a factor. The learning you get everybody becomes your foundation. These are the things we do not need to pay for.

You have to work harder, dig deeper, and sacrifice more to attain your ambitions. But no, you do not have to hate the world and feel bad when you encounter difficult situation.  Just remember the Law of Attraction. If you hate the world, the world will hate you back.

What can you do? Below are some free advices to help you when facing difficult situations in life. They will also serve as your guide to improve yourself.

1. Learn to love your current situation.  See all the positive sides of life.  Be enthusiastic.  Love your boss, your coworkers, your family, your friends, and even strangers that you meet on the streets.

It may not be easy, but nothing is impossible with a strong will power. Just do not fall in love so much that you totally forget about your dreams. Love, but try to hold on to reality.

2. Balance is the key.  Dream and take some positive action to move you toward your goals. Take it one step at a time. 

While you are slowly starting on the long journey to success, be patient and be as enthusiastic as possible.  Do not hurry up too much that you totally forget how to enjoy life. Appreciate the beautiful things you will encounter on the journey.

One day, you will finally attain what you have always longed for.  But when that day comes, do not look down on those who belittled you. Forgive and forget.

3. Stay humble.  Do not criticize others when you see that you are becoming more successful than they are. Try to help them.  Inject your positive aura into their personalities.  When you give, you will yield back equal or greater rewards.

4. Are you ready to begin the journey?  Start it with the courage and desire to improve your life. Survive and go through it with persistence, enthusiasm, and positive thinking.  Finish it with a resounding bang of accomplishment and with the desire to help others succeed as well.

There are many other self improvement advice that will get as you get on with your daily life. Take note that you are not alone. There are others in much more difficult situations. That is why is there will be a shortage of free advice about self improvement you can get from other people who are only too happy to help.

Have you ever made up your mind to do something, did it and then had disappointing, lackluster results?

Well, you're definitely not alone in that.

Recently, I came to realize that there are people who make up their minds to do something and take "Action" right away, only to become defeated and never look back and stick with their idea. Tjhey don't achieve the results that they desire and self improvement and sucess seem a distant dream.

You see, the problem is not necessarily with the idea but rather in their need for immediate gratification and taking "Action" right away. Immediate gratification has become so inherent in our society that even "Action" has become a problem just like fast food and diet pills.

Sure, there are entire billion dollar industries built on fulfilling the need for immediate gratification but, sometimes the cost is too high and often it is more than just money.

I've personally seen men with reputable and thriving businesses make such immediate gratification "Action" decisions and lose the trust and money of the customers that they worked years to acquire. They ruin the success they worked hard to achieve.

Our personal lives and businesses are not the only things that are affected by such decisions. Our customers and family are too.

In the end there is really only one course of "Action" that should be taken and it is often not even considered. It is "EFFECTIVE ACTION" that makes all of the difference in our lives and businesses. Strange?

Effective Action can only be taken and applied when we use the SMART Goal Setting Principle with a twist.

SMART = Specific + Measurable + Achievable + Realistic + Timely

Specific: A goal needs to be exact and clearly stated. Vague and general terms are not goals. Your brain needs to focus on a specific target.

Measurable: How do you know when the goal is completed? When stating your goal you should state how you are going to measure when it is complete. If you don't know the measurement then you will never know that you have achieved it.

Achievable: Your goal must be attainable. If you have not learned what you need to know in order to attain your goal, then you must either learn it and then apply or find someone to assist you that already knows what you don't. Think about past achievements or failures in your life and apply some of the lessons that you learned.

Realistic: Being realistic is a bit tricky. What may be realistic for you may not be realistic for others. You can see this truth throughout your life. Keep your goal within boundaries that you set and upgrade how realistic it is as you get closer or achieve more.

Timely: Keep a specific time of day for working towards your goal. In addition to that, keep a timeline of when you intend on completing each portion of your goal. Keep track of each item completed and when. Tracking is an essential element in achievement.

The twist in taking Effective Action is in the asking of specific questions. The questions are not asked of others but they rather are asked of you!

For example, if you wanted to lose weight and didn't have a lot time to exercise; your question would be:

Q - What is the most time efficient or effective way for me to lose weight through exercise?

A - The most time efficient way would be through interval training or sprint training type of activites that involve little time and maximum effort, which result in maximum fat loss.

Thanks to the information age and your own subconcious mind, the answers are available but you just have to ask them.

Effective Action involves a little planning, thought, and question asking but, the results will be available as proof that this method is better than just taking plain "Action."

So in the end it is "Effective Action" that gets the results you want and they are not always immediate. Self Improvement and Success are guaranteed!

Copyright 2008 Rasheed Ali

Rasheed Ali was once homeless and penniless on the streets of New York and is now helping to change the lives of THOUSANDS of people around the world with his innovative coaching, mentoring and newsletters. He is the worlds first Solution Coach and 80/20 Mentor. You can learn more about him and his newsletters at http://www.SleepYourWayToRiches.com

There's no doubt about it: Self Improvement is big business. No matter where we look we seem to see men attired in business suits and fancy haircuts. Sporting dinky little ear-piece microphones, they speak to us as though we were attending the annual general meeting of their multi-national self-development business which, I suppose, isn't that far from the truth. They speak to us in sound-bites; "I'm gunna show you how…", "you just need to follow my plan: no thought required; just follow the plan". Success and winning, they preach to the audience, are a sure thing.

But is self development a sure thing? If, like me, you believe self development is a life journey that is never completed, you know that the only sure thing is that the search for self development is far from being a sure thing. The journey will entail more failures than successes, more loss than gain and more self-doubt than we think we can endure. The only way to improve one's self is to challenge the habits and assumptions we have gathered along the way. To go out on a limb with no guarantee of finding what we want takes courage. No ‘success plan' would contemplate such a course of action!

So, if we can't get succor from the self improvement ‘gurus', who can we turn to?

The answer, I believe, is to look to the people who have always explored every single aspect of the human condition. They did not always find the answer, but they all had courage. They are of course, the world's artists.

How can a painting help us toward our goal of self improvement you might ask? Well, some paintings help to bring serenity and a feeling of inner peace; I feel this whenever I look at an Impressionist painting, especially paintings by Berthe Morisot. She was never recognized as a great artist during her lifetime; she was relegated to the category of "feminine" artists because of her usual subject matter — women, children, and domestic scenes. Her paintings are intensely intimate. She is an example of someone who never gave up on pursuing what she thought was worth while despite being largely ignored.

Jackson Pollock instills different but equally powerful feelings. I used to believe all modern artists "just throw a bit of paint on a canvas and call it art". My preconceptions were swept away when I was lucky enough to attend an exhibition devoted to his work. His paintings were beautiful and challenged the way I look at a painting. The search for your inner self is all about challenging your currently held notions.

Music is probably the easiest of the arts for us to accept as an aid toward our search for self development. How often does a certain piece of music make us feel happy, relaxed, romantic, hopeful, fulfilled? You name it, music hits all the buttons. My favourite music is anything by Beethoven. His music makes me feel all of the aforementioned. He was a man who accepted nothing less than perfection. He sort redemption through his music. Ultimately, he didn't find it and he spent much of his life feeling alone. But his courage of conviction made his life, and countless others, a better thing. His last words were "Applaud, my friends, the comedy is over."

Perhaps our greatest inspiration comes from writers. They have helped me, and millions of others, to find the inner self. Life would be a much poorer experience without our great writers. I won't name all the writers that have inspired me; there are too many. But if there was one thing I would urge you to do, it is to read. If you're not sure who to read then go to a library and ask! Tell the librarian what it is that you want to experience, feel or learn when you read a book. They'll help you; don't let shyness defeat you. If you can't get to a library then join a reading club on the internet. The one thing I have found is that people, who love to read, love to help others to read books.

So, forget about buying into those testosterone, succeed-at-all-costs seminars, ebooks and DVDs. Go and look at a painting; or lie on the sofa and listen to music, maybe dance wildly to it, cry with it, make love in time to it; or curl up and read a book that will take you where you never thought possible.

You may not get to where you wished, but Art will accompany you every single step of the way.

Robin O'Brien is the founder and editor of
http://www.selfimprovementtechniques.com

I have no doubt that there are many people out there who are searching for ways of improving their overall quality of life. We have no divine right to be happy of course but on the other hand we should not just sit back and accept second best. I am the type of person who basically just wants to be happy, I have no desire to become mega rich, but what I am looking for, and at the moment have achieved, is an inner peace.

When looking into ways and ideas of improving my life, I ask myself a series of questions:

What areas of my life am I not happy with?

What can I do to improve my life?

Am I happy with my current role of employment?

Am I happy with my current financial situation?

Am I happy in the relationship that I have with my girlfriend?

How could my life become easier and more stress-free?

These are just a few of many questions that I ask myself and I have listed them purely as an example.

In the past, I would always become quite stressed at around the start of the year. This was because I have a son who has a birthday in November, then of course in December is the celebration of Christmas. These two events would leave me with a bit of a financial headache as I have to admit that I tend to spoil my family and go a bit overboard on the spending.

I did not want to reduce the amount that I spent on their presents or on the social aspect of Christmas or my sons birthday and instead started to look for a solution to this financial stress which as previously stated would occur in January

What I eventually decided that I would do, which now seems just like common sense, was to save as much as I could every month. I would have a certain figure in mind that I wanted to save, as I was aware that I needed to live and have some fun throughout the year as well. By the time November came around on the next year, I had rather a nice amount of money in the bank, which basically made both events even more enjoyable than previous years. This was because I had an inner peace of mind. When January came around I was fine as I had no debts or financial worries. This form of saving is something that I now do every year.

With each and every question I ask myself, I always attempt to find a solution similar to the way I did in the above example. If my girlfriend is annoying me for whatever reason I try and talk to her. I tell her what the issues are and also ask if there is anything that I am doing that annoys her. This is done in a very light hearted manner, so as to not cause more damage etc.

I have now reached a stage of my life where I am quite content with what I have. I am able to sleep soundly at night and am very much looking forward to the future. I have achieved an inner peace and now just have to work hard to make it stay that way. Life at times is a battle and the negative part of my brain tries hard to ruin me. I am determined to stay strong and focused to ensure that I ignore this negative voice and that I continue to listen to the positive side of my brain.

If you are one of these people who are not happy or content with your life at the moment, I am sure that by asking yourself a series of questions and then trying to find your own solutions, that you will also be able to find your own inner peace.

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