Principles of Self Improvement

Introduction

Before we dive into the how, it is beneficial to establish an understanding of the Principles of Self Improvement. By articulating the importance of Taking Ownership, Focus, Practicality, Learning and Adapting, Patterns, and Motivation I hope to equip you with a philosophy of self improvement that will guide you when you need direction beyond my general explanation of process.

Taking Ownership

At the very core of self improvement is the idea of taking ownership. When you engage in self improvement, you are implicitly acknowledging that you have agency to make decisions that will affect your life in either a positive or negative way. Therefore, we can conclude you have some control and responsibility for your own success.

It is up to you to take advantage of the time and opportunities you have to work toward your desired goals. You might not be able to accomplish everything you want, and you will fail and make mistakes along the way, but it is only through active ownership of your self improvement that you will be able to live your best life.

You Have Agency

To start, we all acknowledge at some level that we have the autonomy to make decisions that either make our lives better or worse. We can engage in common self improvement activities like workout, eat better, and get more sleep, or we can watch tv all day, eat junk food, and stay up late on social media. Those are the extremes, and most people are somewhere in the middle, but the point here is that we have the ability to choose. You have agency. Your fate is your own to write.

Opportunity Cost

Every second of our day is a resource. Whether consciously or not, we spend that time. Maybe we spend it on work, sleep, watching tv, working out, reading a book, posting on social media, or any other thing, but the important point is that we are making a decision to spend that time doing one thing over every other thing we could do.

This is the idea of opportunity cost. You aren’t just deciding to spend time watching TV, you are also deciding not to spend that time working out, reading a book, or calling a friend. And so while you might not think too much of optimizing our decisions every moment, we should be aware that, with better self awareness, we could be getting more for our time.

Decisions Aligned with Goals

So if we agree that we have the agency to choose, and we understand that time is a valuable resource, we should want to make deliberate decisions on how we spend our time that best align with our personal goals such that we are getting the most from our lives. We should want to optimize. The problem I often see is that many of us have not taken the time to reflect critically on what we want, set goals for ourselves, and make a plan to get there. As such, it is hard to understand what the best way to spend our time is. How do we improve if we don’t know what we are aiming for and how to get there?

The Cost of Not Taking Ownership

While you might not be consciously aware that you want a better job, to be more in shape, or have a better relationship, if someone sat you down and forced you to think about it, you would certainly come up with clear goals for your life. So while they might be undefined in your head, you do have goals for yourself. And it would follow that if you are not aware of and consciously working toward your goals, you are unconsciously failing to make the best decisions toward achieving your goals.

You are not going to hit a target you don’t aim for, and you won’t realize you have been wasting your time until that fact has become too inescapably obvious to ignore. So you can either approach your life aware of your personal ambitions, taking on the risk of failure, or leave your goals undefined, protecting yourself from knowing when you fail, but you will be failing nonetheless.  

So Take Ownership!

Taking ownership is about accepting that we do have some control over our own lives and that we are in some part responsible for setting goals and working toward them. I understand there are a lot of people who don’t feel like they have control or they don’t want to hear that they are responsible for their situation, but taking ownership, understanding that you are responsible for your life, is the first, necessary step to self improvement.

Focus

Once we understand the importance of taking ownership over our lives, the next logical question would be what to focus on. Simply put, where to focus and invest your time requires consideration of two factors: the degree of control you have and the value you will generate. 

Control

Many people who would dismiss the power of self improvement make the argument that we don’t actually have much control over our lives. You can’t control what kind of family you were born into, the genes you have, or the bigger events in the world. And they often use this lack of control as an excuse to avoid taking any ownership over their lives.

But this view focuses too much on what you can’t control and ignores what you can. And that is the key element to understanding control: we need to understand what level of control we have over the different aspects of our lives so we can focus on the things we can control and ignore the things we can’t. You might recognize this powerful piece of wisdom from one of its more well known incarnations, The Serenity Prayer.

Control Starts With You

So if we want to focus on the things we can control, we need look no further than ourselves. This should not be revelatory information. Whether it is religious, self help, or any other life improvement wisdom, the common idea is that in any journey, you must start with yourself.

And this makes sense. You cannot control the actions of others let alone easily bring about larger change in the complex world around you. And while controlling your own actions might still prove difficult (it might be hard to get yourself up in the morning to go to the gym, or turn down dessert after a long day), it is by far the thing you have the most control over.

Expanding Your Domain of Control

I would also point out that as you improve yourself by focusing on the things you can control, you will find that your domain of control will expand. For example, as you become more proficient at your work, you can start sharing advice and experiences with your peers and coworkers that have worked for you. Where before, it would have been hard for you to improve the lives of those around you, as you improve yourself, you have a little more ability to make the world around you a better place.

Identify The Things We Can’t Control

One of the most common and detrimental problems we all have with finding the right scope of focus is paying too much attention to the things we can’t control. A perfect example of this is world politics. Certainly world events can have a big impact on our lives, but even if one spent hours each day reading and talking about these things, there is literally nothing you can do to meaningfully affect world politics. You can probably think of a few other things like this that people commonly give too much attention to: celebrity drama, social media, and most trendy issues. There is simply little to no benefit for you to focus on these things and so your valuable time is much better spent on the things you can change.

Accept The Things We Can’t Control

By removing focus from the things we can’t control and focusing on what we can, we make more effective use of our time and attention. If you are constantly worried about what people think about you, or mistakes of the past, you will not have as much attention to focus on how to get the most out of the now. And so by accepting the things we cannot change, we actually free up our headspace to focus our full attention towards the things we can control. 

Value

Value is the other element we should consider when deciding where to apply our focus. We might have a lot of control over something, but it might not actually generate much value if we invest time in it. Most often, the things we can control have diminishing returns. Cleaning your room is something you can control and has a large initial benefit, but once it is clean, more time invested won’t yield much value.

Conversely, there might be things in our lives which we have less control over, or would require more time to take control of, that would create a lot of value in our lives. For example, it might be difficult to control our working environment, such as our responsibilities, boss, or coworkers, and while it might be hard to find another job, if finding a better job will result in a significant increase in career satisfaction, it would be worth the time investment. 

Control x Value = Benefit of Focus

So when deciding how to direct our focus, it is necessary to understand the level of control we have and the value that thing would generate. If you look back through the examples, you can see this equation in action. The closer to ourselves, the more control we have and the more value we can generate. This is why focusing on your own life, and learning to ignore as much else as you can, is always the first step to self improvement. 

Learning and Adapting

Self Improvement is a journey. Just as we will change over time, the goals and plans we build for ourselves at the start of this journey will certainly change as well. We will also learn more about ourselves and our world which will help inform us what is achievable and how best to pursue it. Therefore, an essential part of our self improvement journey will be learning, both from others and from our own experiences, and adapting to goals and plans that are better aligned with ourselves and what is practical.

Mindfulness - Learning About Ourselves

As we have talked about in focus, the first step in this journey is ourselves. We need to be able to understand what it is that we want, our goals, and what we are capable of and willing to commit to our plan. At the beginning, we will need to invest time into mindful reflection to first orient ourselves, but we will also have to set aside time throughout our journey to touch base with ourselves and update that orientation as we change.

Research - Learning From Others

One of the biggest ways to get an advantage on our journey of self improvement is to learn from the wisdom of others who have come before us. If you want to get into better shape, instead of just going to the gym and trying to figure it out from scratch, you can read tried and tested knowledge on how to build and maintain good fitness regimens and use that information to inform your initial plan. This is not to say that what works for someone else will always work for you, but you will discover many of the best practices that others have discovered over countless hours of their own experience and save yourself the trouble of figuring them out for yourself.

Adapting

As you go through your self improvement journey, it will be important that you update your goals and your plan to be more aligned with your changing wants and what you learn to be more practical, depending on the world and your personal capacity. It is completely fine, in fact essential, to change your mind about what you want or how you want to achieve it. The important thing is you are aware of these changes and adapt accordingly.

For example, you might think you want to pursue a career in software engineering, but realize you are more of a people person and want to switch into something more client facing. Even though the career switch might be daunting, it will be more painful to pursue a goal you realize you are no longer interested in. Similarly, you might think that you can handle waking up early to go to the gym, but find yourself constantly snoozing your alarm and missing the gym all together. In this case, you need to change your approach to something that works better for the type of person you are, like working out after work. 

Practicality

When we take on the responsibility of self improvement, the key to our success will be practicality. You will not want to set goals that are unobtainable, and you do not want to create a plan that is impossible for you to follow. Understanding what is practical stems from effective execution of Learning and Adapting, but this idea of practicality is essential and necessitates a spot as its own principle of self improvement.

Start Slow

I would highly recommend starting your self improvement journey by setting easily achievable goals. It is better to underestimate what you can achieve and add more responsibility as you go then to overburden yourself and run headlong into failure and frustration. Early on, you will certainly make some mistakes, but by setting achievable goals, you can build confidence and ramp up over time.

Your Own Employee and Boss

While we might want to dive into self improvement by setting the most productive schedule we can for ourselves, it is important to understand that we need to be kind to ourselves. In a manner of speaking, you are both your own employee and your own boss. A good employee works hard to hit the goals they need to achieve to succeed, but a good boss also finds a good balance between setting work goals for their employees and making sure that employee has a good work/life balance. If you work yourself too hard, you will become resentful and start to ignore your work. Make sure to schedule the day you want to have. This means the work you want to get done, but also the rest and relaxation.

The Importance of Rest and Relaxation

It might seem counter intuitive, but rest and relaxation are a key part of a productive life. We all understand that working too hard, we can burn ourselves out, but still often feel bad about taking time off from work. You can’t have a good day if you don’t get the sleep you need. A hard workout needs to be followed by rest to allow your muscles to build and recover. Make sure to work downtime into your schedule and give yourself breaks. You will find you are more productive over the long run when you give yourself the proper amount of rest and relaxation. 

Patterns

One of the most powerful tools in your toolkit for self improvement is an understanding of the basic natural patterns: Habits, Cycles, and Routines. By being aware of and understanding these patterns, we can incorporate and harness them in our schedules, making the things we want to do more natural and achievable.

Habits

The most fundamental and powerful pattern is the habit. A habit is composed of three things: trigger, action, and reward. Understanding this, you can identify your existing habits, find ways to change them, and build new habits you want.

How to Change Habits

Take the classic example of the habit of smoking. Smokers might notice that they smoke when stressed. Stress is the trigger, which leads to the action of smoking, and then the reward of the nicotine hit. If a smoker wished to stop their habit of smoking, instead of trying to fight the urge to smoke, they could use their understanding of this pattern to disrupt it.

We cannot stop ourselves from feeling stressed, but we can make a deliberate decision to replace the bad actions with good ones. For example, the smoker could go for a short walk every time they feel stress triggering a craving. It will then be important to reward the positive action to complete the habit pattern so maybe they get a hot tea, or spend some time playing a videogame.

Building Habits

When building a habit, we start by thinking of the action. Maybe the action we want to cultivate is reading, exercise, or spending time outside. Next we want to think about what we can use as a trigger. As I will talk about in Cycles, Routines, and Places, we can use these patterns as triggers for the actions we want to encourage. Finally, we will need to be sure to provide a consistent reward. There are many ways to do this, but the important thing is to make sure the reward is something you appreciate and you are consistent with supplying it.

Cycles

Another pattern that we can understand and use to our advantage is cycles. The most basic cycles are simply days and seasons. You will be more inclined to do certain things in the morning versus the evening, or when it is warm in the summer versus cold in the winter. But also, we have man made cycles like the week, the weekend, and working hours. Whether natural or man-made, by recognizing these different cycles, we can incorporate their flow to make our habits, schedules, and plans more effortlessly intuitive.

Routines

Combining what we know about cycles and habits, we can create routines. We can make a morning routine when we wake up, or a routine when we leave work. The key is to use cycle events as triggers for the actions that we want. For example, say we want to spend a little more time reading. If we are commuting to work each weekday, we can set getting into our car or on the train as the trigger to start listening to an audio book. Maybe we reward ourselves with a nice hot tea or coffee as we listen.

Places

Also worth noting is that physical location can play a big factor in triggering the right habits and is important to incorporate into how you build your routines. In our commuting example, it is not just the trigger of commuting, but also the location of being in the car or the train that starts to be associated with the action. You can also use this to your advantage in your personal space. Only being in your bedroom when you want to sleep or having a desk that is only for working. 

Motivation

Maintaining a strong sense of motivation is key to success in any journey of self improvement. Giving a comprehensive explanation of motivation is difficult because everyone is motivated by different things. The key to motivating yourself is to find what works for you. I will throw out a few ideas that you can play around with and figure out how you want to keep yourself motivated on your journey of self improvement.

Internal Locus of Control

As we talked about at the beginning in Taking Ownership, it is important to internalize the belief that you can make your life better through your own effort. This idea is often called an internal locus of control and studies have shown that people who believe in this stay more motivated and will work harder. And by setting achievable goals, and celebrating our success as a result of our efforts will build a stronger internal locus of control.

Rewards

Regardless of what you use to motivate yourself, you must provide some reward for your hard work. As we talked about in Habits, all habits must have a reward associated with them or else we would not be motivated to do them. Sometimes these rewards are intrinsic: we workout and we feel a rush of endorphins and a sense of satisfaction. But often early in building habits, the intrinsic reward will not be enough. It is important that we find clear ways of rewarding ourselves as we fulfill our plans. 

Social Incentives

Many people find that creating some social accountability or gaining recognition for the accomplishment of our goals is a powerful motivator. Maybe you tell your friends that you are committing to working out three times a week and will text them each time you hit the gym. Maybe you want to read more so you join a book club where you know you need to finish the book by the end of the month in order to chat about it with the group. Whatever way you can tie this into your desired goals, making yourself accountable to others can be the motivation you need to stick with it.

Progress Tracking

As many video gamers can attest to, often what keeps gamers playing a game is not just fun gameplay, but a clear sense of progression. In RPGs (role playing games) watching your character gain stats and more powerful items can be a powerful motivator to keep putting time into the game. This trick can work similarly well in our real life journey of self improvement. 

There are many ways to track your progress, and you should figure out what works for you. I have a large board in my apartment where I track the time I put into all the areas of self improvement I am pursuing. As time has gone on, I can see myself improving in each of these areas. And by tracking my progress, I know which areas I am putting time into, and which ones I need to focus more on. It keeps me aware of my accomplishments so far and motivated to keep working toward my goals. 

Purpose

Last but certainly not least is an awareness of the greater purpose of your goals. We can find innate purpose in self improvement, but if you also find ways to contribute towards meaningful and collaborative endeavors, you can derive deeper motivation that transcends just your personal ambitions.

Think of people who contribute time to altruistic movements and seem to have a super human will to achieve these goals they believe in. The more we see our own journey of self improvement as having a positive impact on those around us, or even the world more broadly, we will feel a sense of purpose and meaning that will keep us motivated to move forward. 

I will quickly say that this does not mean to throw away your own personal ambitions solely for a higher purpose. As we talked about in Focus on Control, if we are not yet well developed people ourselves, it is hard to be a benefit to others. Even smart, well intentioned people make mistakes and given how complex the world is, it is hard to tell what is not only good for others, but also practical. If we really wish to change the world for the better, it is essential we start with ourselves.

Conclusion

Through an understanding of these core principles for self improvement, we will be equipped to not only understand the reasoning behind the process for self improvement I will lay out in the following articles, but this understanding will guide us when we are making decisions beyond the basic rules. I hope you found this helpful and look forward to continuing with you on this journey of self improvement.