How To Better Yourself

How to Better Yourself With 48 Practical Tips! Click To Tweet

It doesn’t matter if you are 10 or 100, there is always time left to improve yourself. Doing so will add depth to your life and allow you to milk this life for what it is worth. It will also give you so much of a bigger vision of yourself, allowing you to move through life with a different energy and vibration of people who are just going through the motions. If you are looking for how to better yourself, I laid our for you 47 different methods you can start using TODAY.

I hope you enjoy them my friends! Be sure to let me know which ones you like best at the end of the article in the comment section!

How To Better Yourself! The 48 Laws

Read A Book As Often As Possible

If your schedule is packed, shoot for a book a week. The most important thing is speed and retention. Lock yourself away in a quiet place and bang out some solid reading. My tip is to do so in the morning where you mind is most fresh. But what if you are a slow reader like? Well I have a solution for you my friend. There are apps that help you read faster, of course there are!

There is an app for friggin everything. Here is a link to a great post on : 7 Apps That Can Help You Read Faster

Some great books to start with are in the self development category. Hey I run a blog on the topic hence the suggestion! Some of my favorites are:

• The Compound Effect – Daren Hardy
• Think and Grow Rich – Napolean Hill
• How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnagie
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Steven Covey
• The 4 Hour Work Week – Tim Ferris
• The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle
• Blink – Malcom Gladwell
• The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success – Deepak Chopra
• POWER – Robin Greene
• The 4 Agreements – Don Miquel Rodriquez
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***

Enroll In A Class

You can do so at a community college or even local workshops. Try something that you have always wanted to learn more about! Jump right into it! It may be awkward going back to class when you are twice as old as the students around you. So instead of doing it on campus, do so in the form of an online course.
This will be a great way to stimulate your mind and create new learning pathways in your brain as well as make new friends in a positive learning environment.

Wake Up And/Or Go To Bed Grateful

Our brain is most suceptible to the stimulus it receives right when you wake up and right before you go to bed. This is a great time to think of 3 to 5 things that you are grateful for. Giving gratitude has so many positive benefits. Being grateful for things and people allow you to see past the negative emotions.

This can do things like save a marriage because you are now looking at the positive. Or appreciate a job that you have been resentful towards. It has helped me reduce my anger when I give gratitude for a crappy situation after blowing up about it.

We cannot move forward in life when we harbor negative emotions towards someone or something. Giving gratitude breaks that mold and allow you to see things in a more positive light.

“Gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for.” – Zig Ziglar

Wake Up Early

Waking up early can bring you a ton of great benefits, a great article talked about some of these benefits being:

1. Better Productivity
2. Better Grades
3. Enhanced Mood
4. Better Eating Habits
5. Better Sleep

Life hack, create the habit of making your bed first. This will be the first victory of the day which will set you on the path to bigger wins. Since we talked about reading some personal development content each day, keep your book right where you wake up. Wake up and jump into that book. Want to stay in bed but don’t want to wake up the significant other by turning the light on? Grab a book light for $6 on Amazon and attach that sucker to your book and get your knowledge going!

Be Kind To Yourself & Stop Beating Yourself Up

Treating yourself with kindness will create an ease in us that we are searching for outside of ourselves. How many times do we get into the cycle of beating ourselves up? For myself, it happens often. But the more I am apparent of it, the more I can catch myself and stop. First off, if you are beating yourself up means your an over achiever. This a positive aspect of your psyche. Embrace it and use it to your benefit. But when you are beating yourself up for not doing the thing you should of or missing the mark, stop yourself right in your tracks.

Instead give love to yourself. Find the positive things that came out of the situation of what you are beating yourself up for. Ask yourself if beating up is helping you. If it is not, then make it a conscious effort to breakt the habit.

Treat yourself like you would treat your best friend.

Ask More Questions

Talking less and listening more. You have most likely heard the phrase at some time or another in your life. “You have two ears and one mouth so you can listen more and talk less”.  Most likely coming from a parental figure. Well this annoying childhood lesson can serve to improve yourself. Listening more allows us to actually “hear” the person and where they are coming from. We gain different perspectives and learn more when we listen.

We also actually enjoy conversations because we are coming from a place of understand rather than waiting for your turn to talk. Try it out. It has really helped me be a better conversationalist and actually make more friends.

Have High Standards For How People Treat You and You Treat Them

Having high standards for how people treat you and not letting them walk over you, is a great form of self love. Don’t be willing to put up with peoples crap. Demand a level of respect and of course give this level of respect back. But if you don’t get it back, you fire that person from your life with the option for rehire in a year.

Wake Up With Positive Audio

Les Brown, motivational speaker and author suggestions you wake up with positive audio. It allows you to control the spirit of your day. Enter in your go to motivational speaker in the search tab and keep it on while your making breakfast or getting ready for the day. You can stream it through headphones if you have to be quiet in the morning around the house!

Belly breathing is actually the way we are supposed to breathe. It is where we use our diaphragm to draw in air into our lungs. This allows you to take in 30% or more oxygen in at time, adding a myriad of physical and mental benefits to your life, some of which include:

• Better Detoxification
• Lessens Stress
• Increases Energy
• Better Digestion
• Posture Improvment
• Weight Loss

To learn how to belly breath, all you need to do is to lay down on your back and place your hand over your belly button. Try to slowly push your hand upwards with each inhalation. Do this for 5 to 10 minutes a day. Once you have mastered doing it lying down, you can start do it while standing and in a seated position!

To emphasize it a little more, you can put a book on your belly button.

To read even more about the benefits of belly breathing, check out this article: Benefits of Belly Breathing

No More Procastinating

Well OK, I realize this is damn near impossible. But find out why you are procrastinating. Is it fear of doing things or maybe you are doing so because you are avoiding activities you don’t want to be part of at all.

Learn Lessons Each Day

If you look hard enough, you can find good in even the worst situations in life. At the end of everyday, examine your day and find a gem in it. What lesson or positive thing can you takeaway from your day? Doing this will keep you in a more positive mood and enable you to see more positive things in your life when you would have neglected doing so.

If you did something “wrong” how can you learn from it and do it better in the future?

Create Your List of Values

What are the top 10 values that you not only want to live by, but be remembered by? Do you want to be known for how kind you are? Is courage a big value you want to live out daily? Do you want to be remembered for being compassionate and kind to everyone you meet. Create a list of core values that define you, or better yet you want to define the new you. Live out those ten values as true as you can every single day to your best ability.

A step further would to create a mission statement around your values. Develop it in a way that shows how you want to live your life in a few sentences or large paragraph. Paste this thing everywhere you can.

Create a Weekly Exercise Program

As a personal trainer, I need to include this. Which if you need any times, please ask for them in the comment section. Guys and gals, when we train our body, our mind changes as well. Creating a workout routine that you stick to will bring you a boost in confidence, endorphins and sense of accomplishment. Again since this article is heavy on app love, my favorite app to use that actually creates workout routines for you based on your fitness levels is MyFitnessPal, although here are lists of good apps for both men and women:

For the ladies: Best Workout Apps For Women

For the gentlemen: Best Workout Apps For Men

Also don’t be afraid to switch it up and keep it interesting. Start you Monday with a run, on Wednesday show the weights whose boss and on Friday hit up a yoga class. No matter what routine you use, stick to it diligently.

Tip: If this is the area you struggle with most, then track every single workout. The most successful people track their progress. It also keeps you accountable. How guilty are you going to feel if you don’t workout and have to write it in stone in your workout journal?

Ask Yourself Who Your Envious Of

Often times we see people living lives that we secretly would love to see ourselves living. Ask yourself the question who you are envious of as well as why you are. Are they doing something that you want to do for work, have a certain quality you admire. Whatever it is, hone in on it and develop it in yourself. Better yet, buy that person a cup of coffee and pick their brain on how they do what you want to or act how you want to act.

This will be incredibly flattering for the individual because people love to talk about themselves. It will also serve as a guide to creating a better life and getting rid of the envious feelings by doing so.

Get Better Sleep

This is a no brainer, but how to do so? Well for myself, I knock back some magnesium every night about 30 minutes before I go to bed. This helps me sleep like a newborn! If you are a coffee drinker, make sure you drink your last cup hours before you go to bed, 8 hours if you can.

A great article that goes into how to sleep better gives other tips like :

• Visualizing a peaceful resting place in bed
• Deep belly breathing
• Count sheep to stop worrying
• Refrain from eating refined carbs before bed
• Avoid bright screens 1 to 2 hours prior to bed
• Sleep in a totally dark room

Create A Reality Board

It is often times referred to as a dream board, but you get what you want in this life. Do you want to keep dreaming or make your dreams reality? The latter obviously!

Remember how awesome it was to create scrap books back in the day in elementary school? Well you can still do so as an adult. Grab a poster board at your local Walmart along with some magazines that have pictures of the lifestyle you want to be living. Do you want to live in a mansion? Do you want 6 pack abs? Do you want to be happier? Whatever it is, find a picture of it, or multiple, and put it on your vision board. Put that thing up at a place where you see it first thing in the morning. Then take a picture of it and set it as your home screen for your phone. Letting it motivate you all day.

The first step to manifestation is writing things down, or in the case pasting things down!

Get The Hell Out of Your Comfort Zone

“A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there” – Unknown

The sooner you step away from your comfort zone, you realize it wasn’t all that comfortable.” – Eddie Harris Jr

What have you always been interested in doing that scares the crap out of you thinking about it? Skydiving? Swimming with sharks? Scuba diving? Forgiving someone? Letting yourself be ok with loving and being loved? Hell even streaking??

Whatever it is, whatever makes you feel an insane amount of resistance, make plans of doing it now. Also, put it on your reality/board that we talked about above to remind you of it daily!

Learn a New Language

Not only will this allow you to grow in an area of your life. You will also become more valuable to your current and future employers. You will also be able to speak that language to natives if you choose to go to places where the newly learned language is spoken. Best thing about this is that you can learn a new language absolutely free from:

Duolingo

This is an awesome app that I have used to become more versatile in Spanish. It will guide you through lessons as well as keep you on top of your lessons by sending you updates to complete lessons and stay on track.

Throw Out A Bad Habit

What is one thing in your life that if you didn’t do anymore, would make you happier or more productive. Do you hit the snooze button every morning? Procrastinate on big tasks? Swear too much? On Instagram too much? Say yes to people too much? Whatever bad habit you identify, work on eliminating the bad habit for a week, just a week. Also again, it is great to keep a journal of your progress in this area to keep yourself accountable to creating better habits.

You can take this a step further by giving yourself a performance review at the end of the day or week. Go back throughout your day with reflection and think about how well you did changing this habit. Also what things can you integrate that will allow you to break this habit for good? Give yourself a report card and earn that A!

Toss Your TV

Look do you really need to watch so much TV? What is it really doing for you? I used to watch an insane amount of TV then one day I couldn’t afford to pay my cable bill. The first month it sucked, I actually went through withdrawls. The second month, things got better, the third month came and I didn’t miss it anymore.

When I finally was able to afford it again, I didn’t renew my subscription. I had the realization of all the productive things I could do in place of the hours upon hours I was wasting watching TV.

Give Your Time

What better way to improve yourself than giving your time? One of my newest favorites is that you can take time to cuddle a drug addicted baby to help them heal. Your making a massive difference in a life right out of the gate.

You can volunteer at a local shelter, help some learn a instrument you play, create a yard sale for charity, hang out with family that you haven’t seen in a while, tutor a low income student. The list is endless. So will be your feel good feelings after you have volunteered your time.

For more ideas on how to volunteer your time, be sure to check this list out: 50 Ideas For Your Family to Volunteer and Make A Difference

Admit Mistakes You Have Made

Look we all have made mistakes in life. I know I have made a ton. Big and small mistakes. The great thing about that for you and I is that we can fess up to our mistakes and make them right. Apologize to the person you wronged, ask for forgiveness or just learn from it and promise yourself that you are going to do better next time.

This is a stage of emotional growth that if you go through, you will be relieving yourself of emotional baggage. That if held onto to long can become toxic to you and your life. So have the courage to admit mistakes and you will feel so much better!

Create a Better Diet

Actually instead of creating a new diet, make it a lifestyle you can see yourself sustaining. Sustainability is key to longevity in anything, ESPECIALLY your diet. Make better choices of the foods you are consuming. Start slow by swapping out fast food runs for fruit and veggie smoothies.

Or ordering a healthier alternative to pizza like thai food. Becoming aware of your dieting habits will create so much more of a disciplined you. Food is an addiction, plain and simple. But when we start to conquer, we conquer ourselves, leading to a deep sense of power that will be evident in every other area of our lives.

Learn A New Perspective

What things in life perturb you the most about peoples decisions? Can it be things like different religions or sexual orientations. Talk to someone who lives a life that is conflicting with your point of views. It is going to be tough but worth it. You can also go online and read stories about it or YouTube and watch videos around the subject.

Seeing it from another persons eyes or point of view will allow you to bestow compassion upon a subject that used to get under your skin. It will allow you to release toxic feelings around that topic, freeing you to see it how it is, not how you thought it was.

You may be shocked to see that people do things out of the same need we do things for. Just in a different way.

Set Goals In Multiple Life Arenas

It is awesome to have goals. Like the bible says, “Without vision the people perish.” It is absolutely crucial that you have goals which are essentially visions in your life. You want these visions to be so powerful that you don’t have to wake up with an alarm anymore, you wake up to your goals jolting you up in the morning. Also goals powerful enough that they keep you up late at night achieving them!

But having goals in one area will only allow you to enjoy life in that domain. Life is all about balance, I encourage you to set goals in 5 major areas of life. Including:

1. Finances – How much money do you want to make or put away.
2. Family – Do you want to have more home cooked dinners with family or plan that family vacation you guys have been wanting.
3. Community – Volunteering at a local shelter or helping out at your children’s school.
4. Spiritual – Do you want to learn how to meditate, or go to church more often
5. Self Development – Doing something that is going to help you grow. Reading more self help books or going to the gym more.

Having goals in these areas give you a bigger vision of yourself. Allowing you to act in a larger and more courageous way in every area of your life. Creating more value and developing better and longer lasting relationships.

Seek Happiness Internally

Whenever we place a lot of emphasis on what is making us happy. Whether be a person, place or thing. We will always be let down, especially if this person, place or thing leaves us. We are all seeking the infinite through the finite. We can draw pleasure from things and people in our lives, but do not tie your entire happiness to anything outside yourself. Let go of attachments and emotions and operate from a place of true love.

Keep Your Word

Our word is all we really have. When we keep our word, our reputation sky rockets. People know we will be on time because we always are. People know that they are going to make it to their party because you are the friend that always does.

Keeping your word will create in inner integrity that you wouldn’t have if you blew off something you said you would do. This will save yourself the inner turmoil of feeling bad about stuff. It gives yourself a sense of personal power as well. You know that people know that you are a man or woman of their word and that feels pretty damn good.

Film Yourself On Camera

Doing this can be super awkward and literally painful to watch at first. But once you get past the initial awkwardness and resistance, you can critique yourself from a new perspective. A great way to do this is to pick a subject you are passionate about and simply talk about it for a few minutes a day. It will scientifically shown to make you a better public speaker and to do so with less stress and anxiety.

Write a Letter to Yourself a Year From Now

Create a version of yourself that you want to become and write a letter to yourself about it. Post date it for a year from now and open it up to compare yourself to see if you measure up with what you wrote. This will give you the push you need to go after the person you want to become everyday. You don’t want to open that letter a year from now and be disappointed. It will force you to take the actions necessary to become that person you wrote about!

Hire A Mentor

There is someone that is better at things than us that we want to be better at. They can be a coach or someone who is just damn good at what you want to do. Now you can seek out and pay for a mentor, or you can find one online for free on YouTube or other blogs. Whether that be a mentor to make you a better public speaker or a faster runner. Find a mentor that can help you get better at what you want to get better at.

Want to take this a step further? Have a mastermind with the greats in your mind. Sound a bit wacky, probably. But it work for Napolean Hill in Think and Grow Rich where he employed the minds of the likes of: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnagie. May be wacky, but it worked damn good for him as he said they provided him with some awesome tips and answers that he needed.

Live Life With Passion

Most of us are sleepwalking through life. We aren’t even living close to our potential. When we see someone who is, often times we just think that they are overly positive or too hyper. Well be that person! Enjoy that shit out life.

Live life like a child. Always be curious and willing to learn and grow. Laugh more often, love deeply, express yourself freely.

“When you are curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.”  – Walt Disney

If you hate what you are doing in any area in life, toss it in the trash and make a move. Even though it can be a safe bet, like a good job. Do you really want to live your life on a safe bet? Or live your life knowing you milked all you could out of the experience?

Start a Side Hustle

Creating a stream of income outside your primary source can be one of the most gratifying things you can do. Not only will you show yourself that you can live life as an entrepreneur, you will also develop some many other skills that you wouldn’t have if you just stuck with your main gig.

You will now have extra cash to invest. Creating money that works for you. And hey, you never know, it could blow up so big that it can go from side hustle to main hustle.

Compliment People Everywhere You Go

How damn good does it hear someone say your name or compliment you on your style. It feels good to be recognized, now you can be the person that brings that joy. Everywhere you go, try to compliment one person on something about them. Or at least work on remembering their name so when you see them next you can address them by their name. You will create better connections in life and get the joy of seeing that person light up when you see them.

Ask For a Raise at Your Job

Asking for a raise is scary as hell. But it can bring allow you to break through your comfort zone. Also, if you are denied, ask what person you need to become in order to attain that raise. This will allow you to improve yourself in ways that you will be more valuable to the company as well as a more valuable human in general.

You never know, you may just flat out get the raise!

Stretch Yourself

What are your goals for this year? If you don’t have them written down, then do so immediately. The power of writing out goals is huge. It increases the likely hood of you attaining your goals. How are you going to get there if you don’t know where your going?

Whatever goals you write down, add ten percent to them.

If you want to earn 50K this year, than add 5 to 10K to it.  If you want to start an online business, then define how many monthly visitors you want a month, income level and email subscribers you want and tack on 10-20% to that number.

Whatever your goals are, raise the bar on them. It will show that you believe in yourself enough to do so.

This can also have to do with family goals or spiritual goals. Whatever your intentions first were for creating the goal, up the anty. Stretching yourself in one area of life will lead to you doing so in every other area of you life.

Next step is to find an accountability partner that you can link up with each week to keep each other accountable for each others goals. This also will skyrocket your chances of success.

Remind Yourself That You Are Going To Die

Reminding myself of our impending doom has been the best way for myself to light a fire under my ass. Waking up everyday acknowledge this will put into perspective how little time we have left on this earth. What kind of legacy to we want to leave? It is going to take time to make an impact and we don’t have much of it. Showing yourself this fact will give you the ambition to act and act in a big way. When using this method, remember this quote by Steve Jobs”

Eliminate Toxic People

Ok lets start with just one person. We all have a friend who we let drag us down or we indulge in bad habits with. Get rid of that person or tell them you want to grow with them, instead of die with them. Not in those words, but you get the gist.

If you think that you are that person, then ask people around you how you may think you are affecting them. You will gain a new perspective on ways you can change yourself that will not only better your relationships but will better your life as a whole.

Create a Bucket List

Not only is the super fun to do, it will also allow you to see what you really want out of life. Create a list of 100 things and focus on doing 10-20 of them per year. In 5-10 years you will have more life experience than most people on the planet!

Find Zen

Meditation is a great way to better yourself in so many ways. It has shown to increase ones level of acceptance for people and life, compassion, energy, forgiveness ability and even sexual vitality among so many other things.

10 minutes a day can quiet your mind long enough to settle the inner turmoil down and allow you to see your thoughts objectively. Giving you the ability to let go of the ones that aren’t serving you. It will also give you a great sense of calmness each time you meditate.

Get Something Off Your Chest

There are things in life where we wish we didn’t do them. Everyone has AT LEAST one thing. Often times we just continue to suppress these unwanted feelings more months, years or decades. No matter how bad it may be, identify a person in your life that you can tell anything to. Tell them what has been hurting or digging at you the most.

Doing this will allow you to get the monkey off your back and free yourself emotionally from bad events. If you feel like this isn’t enough, than consider going to a counselor to get the help you need to move past traumatic events. Your worth it.

Make A Budget

Creating a budget first off shows that you know how to be an adult. It will give you a birds eye view of what is going in and going out. When I do this, I am often embarrassed of how much I spend on coffee, it is disgusting.

It gets worse when I read the book, The Compound Effect where Darren Hardy talks about every dollar spent now could have netted you 5 dollars in twenty years if invested. So my 3 dollar coffee is now costing me 15 dollars, and I usually buy two a day!

This will allow you to take charge of your financial life, which is incredibly liberating.

It is also shown in the book “The Millionaire Next Door” that almost all self made millionaires budget all of their expenses. Aside from hugely self made people like sports and movie stars who really don’t have to have a budget.

Focus Your Energy Outside Yourself

Almost all the suffering we feel is when we are thinking from a place of self gratification. Shift your perspective. When you are telling a joke, tell it so other people can’t get joy from it, not so you can be the funny guy/gal. When you are doing something to receive love for yourself, do it for the other person so you can relish in the great feelings you will see them enjoy.

Doing things for others is the best way to become happy.

“Never stop doing little things for others, sometimes those little things occupy the biggest part of their heart.”  – Unknown

Behavior Relection

Looking at yourself through honest introspection is the best and fastest way towards growth. What are some of the things that you want to change deep down. Or may not WANT to change, but if you did it would change your entire life. Reflect also on little things that you did throughout your day that you could have done differently.

Choose Happy 

Look the mind naturally wants to go to the negative. It is a default survival mechanism. It is also heavily due to the fact that we are socially conditioned to think about the negative. Just turn on the news for a few minutes and your day will be instantly ruined! We have so many reasons to be happy but we end up defaulting to the negative things. Consciously seek the positive. Rewire your own brain by doing this. Like Wayne Dyer says

“Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change”

Every time you are in a negative mood, replace it with 2 things that you are happy about or thankful for. This, I promise will change your life.

Dress Better

Having a sense of pride can come from dressing in better clothes. I am not saying that you have to blow a ton of money on suits and expensive jewelry. Start with what you have. Iron your shirts more often. Wear dress shoes more often even if you wear a normal t-shirt with it. You will present yourself better to the world around you by doing this. This will raise your self-esteem because when we look good, we feel good.

You can also shoot for wearing colors that will put you in the mood you want to be in. Going for more colorful garments in order to feel more lively and alert.

Read The Bible

It doesn’t matter what your spiritual orientations or perspectives are. The bible is the best self help book ever created. You can also buy it in the form of where it is broken down in layman’s terms. This way it is easier to read and you can take more value from it’s lessons since the original version is super hard to read.

Seek Simplicity

Complexity has become what is most “attractive” in life. We think that if we are a complex person with complex problems, we will come off as more interesting and attractive to people. But the fact of the matter is is that all the beautiful things in life come in the form of simplicity. When we seek simplicity, we eliminate the need for unneeded stress in our lives. Sure it may “look” boring to other people, but it will create a better and more free life.

“Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication.” – Leonardo DiVinci 

Adopt A Pet

Saving a life in the form of an animal is incredibly gratifying. It will also give you a great sense of joy when you come home and your pet is excited to see you. They are also great listeners with who you can talk to after you have had a bad day. You will improve yourself this way because you will know that you saved a life.

Seek Connection

Join a group that partakes in activities that you are interested in. What do you enjoy? Hiking, knitting, crossword puzzles. There are groups that are already created that you can join. Doing this will allow you to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance. You will learn new perspectives and feel a sense of fulfillment that comes from human interaction and connection.

It is also third to the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The feeling of the sense of belonging can counteract depression in a very big way. We all need to feel connected other wise there are powerful feelings of lack in our lives.

Conclusion

There it is my good friends. I know it is a big list, but the choice is yours. Are you going to not be intimidated by it and instead use it and put your blood, sweat and tears into creating a more evolved you? Or are you going to keep going about life in the same way. I hope you choose the first option. Your worth it. See how high you can fly my friends.

Comment in the section below on your favorite tip as well as if you have anything else to add that has helped you become a better version of yourself!