How To Create A Self Improvement Plan
A lot of people start trying to improve themselves after reading some quick tips or listening to someone talk about their life changing strategies, but then they give up because it seems too hard or expensive.
That’s totally understandable! Changing yourself is difficult and sometimes costly, which can make giving up seem like the easier choice.
But that wouldn’t be a very successful choice would it? Success means leaving things better than you found them so why should you not strive to do a little bit more each day to achieve your dreams?
Fortunately, we live in an era where technology makes it easy to create new habits. Technology helps us track our daily activities and creates rewards and incentives for doing good things.
In this article, I will discuss two ways to help you create a self improvement plan using reward oriented learning and motivational quotes.
Break down your goals into action items
Now that you have identified your goal, what next? You need to determine if there are actions you can take towards achieving this goal.
It is very common to want to improve yourself but not know where to start. There are many ways to achieve this but most begin with creating an exercise routine or eating healthier.
Creating an exercise regime will be one of the first things you do when you create your self improvement plan. For example, someone who wants to lose weight may decide to go for a short walk every day after work. Or they could choose to run up the stairs for a few minutes once a week.
eating healthier can also be done by making small changes to your diet. May it be trying new foods, limiting sugar, or even replacing dessert with fruits as an alternative.
Make a plan for what steps you will take to achieve your goals
A lot of people begin the process of changing their lives by making a goal or intention to do something. They might want to lose weight, start exercising, study psychology, etc.
But then they get stuck because they don’t know how to make the next move towards achieving their goal. This is where creating a self-improvement plan comes in.
A self- improvement plan is a step-by-step way to accomplish a specific goal. It can be anything from learning a new skill to quitting smoking.
By breaking down the task into small parts, it becomes easier to put together the pieces of the whole goal.
This helps you feel more confident about reaching your goal. You may also find that this easy starting place makes it simpler to stay motivated, as you not only have a goal, but you already have some things done that help you learn more skills.
Track your progress
The next step in creating a self-improvement plan is to track your progress! This can be done via different means, but my favorite way is using a journal or notebook with dates and bullets that make sense to you.
As you go about your day, you can either write down things you’re doing on your phone or use an app such as Google Keep to create new notes. Make sure to also include what you’re learning throughout the days activities – this can be anything from how to organize your room to how to cook pasta dishes.
You may also want to add some more detailed notes such as what you are reading and lesson learned from today. All of these can then be organized by month and year to have a better look at trends and what you need to review.
Tracking your progress takes time initially, but eventually it will become second nature. Don’t worry too much about having perfect timing charts, just start tracking when you can so you can later evaluate what you needed to focus on.
Celebrate yourself
We’re not really living our lives unless we are creating something or doing something that makes us feel good about ourselves.
This is what helps you keep going, this is what keeps you motivated. You will never make progress if you don’t take some time out for you, and if you can’t seem to find your own inner strength then it seems pretty clear why you’re struggling with life.
You need to give yourself credit for all of the things you have done so far and believe in yourself as much as possible. Take one day at a time and recognize all of your efforts — both big and small.
Tell yourself how smart you are, tell yourself how hard you work, tell yourself how beautiful you are. Do these things every day and soon you will begin to see changes in how you feel.
Self-confidence is an internal state where you feel confident in yourself and your abilities. It’s having faith in yourself, which is very attractive.
Seek feedback
It’s impossible to know if you are doing well unless you check! Keep track of your progress by documenting what you do every day, noting how you feel about yourself and others, and getting comments from people who have seen you in action.
Tagging along with us as we pursue our goals is going to be someone else — hopefully lots of people we meet, but ultimately ourselves.
By being aware, you will also be able to tell when you aren’t living up to your own standards or those of other people.
It’s important to remember that no one else can truly judge you except for you – and even you might not agree.
That’s why it’s so crucial to ask for feedback, whether directly or via indirect routes.
If you’re ever feeling like you’re never moving forward, asking for help, advice, or just listening to what needs to be heard could prove very helpful.
Set new goals
Now that you have identified your weaknesses, it is time to set some goals. What are your priorities? Do you want to improve your writing or business communication skills first? Perhaps improving your hand-eye coordination is your top goal.
Whatever your strengths are, use them to achieve your goals! By using these tools, you will learn more about yourself and develop your self confidence. Plus, you’ll feel happier because you've achieved something that makes you happy.
Start with one goal and work towards achieving it every day for a week before moving onto the next. You can also add in another goal each week to stay motivated.
Annabelle recently read an excellent article about her personal development process. She described how she spent around two hours per day working on her goal, which took her several months to accomplish. Even though she didn't see much progress at times, she kept going as she wanted to reach her aim of becoming a published writer.
By keeping up her motivation and setting small milestones along the way, she was able to celebrate her success when she reached them.
Do the next thing that you want to do
“Doing” is one of the major components in creating change. What we refer to as doing something comes down to two things: action and behavior.
Action means going beyond just thinking about it for very long. It must be more than just talking about it or writing a few lines about it. Action requires us to physically move towards this goal with intention.
It can be anything from taking a short walk every day, to changing what area of your life needs work. No matter how small the actions are, they add up over time!
Behavior is all the little ways we repeat certain habits. For example, when I wakeup at 6 am, I make sure I have my breakfast ready so I don’t have to waste time getting myself together.
Stay positive
Letting go of negative thoughts can be hard, but it is necessary if you want to achieve your goals. Negative thinking may contribute to feelings of stress or anxiety, which are two things that can hinder your progress towards your goal.
Stress can have an effect on how well you perform during a workout, for example. If you're too stressed out, then your body will use energy in other areas such as keeping yourself awake or even making you feel sick.
Negative thinking also has a tendency to make you worry about what else might happen if you try to do something important to you. This could discourage you from taking action at all!
Keep control by looking forward instead of backwards. Focus on what you want to accomplish next, not what you wanted to get done past this point. Look ahead, not behind!
And don’t let yourself become distracted by external stimuli. A lot of people start getting anxious when they hear news about politics or weather. These are very common causes of stress so why add more negativity to the mix?
Avoid creating situations where you must deal with negative emotions. If you find yourself being overwhelmed, leave the situation until later. You should be able to cope with small amounts of stress, not large ones.