There are tons of self improvement techniques available to us, but sometimes it’s hard to decide how (if at all) to apply that advice in your life. An amazing starting point is to accept that your world is primarily shaped by you—not by other people, places, or situations.
Once you realize that it is you (and your vision of the world) that determine the way you experience life, you can successfully apply self improvement information to create your life anew. Let’s get started.
Your Vision of the World
How would you describe the world that we live in? Is there a lot to be afraid of? A lot to be angry about? A lot to love? A lot to improve? A lot to appreciate? We all see the world through different eyes, but one thing is certain: What you see is based on what you believe and, more importantly, who you are. With that said, it’s helpful to distinctly define who you are, how you’re limiting yourself, and which self improvement techniques are best for your personal transformation.
The Worrier
Are you the worrier? The worrier is a warmhearted person who lives in a 
world riddled with problems and sadness. What she sees is that people don’t care about each other, animals are harmed each day, elderly people are mistreated, laws are broken, marriages don’t last, children are abused, people are starving to death, and schools aren’t educating children.
Every time you turn around she finds a new cause to support or a new problem to protest. Heartbreaking news, events, and circumstances surround her.
The worrier feels guilty about enjoying a day in the park with her family or spending money on things that she loves. After all, she could be spending that time or money fighting for the next big cause.
The worrier never stops worrying about what is going wrong or what may go wrong in the future. She’s often overprotective of loved ones and disappointed with those who “waste” their time and money. She often experiences extreme anxiety and frustration—the remnants of her focus on what’s wrong in the world.
The worrier’s world is a big mess—one that keeps her eyes filled with tears. Her world is one in which she is not safe, her loved ones are not safe, and life is one sad news broadcast after another.
But is that because the world is truly a sad, pitiful place? Or is it because of who she is? She is the worrier. [Click to read the entire blog post…]
Today, as on most days, my answer to the standard greeting, “Hi, how are you?” was my truth: “I’m great. How are you?” Spoken with positive enthusiasm and a warm smile, I meant it. I still mean it.
It is not just some auto response. I say that I’m great because, no matter what is happening around me, life is inherently great. Nonetheless, people respond with statements like, “No. Really. How are you?” or “How can you even say that?”
Along those same lines, I get asked the most ridiculous question of all: “What are you smiling about?” Well guess what. I’m smiling because l feel great. That’s right. I’ll say it again—I feel great.
Smiling When Everything Ain’t So Great
How does it make you feel when everything seems to be falling apart yet there’s that one person who is still skipping along with a smile? Does it piss you off? Does it make you wonder if that person is on drugs?
Do you think that person is just not paying attention to the atrocities that you see? Well, I’m usually that smiling person and I’ll tell you a little bit about what’s going on in my head.
For starters, I’m not blind or immune to the realities that leave people feeling down and out. I’m not unaware of the unfairness at my place of employment, the extreme humidity outside today, or even this nagging pain in my back.
I know that my country’s financial system is in crisis, sea life is being killed by a reckless oil spill, and children are starving to death on a planet with more than enough for everyone. Yes…I see it all and I don’t like it. [Read More on Feeling Great]
If you have ever struggled with low self esteem, you know the emotional pain that comes along with it. The ugly cycle of self destruction starts with a poor self image and a lack of self respect.
When you see yourself as something much less than the amazing person you truly are, it’s easy to make decisions that are disrespectful of yourself. And when you don’t respect yourself, you feel even worse about yourself. And as you feel worse about yourself, you disrespect yourself even more. I could keep going but I think you get the point. Self respect is a critical ingredient in the recipe for improved self esteem.
The guide below is not a quick fix. There’s nothing here that will “fix” your self image overnight. In fact, there is nothing anywhere that will do such a thing. You shouldn’t be surprised though. That’s not what self improvement is about anyway.
What you will find here is good, practical advice that will help tremendously once you’re serious about changing your outlook on yourself, building self respect, improving your level of self confidence and self love.
So are you ready to genuinely improve your perspective on yourself? [Read More on Self Respect]
The responses to Why People Lie So Damn Much have been amazing. If you haven’t read that blog post on the subject of lying, you may want to check it out before reading this follow-up post on honesty.
Facebook messages, emails, and comments over the last week show that people are, for the most part, in agreement that we should all work on telling the truth more often. However, one thing is clear: Many people doubt if honesty is always the best policy. There is a lot of confusion about when, if ever, it is right to lie.
Are there times when telling the truth is NOT the highest choice? If someone’s feelings may be hurt by the truth, is it better to tell a lie instead?
Personally, I still believe honesty is the best policy. However, there’s always more than one way to follow through. While some people take pride in being “brutally honest,” a harmful approach to relaying the truth is no more honorable than telling a lie.
When you’ve told the truth with as much tenderness, concern, positive intention and love as possible, you’ve made the highest choice. You’ve done the “right” thing. How that message of truth is received by another is outside of your control. There is much that you can do to comfort a person who is having trouble dealing with the truth. And that is far more respectable and loving than telling a comforting lie.
When it comes to honesty, as with everything else in our lives, we have choices. We can attempt to use compassion as an excuse for lying, or we can compassionately retain our integrity by telling the truth with love. A tough call? Sometimes, yes it seems that way. But it shouldn’t be! How can we expect to experience self improvement without first being truth with ourselves and those around us?
Here are a few truth quotes to get you thinking even more on the subject of honesty:
25 Honesty & Truth Quotes
- “People who are brutally honest get more satisfaction out of the brutality than out of the honesty.” -Richard J. Needham
- “A half truth is a whole lie.” -Yiddish Proverb
- “A truth that’s told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.” Continue Reading About Truth
I know. I know. It’s quite a question: Why do people lie? Lying, the act of being intentionally deceitful, is about as common as breathing. In fact, I don’t believe there is a human being alive who has never told a lie—except maybe those who have yet to begin speaking.
Everyone has, at some point, sought to cover the truth for one reason or another. And this doesn’t just apply to individuals.
Corporations, governments, and institutions of all type engage in the infamous game of deceit. We all know it. What most of us don’t know is WHY people lie, how lying to others affects our self improvement journey, and how to permanently stop lying.
Why People Lie
Why is it that so many of us engage in something that brings so much pain and misunderstanding? If you take the time to ponder several lies that you’ve told and/or lies that you’ve been told by others, it becomes quite clear that there is one core reason at the root of all dishonesty. That reason is fear.
I’m sure you can think of several other reasons for telling lies: greed, shame, unfairness, cowardice, insecurity, guilt. But guess what…fear is also at the core of these.
Have you ever lied about your age or weight? If so, it may be because you were ashamed or insecure. But why feel ashamed? Why were you insecure? Perhaps you feared what another would think of your truth.
As a child you likely lied about breaking a household item, hitting your sibling, or losing homework. Is it not fear that drives children’s attempts at deceit?
Have you ever declined someone’s request to borrow money by lying? I sure have. It’s tempting to say, “I don’t have it” instead of just saying “NO.” Why is that? For me it was the fear of hurting someone’s feelings or being judged as a selfish person. Read More of this article
In a country where lovers are more familiar with breakups than they are with romance, and divorce is more common than marriage, successful relationships seem as realistic as a castle in the sky.
Is that because we don’t want to make relationships last? Is it because we just don’t care? Maybe it is because we don’t know how to nurture these relationships and make them last a lifetime.
In the book, The Five Love Languages, Dr. Gary Chapman describes the importance of learning and speaking your partner’s “love language.” According to this concept, to develop (or maintain) a healthy relationship you must learn to love your significant other in a way that he or she can interpret.
Consider this: If you speak Dutch to someone who only understands English, communication is not taking place. No matter what you say or how beautifully you say it, that person won’t receive the message as you meant it. By the same token, we all seem to express and comprehend love according to different “love languages.” [Click to read the entire blog post…]
As I looked over my life, appreciating the person I am and the gifts that I have, something occurred to me. I don’t give full credit where credit is due. Yes, I give thanks for the pleasurable, comforting and rewarding experiences of my life. But I forget that I owe much of my thanks to something totally different—life’s struggles.
Within moments, I asked and answered one of my biggest life questions, “Why do we suffer?”
I am the person who I am today, not because I had a perfect childhood or the most supportive friends, but because that wasn’t always so. I am the person who I am today, not because I’ve always trusted the right people and made the right decisions, but because I sometimes screwed up.
Life’s Struggles Teach Life Lessons
Most of what I’ve come to appreciate about myself did not develop because life has always been good to me. It’s quite the opposite.
For me, as for everyone, life has been a complex mix of experiences. Some days have been like a walk in the park, while other days felt like an uphill run on a rocky road. But every bit of this has helped to define the person I am.
If you’ve ever wondered why we must endure life’s struggles, consider this: Our struggles, and the way we deal with them, are among the many gifts that shape our lives. If we can find it in our hearts to replace resentment, frustration, and anger with appreciation for life’s struggles, we can heal emotional scars and reach the epitome of self improvement success.
Life’s Struggles Build Character
“You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.” -Henri-Frederic
Strength & Resilience
My inner strength was not developed through picking flowers and partying every day. Instead, I am the strong, resilient woman that I am because I’ve chosen to get back up repeatedly after being knocked down.
Each time I suffered a little, I gained a little more strength. When I suffered greatly, I gained even greater resistance to weakness and realized that I set my own limitations. READ MORE
A Self Improvement Guide to Natural Health
A natural health remedy is not exactly the first thing that comes to the average American’s mind when they’re sick. Face it—most of us go to the doctor or pop a pill for everything. I was included that “most of us category” until I found myself uninsured at the age of 25 with a small child and very few resources. I could’ve panicked—okay, I did panic momentarily; but this blessing in disguise led to my ever-expanding knowledge of natural cures.
You probably won’t hear it from your doctor (since he or she is trained to practice medicine), but there are natural remedies for high blood pressure, depression, asthma, infections, viruses, hormonal problems, and even cancer.
Learning to care for yourself through natural health remedies may be the most under-emphasized of all the self improvement techniques that I stumble upon. I suppose we sometimes forget that self improvement is about the total you—mind, body and soul. So, I’d like to share my favorite natural remedies in hopes of helping you to improve your health—the natural way.
Garlic – The Natural Health Remedy for Everything
I’d call garlic the ultimate wonder drug if it was actually a drug. But it’s not. It’s a natural health remedy that has been successfully used for ages to treat a variety of illnesses without the harmful side effects of medication. Garlic has more uses than I can name here, but let’s start with the fact that it is anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, AND anti-viral.
Unlike prescribed antibiotics which destroy your good bacteria along with the bad ones, garlic eats the nasty bugs in your system while leaving the ones that you need intact. And that’s not the best part. Bacteria don’t seem to build a resistance to garlic as they do with antibiotics.
If that’s not enough to sell you on garlic as a life-saving natural health remedy, consider the fact that it helps to prevent and treat some of the most common causes of illness, embarrassment and death. High blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, ear infections, diabetes, stomach virus, acne, Athlete’s Foot, cancer, flu, bladder and kidney infections, herpes, blood clots—the uses for garlic go on and on. Garlic helps you to heal yourself by strengthening the immune system, which means you can hinder what’s trying to invade your body and fight off whatever makes its way inside. [Click to read the entire blog post…]
