A self-improvement journey is similar to building a house. You need to start with the right foundation. And the right foundation for any self-improvement journey is a great mindset.
Realize that if you don’t have the right mindset, self-improvement is very difficult! For example, when I was a young person, I would make up excuses for why my life wasn’t going as I wanted. I would blame other people for my inability to achieve my goals or for my unhappiness. But my problem wasn’t other people. My problem was that I didn’t have the right mindset.
I mistakenly believed that my ability to create the life that I wanted was dependent on other people. What I needed was a “personal responsibility” mindset. I needed to take full responsibility for my life. Once I began taking responsibility for my life and my happiness, I was able to get on the path to creating a great life! But my life only could change when my mindset changed.
Below are 5 critical mindsets to adopt to get on the path toward self-improvement. Adopt these mindsets and see your life take off!
Be Confident, Not Arrogant
If you want to accomplish anything in life, it’s critical to have a confidence mindset. You have to believe in yourself! You have to believe that you have the skills necessary to achieve your goals. And you have to believe that you have the tenacity to accomplish those goals, no matter what obstacles you may face.
Where folks run into problems is when their confidence takes a wrong turn, and they become arrogant. Now, what exactly is the difference between confidence and arrogance? Well, arrogant individuals think that they’re better than other folks. So, they’ll be dismissive of other people and their points of view. Or, they’ll behave in an overconfident manner. They’ll have an inflated view of their abilities, accomplishments or knowledge.
The problem with an arrogant mindset is that it’s fragile. That’s because arrogance is based on a falsehood. Arrogant individuals falsely believe that they’re better than others. And as soon as that belief is attacked, arrogant people fall apart.
By contrast, a confidence mindset is powerful. That’s because when you’re confident, you have an accurate understanding of yourself. You understand your strengths and your weaknesses. So, if someone insults you, it doesn’t matter. That person’s opinion is neither here nor there. That’s because you have an accurate view of yourself.
It’s from that place of confidence that you can start your self-improvement journey. That’s because when you’re confident, you know exactly where you excel – and where you need to improve.
Take Responsibility for Your Life
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that you’re unhappy. Sometimes in life, we’re in an unhappy place! The problem is when we conclude that other people need to change so that we can be happy.
Now, I’ll concede that if other people did and said everything that we wanted them to do and say, life would be beautiful. But that isn’t how life works. Other people have free will! And they have the right to do and say whatever they darn well feel like doing and saying.
So, a critical mindset for self-improvement is to understand that you are responsible for your own happiness. No one else is.
For example, there was a period in my life when I was deeply unhappy. And I thought to myself, “If everyone in my life changed, then I could be happy.” But the reality was that no one was changing! People are who they are. It took me a long time to accept that. But once I accepted that other folks are who they are, and they aren’t changing, it was liberating. Because I then realized that my happiness was my responsibility.
So, I took responsibility for my own happiness. I moved to a place that made me happy. I got a job that I really liked. And I ended the relationships in my life that weren’t working, and I focused on the relationships that were working. As soon as I took responsibility for my own happiness, I was able to take my life in the right direction.
So, realize that if you want to improve yourself and your life, you need to have a “personal responsibility” mindset. In short, you need to take full responsibility for your life. Stop expecting other people to change. They aren’t changing! You need to change your mindset and take full responsibility for this one life that you’ve been given.
Become a Life-Long Learner
The most important way that we improve ourselves is by learning. Realize that learning should not stop when you finish your formal education. Instead, your goal should be to become a life-long learner.
Now, understandably, many folks just want to stop learning after their high school or university educations are done. Once they enter the work force, at the end of a long day at the job, they want to just sit on the couch, eat chips, watch television and relax! However, you aren’t going to improve yourself or your life by sitting on the couch and watching television. The reality is that self-improvement takes work.
But never fear! The work of self-improvement is good work. In fact, once you get bit by the “life-long learner” bug, you’ll want to continually learn new things until your last breath. That’s because learning is fun when you are learning about things that interest you.
For example, my husband and I both love to travel and learn about other cultures. So, in our spare time, we study other languages. My husband currently is studying learning Spanish, and I’m studying both Spanish and French.
We both find language learning to be a lot of fun. And having a conversational knowledge of other languages makes traveling so much more rewarding. We truly enjoy being able to speak to people in foreign countries in their native languages.
So, if you want to improve yourself, adopt a learner’s mindset. Give up sitting on the couch and staring at the television, and instead, become a life-long learner!
Focus Solely on Your Own Self-Improvement
Sometimes in life, we have very grand ideas about what other people should be doing. I certainly do. Name any person, and I easily can tell you five areas of self-improvement that they should be working on.
However, it’s not my job to run around telling others how to improve themselves. That’s none of my business. My only concern in life is my own self-improvement.
Realize that other people are a distraction from your self-improvement journey. So, if the following thought goes through your head, “X should be doing Y,” stop immediately! Realize that if X wants to go through life doing Y, that’s their concern. You should not spend a single moment trying to get X to live his or her life any differently.
Your mental energy needs to be devoted to one thing: Your own self-improvement. So, a critical mindset for self-improvement is to make improving yourself your only priority. Give your mental energy to your own self-improvement, and leave others to do the same.
Have a Realistic View of Life
You cannot embark on a journey of self-improvement if you live in a world of delusion. Now, there are all kinds of ways that people delude themselves. For example, some people delude themselves into believing that they are more important, smart or awesome than they actually are. Some folks will do terrible things, and then they’ll delude themselves into thinking that their behavior was excusable.
The problem is that you can’t improve yourself unless you first have a realistic view of yourself. After all, to improve yourself, you have to know what exactly you need to fix!
For example, every time that my life isn’t working, I’ll try to come up with a bunch of reasons for my problem that have nothing to do with me. “If only so-and-so would be a better person, then my life could be better.” Or, “If only the economy/weather/political situation could change, then I’d be happier.” All of that is delusional thinking.
Once I realize that my problem isn’t other people or the world generally, I then move to realistic thinking. That means that I take a hard look at my reactions to other people or events. And then I have to embrace reality, which is this: Other people and situations aren’t going to change by anything that I do. So, I need to work on either (1) accepting the other person or situation or (2) distancing myself from the other person or situation.
Having a realistic mindset is really about acceptance. It means accepting yourself, other people, and the world as it is. Not how you would like it to be. And it’s from that accurate view of reality that you can change yourself and your life for the better.
If you are seeking to embark on a journey of self-improvement, consider adopting the mindsets above. If you do, you’ll find that you’ll be able to both change yourself AND change your life for the better! (To read about how to develop a mindset for success, click here.)
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