The way to your better self - a short guide

*Disclaimer: The following is by no means to be identified as science based truth and is 100 % my opinion.

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»You're amazing just the way you are.«,
»Stay the way you are.«,
»I wish you'd never change.«

Ever heard those line? I'm sure you have. And I bet you felt good hearing them. They are a common staple where I live and you hear them everywhere from birthday congratulations to what your girlfriend tells you before you go to sleep.

But should you really... stay the way you are?

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Above mentioned statements give you false praise stating you've already achieved your best potential. They give you positive feedback, sure, but at the same time they limit you. They tell you you can't get any better. They tell you you've already achieved everything there was to achieve. They give you an excuse to stop pursuing your goals.

I'm not saying never be happy with who you are, or not to be satisfied with what you are like. I'm trying to tell you the following:

• You are already awesome.
• You hold the power to become more awesome.
• You should try your hardest to become more awesome.
• It's okay if you mess it up at times.

Which roughly translates to you telling yourself every day:

• I love myself
• I hold the power to improve myself
• I am trying my best to improve myself
• No matter how many times I fail, I will continue improving myself

BUT DO NOTE: Only YOU have the power to improve yourself. There's noone out there to do it for you. It takes will. It takes a tonne of time. You will find yourself stray away from your planned path. You will want to quit. You will cry and sweat over it. But at the end of the day:

YOU hold the power to GET IT DONE.

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But before you close this internet tab and go out blindly chasing your goals, I have a little more to share with you:

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KNOW YOUR GOALS

Your goals can be as simple as getting out of bed in the morning and as complex as winning a nobel prize, but you need to know those goals all the same. You need to know what you want.

So write your goals down!

But let's be honest, making a list that looks like this:

• I want to have more subscribers on Steemit.
• I want to have the hottest girlfriend there is.
• I want a good paying, easy job.
• I want to look like a fitness model.

Is highly unlikely to motivate anyone for longer than a couple of days. So how do you write a list of goals?

Instead of just stating what your endgoal is, give yourself little missions that will bring you closer to your final goal. Identify what you can do TODAY that brings you closer to your ultimate goal. After all, you don't walk into a gym and try to bench 100 kg the first time you lay on that bench. You start with smaller loads and work your way up to what you first had in mind and before you know it, you can lift 105 kg. It's the same thing with video games and experience. You can't just rush to the last boss and beat the game, can you? You need to invest your time into levelling your character up, sometimes grinding one same thing over and over and over again.

It's the same with life.

So in order to keep you on track, try and make a list of goals that looks a little more like this:

• Study the people already successful on social media.
• Read at least 5 good articles on Steemit every day.
• Read at least 1 book a month.
• Post at least 1 good quality article on Steemit every day.
• Participate in contests whenever you can.
• Make yourself visible with high quality replies.

All of the above fall under the category of »I want to have more subscribers on Steemit«.

The first three provide you with the tools neeed to create good quality content, and the latter three is you providing that content. Many people ignore the first three, because they feel they are not (as) important.

Imagine yourself as Popeye. The first three statements are your spinach, and the below three statements are your muscles. The more spinach you eat, the harder you punch.

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What's awesome about it is you now have goals you can accomplish and put a tick at the end of your day. You get the satisfaction of having completed a goal and at the same time you're working toward your higher goal. It's a win-win situation.

Now, it's highly unlikely you are going to have the time to do everything you have probably written down at first, so you might have to sit down and choose the goals you truly wish to pursue and focus on them 100 %.

Also, I guarantee you will catch yourself thinking over time that your written goals are a stinky pile of manure that will get you nowhere and you will want to stray from your plan.

You will want to change it, rearrange it, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Don't.

That's you looking for excuses to give up.

The way I do it, is I update my set of goals every three months. Then for three months straight I stick to what I've written at the beginning of quartile. I feel like three months is enough time to show results, be it positive or negative. I keep the positive, discard the negative and write down some additional ideas. Then give that a try in the next three months.

Remember: You're constantly getting to know yourself and you're constantly improving yourself. There's no way for anyone to tell you what suits you best at any given time. And because you're always changing, the method that works for you today may no longer work for you in a year or two. So don't get stuck in your habits. If something becomes obsolete, it needs to change.

Having written your goals down, a new question arises. Where do you put this valuable piece of paper?

I say keep it close to you at all times and for the sake of wear and tear it's about to face, get it wrapped in plastic (or just put a layer of transparent tape over it like I do). Keep it in your pocket or your wallet or wherever you want. But keep it close. You want to stumble across it as many times during the day as possible. If you keep it in the same pocket as your phone then everytime you reach for your phone, you'll catch a touch of your goals.

Also read it at least twice a day. Once when you wake up, and once before you go to bed. So once to remind you of the things you need to do today, and once to remind yourself of what you did do today. Every time you are bored and don't know what to do, that little piece of paper will remind you of your goals and tell you what to do.

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"But @svashta I'm stuck in a loop."

Sadly many of us face this very problem. We climb so far away from where we've been only to slip and fall back to where we started. Remember how I mentioned before that it's okay to slip at times? That's because it is. Each and every time we've tried and failed, we learned something new.

We learned what doesn't work.

So now it's time to get back on our feet, reassess our plan and try again. I cannot stress this enough; don't try the same strategy over and over again if it didn't work. If it is obsolete, it needs to change. Try finding new ways to challenge old problems. I guarantee one day you'll succeed. But only if you put in the effort.

A lot also comes down to the environment you're in. The atmosphere of the room you're in greatly affects the way you feel. The people around you greatly affect the way you feel. It's the environment around you that can give you power to change, or take it all away.

Sometimes, albeit hard, we need to change our environments to truly flourish.

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Changing yourself is most likely the hardest thing to do.

But it's well worth it.

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So next time you're told to "stay the way you are."

Don't.