Tag: becoming the best version of yourself

MAKE WHO YOUR WHY

One of the secrets to an amazing life is to have a strong ‘why’. Knowing the reason you are doing things, or the goal you are striving for will allow you to make it through some pretty tough challenges. You do not have to even being chasing a specific goal. Sometimes the challenge can be working to become the best version of yourself. Sometimes that challenge can be remaining a decent human in a world that is trying to change that. It is then that you can really be tested. Why go to work when everyone else at your place of employment is always calling in sick? Why work so hard when most of your wages go for a government that cannot balance their own budget? These are thoughts we all have at some point in time.

When you are busy saving for that vacation, or gifts for a loved one, it is easier to get up and get out of bed. Most of the time, we are working just to keep the lights on and a roof overhead. This is not as inspiring. Even becoming the best version of ourselves is not the most motivating on the hardest days. What then? The answer is not why, but ‘who’.

If you need an outside source of motivation and inspiration, look no further than those you love. Eric Thomas does a whole video on this, but we can look at it in a nutshell. For me, on the days that I do not feel like being the best version of me, I look at a picture of my beautiful lady. She does so much to show she loves me, how could I not give her the best version of me? She believes in me, even when I do not believe in myself. I think of my mother who raised me. Would she really want to be responsible for a man who grew to be less than he could be? How about my friends who are struggling and could use an example of perseverance? Of course, you – the wonderful readers of this blog. I owe it to all of you who spend your time and energy to read and apply what we share here.

Next time you are tempted to stay in bed and rest, or not give your best on a project, ask yourself some tough questions. “Do I love sleep more than I love having the respect of my spouse?” “Would being lazy be more rewarding than my children respecting the person I am?” Even though you already know the answers, ask them anyway. It may lead to you begrudgingly going ahead with what you have to do, but you will be able to lay your head down and sleep with peace that night. You will learn that often the best ‘why’ is really a ‘who’.

KEEP BLOOMING 🌻

This is so true. In a world where people are mistakenly focused on material gain and other outward signs of success, it is important to remember where real change starts. If there is anything you wish to accomplish, you must start by becoming it. That may sound backwards to some of you, so allow me to explain.

Real change happens internally. If you do not change who you are inside, that change will usually not be long-lasting. That is why so many who won the lottery end up broke. They have not changed to someone who is comfortable with having a lot of wealth.

You must work on changing your mentality first. If you want to be fit, you must become a person who likes, and is dedicated to fitness. You want to eat healthy? You must become someone who  has a better relationship with food. Someone who understands that you should eat to live and not live to eat. That healthy can be both delicious and fun!

Here is the tricky bit. When you start changing your mentality, you would think everyone would be behind you. Especially, those closest to you. Often, this is not the case. It can be a fear, be that conscious or not, that once you level up you will leave them behind. Sometimes that might have to be the case. When you are working on sobriety, you can’t hang around with addicts anymore. Maybe they just do not possess the drive to improve their lives? A little encouragement and reassurance can go a long way here.

In the end, you might be doing it alone. Quite often, self-improvement is just that – improvement by yourself. Those closest to you might be your most difficult test. Do not stop them from allowing you to bloom!

Quick side note. Be careful not to judge them either. Many people lack either the knowledge or the discipline to improve their lives. Some of the best ways we can help this is to offer encouragement and a positive example of what can be done! It may just be your success that will change their life!

WHICH WILL YOU REMOVE? 🤔

Sometimes life is ‘addition by subtraction’. That is, there are things we have, or do, in our lives that make them worse. Is it an addiction to sugar? Maybe we are prone to gossip? Perhaps it is hanging with a crowd we just know are not good for us. Whatever the case, our lives would be better without them.

What we struggle with is the perception of these things. They are not just ‘bad habits’, they are literally stopping us from becoming all we can be! They are an internal enemy! We must fight to eliminate them from our life!

My suggestion is to think of one food, habit or person that you would be better off leaving in the past. Work on eliminating that from your life. I would love to hear what you are working on!

THE BEST DEFEAT, THE ONLY DEFEAT 💪

If we are to rally against anything in life, it should be the version of ourselves that is less than we know we could be. It is one of the greatest battles we will ever face, and one that never ends. This may sound overwhelming, but it really is not.

Yes, it is true we must be diligent every day to make sure we strive to be the best version of ourselves. Even when we achieve that goal, we must work hard to maintain it. If we conquer our temptations and fix our diet, we know that sugar craving is there hiding waiting to stage a sneak attack. If we go to the gym and get our body back in shape, we must fight to maintain that. There will be the temptation to take a day off, which will lead to another, then another.

This fight will go on for the rest of our lives. It is not that we can never claim victory. We can, in fact, claim victory every night that we know we did our best. Every time we live up to our standards. We can win the battles daily. When are days are winding down, we will know if we have one enough battles to win the war. That is to say, we have lived enough good days to have made it a good life.

One final note. Far too many of us meet sudden and unexpected ends. That is why it is so important to defeat the bad version of ourselves daily. We want to start stacking those victories as soon as we can. How about you? Can you declare victory today?

THE GREATEST GIFT YOU CAN GIVE 🎁

Who doesn’t love giving a great gift? I know I do. Seeing the joy on the face of others when they open a gift you have carefully thought of and selected is a better feeling than any gift you could receive. At least that’s how I feel. I’m sure many of you would agree.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to give a gift like that every time you see someone? To see someone’s face light up with joy everytime the two of you connect? There is such a gift. It does require careful thoughts and actions daily, but as you can see, the rewards are priceless.

The gift we are talking about us becoming the best version of yourself. This may seem counterintuitive, but if you think about it is not. Of course the ultimate beneficiary of self-improvement is… well.. yourself. Still, think of how nice it is to spend time with someone who is at peace, filled with joy and has their life reasonably together.

This is not to say that you should fake being happy all of the time. We all have struggles and sometimes sharing them with a friend helps a great deal and makes our friend feel like the valuable person they are in our life. Showing up with peace in our hearts, an attitude of gratitude and excitement about the future can brighten anyone’s day.

The more you learn about improving your own life, the better you can be of service to those you care about. Learning to be a better listener? Think of who that benefits. How about developing the ability to give genuine and uplifting compliments? You know that will certainly encourage your friends and family. One of the best things I have learned is to stay calm in the face of challenges. You not only inspire others, but can be in a better position to see solutions their panicking mind may not be able to.

This year, let us all work on becoming the best version of ourselves. Not only will we improve, but so will our relationships with those we care about. Just remember that self-improvement is a life-long journey. You can take a daily step right here at secret2anamazinglife.com!

MIRROR OR A CELL PHONE 📴

As a speaker, one of the things I enjoy doing is watching other speakers. I can see how they use their body language, how they use their words to get their point across and a million other things. Even things I do not like about their delivery can help me improve my own. To this point, I found myself watching a live seminar by one of my favorite speakers. During his performance, I witnessed something I have never seen at a motivational seminar – a heckler. Why on earth would you go somewhere to be motivated only to heckle the speaker, I have no idea.

This gentleman is a rather passionate and aggressive speaker. If you had your heart set on derailing a motivational seminar, his would not be my first choice. He is also a very smart and quick-witted gentleman. After the heckler had called him a “fake” and said all of his stuff “doesn’t work”, the man calmly asked the man one simple question. “What kind of phone do you have sir?” The man quickly pulled out the latest iPhone. When asked how much it cost the young man, he sheepishly replied his parents had purchased it for him. Passing on the opportunity to address this, the speaker simply asked how much the phone had cost his parents. “About $1000 dollars I guess.” was the young mans reply. Without changing his tone, the speaker asked the young man one final question, “You spend $1000 every year to update your phone. When was the last time you spent $1000 to upgrade yourself?”

I was obviously cheering for my fellow speaker until I realized something. He could have been talking to me. How long had it been since I invested in myself. Sure, I have bought new shoes because I thought they would help me workout better. If I bought a new cellphone I might be able to upgrade my YouTube videos, but that is not investing in myself. That is buying myself new things. What if I invested that money in courses or books to gain more knowledge? That would upgrade my videos in a much better way. I realized it had been quite some time since I had invested in myself.

We often view investing in ourselves as something indulgent or selfish. That is foolish thinking. Look around at the people closest to you in your life. Do you think they would benefit with an improved version of yourself? How about your career? Do you think improving yourself could lead to some advancement or additional compensation? I think we can agree that the answers to all of those questions would be ‘yes’. We are actually improving the lives of those we care about, and the world at large, by improving ourselves and striving to be the best version of ourselves. It is actually a very selfless thing to do.

As the new year approaches, let us all work a little bit harder to balance investing in material things, with investing in ourselves. That investment does not always have to be financial. Committing an hour three days a week to working out is an investment in ourselves. Investing time to read or meal prep is also investing in ourselves. Learning is an investment in ourselves. Therapy or meditation is an investment in ourselves. Saying ‘no’ when our spirit is drained is investing in ourselves. How do you plan on investing in yourself in the new year?

UNPOPULAR TRUTH 🤫

There is a lot to unpack here, and I hope to have these words make sense to you. If you are a student of self-improvement for any length of time, you have undoubtedly heard the story of the lion and the gazelle. It is a great way to view motivation. The gazelle is motivated by outside circumstances. In this case, the lion. If the lion is not there, he will continue to eat grass and chill. The lion, however, has an internal motivation – his hunger. Sure, maybe there is the thought about feeding the rest of the pack, but the driving force is his hunger. The same should be true in our lives. We should not only be motivated by outside circumstances, but by internal ones. Do we only study and improve ourselves when we think our job might be in jeopardy, or we do it because we are hungry to become the best version of ourselves?

The same is true with competition. We are not competing to be smarter than Bob, or more beautiful than Betty. We want to improve ourselves and become the best version of us that we can be. Not to mention, the world does not need another Bob or Betty. What the world needs is for us to be the most authentic and best versions of us that we can be. What is preventing us from doing that is also internal. It is not Bob, Betty, our spouse or our boss. No, it is our habits, our lack of consistent action. When we are trying to lose weight, it is not Little Debby’s fault that we eat a box of snack cakes. No, it is our lack of personal control.

This week, remember we are competing against that version of ourselves that wants to hold us back through laziness, lack of focus and lack of effort. Can we defeat the challenges of the old version of ourselves? That is the true competition. That is what we are up against.

WHERE TO LOOK FOR APPROVAL 👀

I think we all enjoy receiving praise from those around us. I know when my lovely lady compliments me, my heart soars. What really matters is what our opinions of ourselves are. This can be a double-edged sword. If we accomplish something great, but do so by ill-gotten means, others may praise you, but inside, you will not be able to be proud of yourself. On the other hand, if you work very hard on a project, stay disciplined and it still does not work out, others may view it as a failure, but you can know what a great character you developed.

There lies the secret of approval. Develop your character to a point where you are satisfied that you have acted in accordance to the best version of yourself. Never stop improving and learning. If you do these actions, you will always have the approval of your inner character. It will allow the opinions of others to hold the appropriate weight.

ASK A DIFFERENT QUESTION ❓️

It is Monday, let us do this week a little different. Normally, the reason we do things is for what we can get out of it. This is not always a monetary issue. We can get a feeling of accomplishment, such as when we clean the house. We can get a feeling of health and energy, like when we finish a good workout. It can even be more seemingly altruistic. Maybe we are doing it to get a good feeling, such as when we help another person. Depending on your motive, this can be a motivating way to move through life.

What I advocate we do this week, is ask ourselves this question, “Who is this going to help me become?” In the case of cleaning the house, will it help you become a more disciplined, less stressed, individual? Working out can leave you a healthier, more flexible and yes, less stressed, person. How about helping someone for no reason other than developing your character and becoming someone who can relate to others better?

This week, ask yourself “Who is this helping me become?” Even dragging yourself into work on a Monday morning when you really don’t feel like it can make you a person who is viewed as reliable. It can also make you someone you can be proud of. A person who takes care of their responsibilities even when they would rather not. It can also help you avoid things you shouldn’t do. Tempted by those doughnuts in the breakroom? Eating them will make you someone who gives into temptation and who does not put an accent on their health. What are your actions helping you become?