Goal
Today, we’re going to discuss three quick ways to make improvements to your life right now.
Table of Contents
- Improvement Requires Pain And Sacrifice
- Three Quick Ways To Improve Your Life Right Now
- Self-Improvement Is A Necessity
- Actionables
Improvement Requires Pain And Sacrifice
To obtain meaning in your life, you must learn how to embrace discomfort and overcome pain.
“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Sophists always lie. Their biggest lie is self-improvement can be reached through collectivism, consumerism, and state worship. The sophists argue this “self-improvement” is easy, straightforward, and relatively painless.
However, you cannot remove responsibility from yourself. You have to make yourself the best you can be, not your neighbor or the state. Additionally, this journey of self-improvement is not easy, straightforward, or painless. It is tiring. But it is meaningful and enriching.
Three Quick Ways To Improve Your Life, Right Now
Why shouldn’t you improve your life? Why wouldn’t you want to live better than you do now?
Today, we will discuss the three ways you can improve your life right now. These techniques require effort and self-discipline. However, mastering these techniques serves as a foundation for your future character growth.
These techniques are:
1) Stop Consuming Media
The news, social media, and entertainment are your enemies. Engage with them as little reasonably possible.
The media, presented through entertainment, news, and social apps, are designed to discourage your growth and development. Entertainment feeds you messages of hopelessness. The news keeps you scared, confused, and distrustful of your neighbor. Social media keeps you emotionally charged and addicted to attention.
Thus, you should cut these things from your life.
With entertainment, I suggest finding works that uplift the human spirit. Avoid cynical works. They will drain you of vigor and magnanimity by indulging your pessimism.
For news, you should limit your consumption to a few hours a week. Remember, the news provokes emotional responses instead of delivering information. If you must consume the news, start locally, then work your way up.
With social media, cut it all out. Social media is a modern plague and the worst mistake of the 21st century. All it promotes is narcissism, ignorance, and abuse. It will not serve your virtuous growth.
2) Define Your Goals
Who do you want to be? Where would you like to go? What is your purpose in life?
“Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.” – Milan Kundera
Do you know your life, long-term, and daily goals? You must adhere to a system designed to help you accomplish your goals.
Unfortunately, most people live in a perpetual fog. This fog can consist of many things such as porn, video games, meaningless relationships, a false sense of moral superiority, and so on. This fog protects weak individuals from the reality their lives offer little value. They have their jobs and their knick-knacks, but nothing else; no bigger dreams, no deeper understanding of life’s purpose, and no potential.
When you determine your goals, you give your life meaning. A meaningful life is hard to waste. Why? Because you will feel emotional and mental pain when you do not pursue what fulfills your purpose.
Simply listing your goals will shift your mindset. Eventually, you will start pursuing what you view to be meaningful.
3) Reflect On The 13 Virtues, Daily
Virtue delivers direction, set limits, and guides you on what is the best behavior.
- Courage – Pursue virtuous actions even when afraid.
- Zeal – Have a passion for your only life.
- Magnanimity – All your actions should be noble.
- Loyalty – Never make your loved ones choose between you and virtue.
- Persistence – Onward to the accomplishment of your goals.
- Patience – Be calm and rational with the limitations of yourself, reality, and others.
- Frugality – Be intentional with your resources.
- Industriousness – Let all actions be productive so that you can build your future.
- Discipline – Follow the virtues; adhere to the systems.
- Authenticity – Tell the truth.
- Generosity – You have been blessed; bless others.
- Gratitude – Humility in the face of your gifts.
- Fortitude – Withstand vice and evil.
These are the 13 virtues, and they are critical to your self-improvement.
To start, all you need to do is reflect on the 13 virtues. Take a few minutes and read the definitions. Think about what they mean and how to apply them. For example, how could you have been more courageous in the past? How can you be more daring in the future? What do you need to be more courageous?
If you reflect on excellence, you inspire yourself to pursue what is excellent.
Self-Improvement Is A Necessity
The world needs you to be your best self. You need you to be your best self.
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” – Ernest Hemingway
We cannot avoid the challenges of life. The best way to encounter and overcome those challenges is to have a strong character. However, building a strong character is difficult, overbearing, and complicated.
With these three techniques, you can start your journey. You must refuse to remain comfortable. However, if you become an individual, you will live the best life you are capable of living.
Actionables
- Of the items on this list, which ones have you’ve been doing? Which one is the hardest for you to start or to maintain?
- What do you gain from watching the news? What do you gain from social media? How much more time and emotional stability would you earn if you let these things go?
- Which virtue is hardest for you to practice? Which is easiest?
Please remember that it’s important to do the actionables. You’re not on this earth to simply read but to do. To become an individual, you must act more than you consume.
*Image credit to Unsplash.
