Two newborns, both born on the same day at the same time and in the same birthplace to two different families. Both are perfectly healthy. Both will express themselves with smiles, facial expressions and different sounds that will be understood by their respective families.
The two babies have perfectly virgin minds, until now.
Fast forward five years, the two five-year old children are now able to talk, walk and understand concepts and ideas a little better than before. Both are subject to the life principles that they will grasp and use while they are growing up.
Now, based on what they will hear and see around them, their minds start to be molded.
Fast forward fifteen years, both the two of them are in their twenties. These two are now in college and following a path that society, they and their families judged adequate for their professional and personal success in their lives.
Differences between the two of them are now more and more present: they differ in the type of friends they have, the types of activities they enjoy doing, how they view their possibilities, how they view themselves and those around them, how they treat others and many other subjective features.
At this point, the way they were raised and the circumstances they went through are great influencers of their decisions and beliefs. Their minds are no longer virgin. Their narratives are now greatly influenced by how their minds were, until now, “programmed” since their birth.
Today, both are at an age where they are responsible of their own lives and are considered autonomous. One of them is content while the other is not. Why? What is the difference? What has triggered this outcome?
The second one feels that there is more to life than just accepting and believing what has been taught to him or her. He or She is now in a deep questioning phase: Can I change the way I view things? Can I shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset? Can I create my own path? Can I and how could I start thinking differently? And ultimately, how can I rewire my brain for success?
After all of this previous questioning, let’s take a moment and truly try to answer each question. Go ahead, re read them, and after each question mark know that the answer is a plain positive: “Yes.”.
It is very normal for human beings to feel discouraged, unmotivated, unhappy, and overwhelmed at some point. There is no time to whine helplessly once you realize you fall into those feelings; it is the perfect time to take action. The one who is not content with his life now is about to begin a new journey: a journey of self-improvement.
“You can be a masterpiece and a work in progress at the same time”
– Sophia Bush–
The reason it is known as self-improvement is simply because it all begins with self, and ends with self, and every positive change is made from within. Perhaps you are experiencing a bout of discouraging situations at home, work, or in your life in general, and you really feel the need for a positive change.
This article takes an in-depth look at how you can change your life completely in as little as four weeks by outlining important life lessons that will help in re-wire your brain completely and begin your very own “zero-to-hero” journey.
Importance of “Re-Creating” Yourself
Deep inside you lies an unlimited potential that can only be realized through positive living. Negativity is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) factors limiting individuals from realizing their full potential.
It all begins with laying a strong foundation of creating yourself first and foremost. No one knows you better than yourself, and as it has been said before, you cannot lie to yourself. You know what ails you, what pulls you back, and what stands on your way better than anyone else. Creating yourself first is like laying a blueprint for changing your life for the better, and the faster you can do that; the better.
Now, if you truly want to change your life for the better, and be able to re-program you mind for success, you have to intentionally bring your mind to accept the fact that your success or failures are all of your own responsibility and it is your own duty to make it happen for your own self.
Whenever you are ready, take a deep breath and let’s begin this step-by-step life-changing process.
Step #1: Self Awareness: Take a moment to audit yourself for improvement.
It takes a sober mind to evaluate self candidly. Your habits and routines might help you define the kind of person you are, but they cannot define the kind of person you wish to be.
Create time for yourself, free from any interruption, and look at your life comprehensively. Take a full audit of who you are, you can be as detailed as you want in your analysis. It is important to weigh both your strengths and weaknesses with utter sincerity, but avoid being too hard on yourself.
Your strengths should help you overcome your weaknesses. Review your life based on your current position or situation, and decide whether you are comfortable the way things stand, or you'll need to make changes.
This step is the beginning of it all. You have to start by knowing who you truly are.
Step #2: Write down your intentions
After evaluating yourself conclusively, focus on both what helps you to become better, and what pulls you down. Take time to write down your plans and intentions for the short term but always ensure you are being reasonable.
Expecting too much from yourself within only a short period of time can come back to haunt you as you can easily revert to old habits after failing to achieve your own declared objectives within the self-stipulated timeline, or even worse; declare yourself a failure. Therefore; you'll need to balance your energy equally to embrace what you intend to become, and to shrug off what you don't want.
Step #3: Clarity of Goals: Set goals that guarantee maximum positive impact
Everyone has their unique goals, some of which can be attained within a short period while others can only be practical in a long haul. Positive change should not be made to wait, actually it should begin the moment you sit down to reflect on your life. If you really put your heart into it and are greatly focused on making this change for yourself, sometimes a month can be too long of a time, and change can happen earlier than 30 days, but to be fair, it is a reasonable time to set your goals. Perhaps you are fighting alcoholism, family disputes, work-related issues, weight issues, or one of many addictions. Considering you are not signing anything under duress, your goals should be practically possible to achieve because you wrote them down yourself.
The goals you will set should only be those who are going to create the biggest positive impact. For example, if one of your intentions is to lose weight, you can follow this reasoning: we all know that we have to eat daily, therefore, instead of going straight to the old “I have to start exercising everyday” the goal with the most positive impact would be to solely shift your eating habits to healthier ones, you will always have to eat in any case.
Step #4 : Free yourself of what is holding you back: Get rid of possible distractions
Imagine that you can run, but right now you have invisible chains that are only permitting you to walk. Imagine how free you will feel if you allow yourself to remove those chains. The analogy here can be applied to any type of negative behaviour or addiction that is holding you back from unleashing your full potential, and if you don’t know what is holding you back you can always go back to step #1 and try to figure it out.
It is normal to have weaknesses, just as it is normal to have strengths; they make us humans. Our weaknesses and bad behaviours are aggravated by our deliberate and continuous association with different stimuli, therefore, to avoid that what prompts us to take a step in the wrong direction we have to become more self-disciplined.
If you are fighting alcoholism, you won't be helping yourself hanging around bars with friends after work. Similarly, if you are a lover of junk foods yet you want to lose weight you'll have to rethink your eating habits. A good journey to self-improvement begins with associating with what is right, and that which matters. Strive to hang out with the right company of friends at all times, take up life advice from them, and before you know it you'll be a part of them.
Step #5: Be ready to make sacrifices
Nothing comes easy, and more so matters to do with change. Assuming you realized the need to change your life on your own, or upon mitigation from external forces, it takes balls to see it through.
Positive change involves letting go of old habits which sometimes involve hard-hitting addictions. It will not be a smooth journey, but it is worth it. Keep your thoughts fully focused on your goals, and you'll find that everything you'll be doing in the process shall be for a good course. No matter how fascinating something can be, avoid it at all costs, provided it does feature on your list of weaknesses.
Step #6: Audit your progress: Make random personal assessments
People will notice changes in you naturally, but before they point it out, sit back once in a while and see how much progress you've made since day one. If your progress is clearly noticeable cheer for yourself, if it is small cheer for yourself too and always remember that “something will always be better than nothing.”
Only you can be honest to yourself, and only you can be able to tell of your personal experience that far. You'll come across barriers along the way, and as you make your own assessment you'll be better placed to understand how effectively you can deal with them as they come.
Step #7: Remember where you started
When you constantly remind yourself where you've come from, you'll be energizing yourself because you don't wish to experience similar situation in the future. Keep your eyes on the prize and blind on what could possibly distract you along the way.
Even after attaining your selected goals, always take a look back on your journey, always remember that you started for a reason, it takes hard work and dedication to get to position you would have brought yourself to. Equally important to visualization, from time to time use these flash-backs as motivations to keep on pushing forward for a better, happier and healthier life.
The Important Take Away
You are making yourself, you are intentionally declaring to the universe that you don’t want to be a result of your circumstances, but rather a product of your decisions. It doesn't matter how stained your past has been, or how people have treated you in the past. Tips for daily life are aimed for personal betterment and there should be no conviction whatsoever.
Remember; you wanted to change your life completely, and you made the deliberate decision by yourself. It takes discipline and hard work to achieve your life goals, and you'll need to be guided by your mind from the beginning.
That means you'll need to have your mind fully set on achieving that change you long to see in your life. That means that you will need to not give up on yourself along the way. Always remember that through life, we all follow our paths, we are all sitting on our own driver’s seat. While you are reading these words, cheer for yourself, you are a part of those who believe in themselves enough to know that a great life is nothing but a matter of great decisions.
