Ten Tips to become a better you

Every life is a journey to achieve the ultimate aim – Self-actualization. The ability to understand and manage self, develop good relationships with others, and handle situations effectively are vital elements of being a successful and effective person. To lead a fruitful and content life, one should understand the very purpose of life. Everyone strives to achieve happiness, contentment and success in their lives. However, not many are able to make it. Here are few tips to improve yourself and be a better you.

Tip 1 - Self Awareness

Everything starts with you and therefore it is essential to know about yourselves. Self-awareness is the starting point of your journey to success. You must know who you are, how others have perceived you, the image you would like to project and how to establish it, your personality and ego status and goals and actions. Self-awareness helps you identify your talents, emotions, skills, capabilities, and weaknesses and helps you develop new skills in life. Once you are clearly aware of your present personality, you can lay the foundation for development and start working to achieve success in every area of your life. Lack of self-awareness can lead to inefficiency, waste of talents and failure in life.

Tip 2 - Knowing your Roles and Responsibilities

You play numerous roles and responsibilities in your day-to-day life, such as a spouse, employee, leader, businessman, neighbour, parent, sibling, and child and so on. The nature of your roles changes in accordance with the different stages of your life. Each of these roles comes with certain expectations and you should be effectively meeting them to become successful in the given role. To become an effective person, you should understand your responsibilities and the accepted level of performance for each role. Roles and expectation management are the necessary skills to achieve self-satisfaction and get a place in your loved one’s heart as well as in the workplace and society. Any problem in this area can lead to stress and feeling of inferiority.

Tip 3 - Own your Decisions and Actions

How many of you are good at making decisions own your actions and their consequences. You may tend to blame anything and everything outside and around you for your failures and unpleasant consequences. Unless and until you own your decisions and take responsibility for your actions, your life will never be any better than what you are currently experiencing. You must acknowledge your blunders together with your brilliance. Get out of the blaming culture and start evaluating every incidence and start learning from experiences. This will help you to achieve excellence in life.

Tip 4 - Count your blessings

How many of you have counted the blessings you received in your life; not many, because it is human nature to point out negatives and complain about everything we don’t have. To become effective in your life, try concentrating on your positives and work on them. Counting your blessings will create positive energy and you will be more effective and satisfied in your life.

Tip 5 - Welcome Criticisms

Not many of you will like to get criticized; however, you must understand that constructive criticisms will help you evaluate yourself and improve your skills. Do not react emotionally to criticisms, rather consider it as a call to improve and take what is essential and leave the rest. If the criticism is not genuine, ignore it and go minding your own business. If handled rightly, criticisms can make you a strong and better person.

Tip 6 - Let go the Past

There are people who feel cherished or upset about the past and spend their lives dwelling on these memories. They either feel great about their ancestor’s achievements or blame them for today’s sufferings; both will harm your productivity. It is important to move ahead in your life by leaving the past behind. You must learn from past, live today and hope for tomorrow. This is the best way to lead a content life.

Tip 7 - Do what you fear the most

Don't go the way life takes you, but take the life the way you go. To be successful in life, you need to leave your comfort zone and face what you fear. If you play too safe, the result also will be slow and mediocre. You should have the courage to face the challenges to achieve your goals in life.

Tip 8 - Be healthy

You must be healthy to lead a fruitful life and achieve everything you want in your life. Being healthy means possessing a healthy body, mind and soul. You should develop healthy communication; maintain a healthy attitude and a strong personality. Your mental health is as equally or more important than your physical health as once you are strong in your mind, everything is possible in your life.

Tip 9 - Have Self Respect

If you don’t respect yourself, do not expect it from others. To become effective, you should first love yourself, value yourself and trust yourself. This will boost your self-confidence and subsequently, you will achieve success in your life.

Tip 10 - Be yourself

You should understand that you are a unique creation of God and no other person like you has lived on this earth. Your personality, physical features, abilities and talents are only for you and you should be the master of your life. Ensure that you understand the purpose of your life and find possible ways to achieve it. Design your life and do what you enjoy doing and bring you rewards. Most importantly, be yourself.

Look within yourself and understand what you want in your life and have the right focus. Remember, you are born to live and not living because you are born. It is poor performance that often leads to stress and anxiety. When you face challenges, think about the skills you could learn to increase your competence. It is vital to understand what your emotions are telling you as emotions are secondary in nature and there will always be a causative factor behind every emotion. To become effective in life, you should attend to these causative factors and not surrender to your emotions and not let them rule you. Be the master of your life and direct it with confidence. If confused or stuck, do seek professional help.