No.988
I think that the reason why many self-improvement plans fail is that they focus on particular actions: see the roll chart for "do some pushups" or "go for a walk".
Instead, if self-improvement is viewed as self-cultivation, we can really get at the core of what's holding us back from a routine of effective action.
For example, say you know that you're too proud, you're too set in your ways to feel capable of change. Say you "don't care about what other people think". Basically, you become a kind of contrarian. What happens if you try to be a contrarian to your own ways? What if you view your self as something subject to critique? You might try to listen more and talk less, and make yourself a dragnet for information and ideas that you can then filter through. Fishermen are humble in that they have no problem being persistent as they wade through mud and sort through garbage they catch, but at the end of the day, they might just find something that they're proud of catching.
Or, say you know that you're too angry. You know that you're prone to explode and have outbursts. You might even view this as a good thing, in that it makes you an aggressive go-getter on a warpath. Well, they say that the best military leaders have a kind of "sangfroid", or total, almost eerie cool-headedness in conflict. This is striking because, after all, war is one of the most aggressive things around. But the mind behind the action is calm.
All of this is to say, mindset comes before action, and some of the most active, result-seeking humans have actually spent a lot of time to cultivate themselves and their mindset.
Most of all, it is key to be realistic. We're human. Self-cultivation is not something that happens overnight. You will always have pangs of pride and anger and so on and so forth. But when you have seen both sides of these impulses, you can begin to evaluate them in your mind when you're struck by them.
TL;DR– for self-improvement, use your head. Don't just focus on being positive. Focus on being critical of what's negative in you. In turn, you will probably start to form good habits that are founded on rationality rather than impulse.
No.992
This goes without saying
No.1006
>>988>Focus on being critical of what's negative in youthis is bullshit and i'll tell you why. if all you ever do is be introspective you'll never get anywhere. you'll only ever react to what's already happened.
People should instead think of what it is they want. And work to achieve that however possible. The pieces will then fall in place. If in the end you are not true to yourself you'll forever be questioning yourself. If anger and shit doesn't resolve the issue THEN you can adjust for the problem at hand.
No.1010
>>992You'd think it is and I'm sure most people think this is an obvious thing but yet people still don't follow it.
I guarantee so many people's routines wouldn't end as fast if they actually followed the above. Planning is what makes or breaks a new program for change.
No.1014
Adding to your point, I feel people don't even know what "self-improvement" means to them.
There's a popular concept that self-improvement entails becoming buff, rich, and social(romance included). I'd bet that most people try and fail to succeed in those areas because they don't have an idea of what they'd really want achieve in life.
Introspection is an important component and under appreciated component to the process.
No.1163
>>1014Very true. Striving for things that you don't truly want because you've unconsciously bought into the 'buff, rich and social' dream, you will always come up short because these goals are vague and shallow and don't really mean anything - and there's always someone buffer, richer and more popular to make you feel like a failure.
>Having a genuine self-improvement goal is a bit like falling in love. You feel sort of incomplete and wistful without it, there are things you can do to improve your chances of finding it, but if you latch on to either a goal or a lover when you don't really have a true passion for it, it will just clog up your life and make you feel stuck and demoralised.