You can’t stand still in life. You’re moving in one direction or the other. Either you’re improving yourself, or you’re slipping into apathy and letting yourself die. It is impossible to be at a halt in life. Your body, mind, and spirit will constantly decay unless you actively do something to stop and reverse them. This concept of always striving to better yourself is called “constant improvement”.
Before we go any further, let’s clear up the definition a little bit. From just the sound of the phrase, it may seem like I am suggesting spending every spare moment training, practicing, or otherwise pro-actively working at something. That’s not the case. Constantly improving does not mean you can’t take time to hang out with friends, play video games, watch movies, or just otherwise slug it. You can and should! Heck, look above. Right on this very page I call myself a “relaxation connoisseur”. I don’t mean you have to spend every waking minute working. What I mean is this:
There should never be a moment in your life when you don’t have at least one worthwhile thing you are trying to make yourself great at.
Note the emphasis there. If you are trying to be great at whatever you’ve chosen, you’re guaranteed to be putting full effort into it, and getting the most you can back out of it.
There are lots of reasons to be in a state of constant improvement:
- The effort and passion you put into getting great at one thing will automatically raise the level of effort and passion you put into everything else in your life. That’s a free bonus. It’ll just happen. Once you begin really going after something, that passion and focus will spill over into the rest of the things you do. It’s a mindset. You couldn’t stop it from happening if you wanted.
- Your life will be more fulfilling. If you are dedicated to gaining this new skill, you should be making short-term goals to measure your progress. Each time you achieve one of these goals, you’ll feel great, and looking back to see how far you’ve come provides an amazing sense of accomplishment. You’ll soon begin to feel like you can do anything, which leads me to the next reason…
- You’ll realize you can do anything. Once you see yourself succeed again and again by your own merit and hard work (and succeed you will, I promise. Just don’t give up.) you’ll quickly begin to realize that there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can’t do if you put your mind to it. It sounds cliché, but trust me, it’s the absolute truth. A year and a half ago, I couldn’t run 3 miles without stopping. Now I run ultramarathons for kicks. And you can too, if that’s what you want to do!
- You’ll enjoy it! Phrases like “hard work” make it seem like you’ll be toiling away under the oppressive whip of self-improvement, but it’s not so! Learning new things and becoming great at them is a blast. Chances are, if you’ve chosen something to pursue, you like it and you’ll only start liking it more. Plus, if you take the time every once in a while to reflect on all you’ve done and accomplished, you’ll realize that not only are you be for your efforts, you’ve had a great time and made fantastic memories along the way.
At some point, you’ll get interested in something else, and you’ll find you’ve switched gears and are focusing a lot of energy on that. Great! That’s exactly what should happen. As you repeat this cycle of learning new things, after a while you’ll have compiled quite the arsenal of skills and talents, built up a huge new group of great memories and stories, and met tons of interesting people. Those last 2 alone are worth the effort and work you’ll put in.
Hopefully, I’ve now convinced you that it’s worth your time to spend time really putting effort into becoming great at something. But what should that be?
It can be just about anything! The important thing is to pick something and get started. Quit putting it off.
Let’s clear up one more thing here before we move on. You can choose almost anything you want, and you will benefit from the effort you put into it, but some things are inherently better than others. For instance, learning to play guitar or photograph wildlife is going to enhance your life much more than learning how to best nap on the couch. You don’t have to choose something traditional, but you should choose something that’s actually going to make you and your life better.
Now, for some things to choose from, if you don’t already have 100 ideas in the back of your head.
- Sports are fantastic things to focus on. They’ll get you active, and get you working out your body and not just your mind. But that’s not all. Exercising physically actually helps your mental health as well. I even find I think more clearly on the days when I get to exercise in the morning. Along with getting in shape, sports will help you tone down and look great, which is a big confidence booster.
- Traditional Art, in all its forms will enhance your mental acuteness and open up your mind to creativity. Music, painting, sculpting, etc… are just the surface. There are thousands of ways to express yourself artistically and creatively. Find one that interests you.
- Photography is a fantastic way to bring out your artistic or journalistic side and have some fun while you’re at it. With the cost of high-quality cameras dropping, it’s easier than ever to get started.
- Computer skills are a great thing to have in this day and age. Particularly programming skills will help you to think more clearly and logically. Once you “learn to think” you’ll find that you can apply the skills you learned in the rest of your life – making decisions clearer and helping you to think logically. Not only that, you will have added a very marketable skillset to your resumé. The computer industry is red hot.
There are plenty of other things you can learn to do, but the most important thing is just pick something! Choose something you’re interested in or you think you’ll enjoy. If it turns out it’s not for you, you’ll realize it quickly and you can pick something else.
Don’t put it off. If you don’t have something in your life you are actively striving to be great at, find something now. You’ll find yourself enjoying the rest of your life more, you’ll be happier and more productive, and you’ll lead a much more fulfilling life than if you simply drift through existence.
In the next article, we’ll discuss how to go about getting better at something once you’ve picked it out and decided you are ready to dominate it. Everything you need to excel is easily available to you, and a lot of it is free, if you know where to look. Stay tuned!
Cheers! A better life awaits.
