How to Become an Improved Version of Yourself

Co-authored by Mel Shipman

Last Updated: January 6, 2023

Becoming a better version of yourself can help you lead a happier and more successful life. In this article, we'll show you strategies you can use in your everyday life to help you become the best version of yourself. You don’t have use the strategies in any particular order, of course. You won’t giving this tips a try, even if it takes you some time to carry them out.

Steps

1
Have the will to change. Be willing to change and actually put some thought and effort into the idea because when there’s a will, there’s a way.
2
Stop making excuses. You can’t expect to change if you keep making excuses for anything that goes wrong with you, because you won’t see anything that needs to be changed with you that way. Take accountability for your actions and take responsibility for your decisions. Don't blame anyone or anything for your mistakes. Instead, try to learn from your mistakes, which in turn will help you to become a better person.

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3
Stop being angry. If you let yourself be angry, your anger will modify your decision-making ability and you’ll start making decisions that aren’t very rational. Anger is also known for damaging relationships and negatively affects your health. So, if you let it overtake you, it’ll prevent you from improving yourself. It might even get into trouble. While controlling anger is a difficult task, if you try your best to do so, you will benefit from great rewards.
4
Be more self-aware. In order to become a better person, learn to notice yourself and know how you behave in different situations. Then you’ll know when to improve yourself if you do something improperly, and continue to do what you’re doing right. This point is very important because you can’t be a better person if you don’t know what you should improve of yourself in the first place.
5
Love yourself. When you love yourself, you’ll want what’s best for it. Thus, you’ll look for whatever can make it comfortable and content. Learn to accept yourself for who you are and only then will you be able to enhance it and feel better. Tell yourself that you’re kind and compassionate, that you’re worthy and important, anything that would make you feel loved and accepted by yourself. You should start by loving yourself because you won’t be able to love other people if you don’t love yourself first.
6
Set goals for yourself. Every person should have a certain aim in life. Every person has skills to contribute to the society in which they live. For that reason, set goals and objectives for yourself to conquer. Write them down in a note on your phone or on a journal you keep at hand. Every time you accomplish a goal, you’ll objectively learn more about yourself and figure out more ways of self-improvement.
- Take some to define what success means to you, and what it will look and feel like when you achieve it. From there, create a list of the different ways you can achieve this success. Then, narrow down your list to the 3-5 options that you're most energized to go after.
7
Be thankful and appreciative. Be thankful and appreciate what you have instead of obsessing over what you wish you had. Also thank people for whatever good they do to you and appreciate their thought and effort.
8
Be a role model. Being a role model to someone will encourage you to constantly strive for the better because you wouldn’t want to disappoint whoever is looking up to you. You will always find ways to improve yourself and be more careful in how you behave because you’ll always want to set a good example to others. For example, as a parent, be a role model to your children, so that they’ll try their best to make decisions and take actions that their children will respect.
9
Practice self-control. Learn to balance your work life and your life outside-of-work life. This balance is necessary so that you don’t get bored if you only focus on work or if you just sit down and enjoy your pleasures. If you get bored, you won’t be satisfied, and hence, you won’t feel good about yourself. Remember, everything has its own time.
10
Control your anger and jealousy. Anger and jealousy are very common human traits. But they are unpleasing and self-destructive if they get out of control. Again, you’ll be hurting yourself before others when you get angry at or jealous of someone, hence, being unhappy and dissatisfied.
- Try not to compare yourself to others and think they are better than you. Instead remember that there are so many people who are unfortunate and that you have better circumstances than them. That would help a lot.
- Also, try not to get easily angered by anything, but if you do, try to forgive who ever angered you. This doesn’t mean that you’re weak and that it’ll be like nothing bad ever happened; on the contrary, what happened still happened but you’re strong enough to relieve yourself from the heavy weight that was keeping you down, now letting you heal.
11
Forgive. When someone hurts you, try to forgive them. That might be hard but just try. If you don’t forgive them for whatever they did and hold that against them for the rest of your life, you’ll just be hurting yourself more because it’s unhealthy to hold a grudge. That will only affect your body and mind negatively.
12
Listen. It’s very important to listen to people. Sometimes when you listen carefully, you’ll learn things that you wouldn’t have known if you haven’t given an ear to it. Although people these days are always busy and in a rush, try to make some time to listen to others because it will definitely affect your life positively.
13
Be honest. Being honest is one of the most important characteristics of a good person. When you’re honest, you’ll feel better about yourself and people will trust you more because you won’t tell any lies; you’ll be straightforward. This way, you’ll feel comfortable about everything you say or do since you know that you’re not hiding anything and everything is clear and simple.
14
Be helpful. Helping others is one of the best ways to make you a better person. When you help someone in need you will feel a sense of self-contentment and be satisfied by your achievement. You will realize that what you do is worth something to other people and that you are bringing about good deeds with your help.
15
Do things that you usually don’t do. Sometimes, there are things that you normally wouldn’t think of doing. You just don’t want to take that risk. However, doing those things that you usually wouldn’t do would increase your chance of becoming a better person because you’ll be challenging yourself to try something new, something you might have been scared of in the past. Be open-minded and try to get over your fears and doubts.
16
Make people happy. Make the people that you love, or any random person you might encounter in your day, happy. Make them smile. A very rewarding feeling is knowing that you made someone happy. Think of different creative ways that would impress someone every now and then. You’ll feel very satisfied with yourself.
17
Show people that you care. It’s nice to know that someone cares about you, don’t you think? Knowing that allows you to acknowledge that showing people that you care about them will make them feel happy, and hence, makes you happy. You can show that by exclusively telling them that “I care about you” but it’s more genuine to let them conclude that by your own actions toward them. Do something nice for them, help them with something they need to do, any small act would serve this purpose.
18
Give to others. What you give to others is what truly remains with you because it creates a more harmonious community and people who trust you. It has its own kind of reward that will help to make you feel gratified and fulfilled. So, give charity to the needy. It doesn’t have to be very big. Any small contribution will count.
19
Explore your talents. Are you aware of a skill or talent that you excel at? If you are, put some effort on enhancing it. Do you think that you don’t have one? Well, everybody has something they’re good at. If you think that you’re not good at something in particular, you just haven’t found it yet. Explore your talents. Try to look for activities that you might be interested in and turn out being very skillful at. When you do find your talents, be sure to enrich and practice them. You might even earn a living by them.
20
Do what you love. Even if you have a job that pays a lot of money, if you don’t love what you do, you won’t be happy. Who wants to spend their life in a job they hate? And even if you can’t always turn your hobby into your life career, you should at least make some time to practice it. Hence, you won’t feel that your life is empty if you don’t do what you love.