Self-improvement is the last step of the Love 4Self method. It’s the step that helps us start our personal development journey because it helps us point out where to start. So, in this post, I will explain what you do in the self-improvement step.
What is Self-Improvement
In Emmerance’s words, self-improvement is the improvement you make in yourself in any area of your life.
As explained in The Beauty of Self-Love Ebook, we have five types of health that are crucial in our lives, and we have to constantly pay attention to them and make sure that each one is stable.
The five healths are financial, spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health. The goal of the Love 4Self method is for it to help you improve in all of the five healths.
Focusing on the now and picking where we need to start.
In the last step of The Love 4Self method, I encourage my clients to review the first three steps. If you followed my recent blog posts, I explained the important parts of the first three steps. If you haven’t read them, you can find the links below.
So, in the self-improvement step, you have to revisit your self-evaluation, self-awareness and self-discovery. Most of my clients would find where they need to start in the self-evaluation and self-discovery step. In the self-evaluation, they will probably find that they’re in a toxic relationship that is affecting their mental health. Or they might discover that one of their weaknesses is playing a significant role in their physical health.
As soon as you point out which one is affecting you, that’s what you will give 90% of your energy to change in your self-improvement step. The other 10% of your energy will go into the other healths that you must maintain.
How I was able to point out which health I needed to focus on.
In February 2018, I started my self-improvement journey right after realizing that I wasn’t living the life I wanted to live. I did my self-evaluation and self-discovery. When it came to self-awareness, I had trouble with it. I had difficulty accepting the fact that there was nothing wrong with me and that God created me perfectly.
Therefore, I realized that to start my self-improvement journey, I needed to focus on my spiritual health. I found out that there was work that I needed to put in on my faith. My spiritual health was the focus for me for more than a year. I focused 90% of my energy on my spiritual health, which by the end of 2018, it went down to 50%.
It went down to 50% because after I did my self-evaluation, self-awareness, and self-discovery, I realized that I needed to focus 40% of my energy on my financial literacy because that needed work too.
So, if you’re reading this and you’re wondering, “well, I’m unsure where to start.” I encourage you to review all of these steps first. If you analyze your life and see that you lack knowledge in the spiritual or financial area, start focusing most of your energy there.
If you do a self-evaluation and realize that you’re usually negative with yourself, you should focus on your mental health and see a therapist. Whenever you start to focus on one thing at a time, you will not feel overwhelmed. You will actually benefit from it because the more energy you give on that one thing today, it will reduce itself so that you can focus on other things.
Investing in yourself
Now that you have an idea of where you’d like to focus 90% of your energy, I wanted to share the importance of investing in yourself. I’m not only talking about monetary investments here. Oprah once said, “the most valuable gift you can give yourself is time.” Yes, time is a gift, but it’s also the most significant investment you’ll ever make.
When you’re starting in your self-improvement journey, I highly recommend that you give yourself time to learn, improve in that area. Take 30 minutes to read a blog post, watch a YouTube video, spend time talking about your issues and find solutions.
Time is critical, and it’s free to use. However, we all say that we don’t have time for ourselves because we have all kinds of occupations. You don’t have time, but you can make time. You cannot afford to miss a day in your self-improvement. You can’t afford to lose interest in it and go back to square one.
Once you’ve tasted the self-improvement journey, there’s no turning back. I say that in this stage, every decision you make is crucial. Before making a decision, ask yourself, “will this decision help me move forward or bring me back to square one?” It’s essential to ask yourself this because you cannot afford to go back to your old self.
After you know how to handle your time, you can now invest money in your self-improvement journey. The best investment I’ve made with no regrets is buying books. I would buy books that reflected the health that I was working on.
When you’re ready to embrace the new you fully, you can invest in webinars, courses or coaching/therapy. These investments will tremendously help you, especially if you’ve already started spending time improving yourself.
Self-Improvement is a journey.
In this journey, you have to have faith but realistic too. I say that self-improvement is a journey because you will never stop improving yourself. It’s going to take years to become who you want to be. However, give yourself space to fail because you will.
I want you to remember that you have years to go, and you will never be perfect. You’re not going to change tomorrow, so it takes time. As you’re starting to get to know yourself better, know that there will be things that you will embrace and things that will be hard for you to accept.
When I did my self-discovery and realized that I was an introvert, I had to accept that I’m someone that needs to rest to recharge in order for me to perform better in this society. However, it took me three years to consciously step away and recharge. My therapist had to give me homework to do; I cried because I have been on the go all these years. However, when I finally did it, I came back stronger.
Therefore, take these steps seriously and have self-compassion.
Practicing patience and self-compassion
To finish, I want you to know that you will have moments where you would like to go back to the old you. There is no change without resistance. You’re going to be afraid of the new you because you don’t know who that person is.
The process is normal; trust your gut on it and move forward. You can take one step back but don’t take multiple steps back. Again, you don’t want to go back to square one.
Remember to pick one thing that requires attention and focus on that one thing for a few months until you see that it’s not an issue anymore.
Comment below in what area of your five healths you need to work on today?
