Self Improvement

This is reproduced from my answer on Quora. How can we work on Self-Improvement.

Self improvement can be individual and general.

Individual self improvement areas can be identified by drawing a circle and dividing it into eight parts and four concentric circles like it appears below:

Now mark in each part how much satisfied you are with the present state.

I have marked and circled the score. The picture now appears as shown below:

We now arrange the items from highest to lowest that is from most easy to work on to least easy to work on. The list will now appear as given below:

1. Friends 90%
2. Fun 80%
3. Personal 80%
4. Health 60%
5. Family 60%
6. Work 50%
7. Relationships 40%
8. Travel 30% Here % is correct but wrongly marked.

Daily work on them for an hour at the most.

Now start with top three items and decide what three things you can do to gain improvement. You can complete the tasks in a week.

Next do same for next two. That you can complete in a week.

Next do for remaining three one week for each.

Thus you would have achieved notable progress in five weeks.

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Now coming to general improvement. We use same process replacing with new items. These can be physical, intellectual, skills, mind related thinking management, mind related feeling management, skills, communication verbal, communication written / expression. You can replace these with others like team work, motivation, leadership, public speaking, time management and the like.

Here you can do a task a day for four items for two weeks.

In this way you will be a better person in six weeks.

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Now redo the exercise for each afresh. Does the picture look better.

A word about goal setting. Goals need to be broken into objectives and activities. So if I have a goal set in communication lasting one week I will have daily objectives and related activities. We focus on activities once mapped.

I wish you good luck and success. I have used it to be a top achiever in my life.

Originally Answered: How can we work on self-improvement during a lockdown?

Goal Setting

Goal Setting

Nearly all of us aspire to grow, prosper and keep achieving. Goal setting involves generating an action plan which the participant(s) of the project commits to adhere to. The plan motivates, establishes a purpose and provides a perceivable outcome. So, it in a way programmes the life of individual(s) involved to think, act, feel, give their best to accomplish the goal. There is no trying, there is doing. Five important components of goal setting are building synergy(1), listing and providing for resources provisioning - time, material, funding, think tanks, assigning responsibilities - who will do what singly and together with another / others, having standby plan and support systems and what if it doesn't work - it proves to be a non-starter. Gain / reward and purpose also need to be well documented so each person knows what to expect when the goal is achieved / stands achieved.

Personal Goal Setting

The scenario is very different when we are doing personal goal setting. People tend to apply organisational norms to personal goal setting. They may not be misconceived, as yet they may not yield the desired results. Usually on the personal front the goal is born out of a need, want, aspiration, why not or even to cure desperation. I think that such a goal may not become appealing to the psyche though it could throw up a strong hype. 

Here one needs to give time to write out how the goal is going to reward living on the many fronts of life. A mind map helps to have a picture that makes the work of achieving motivating. Here is a sample mind map I have drawn.

Each of the items generate a sense of purpose, gets one to know what to expect, know in advance the degree of achievable-ness, how realistic and how long one will have to be at it. Also one needs to know which individual and professional skills one needs to develop that will help in actualising the goal. The five important components of goal setting need to be incorporated. Doubt is a big killer. So is anticipation and hope. Belief in the strongest element. A belief that I will make it ultimately, come what may. Recitation of one's chosen mantra with a purpose helps to make uncertainties line up to help forge ahead toward goal achievement.

(1) Synergy is the creation of a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts. It also means "working together". (Source : Wikipedia at Tap here to see more on 'Synergy'