How to become the best version of yourself

“Just be yourself!” is a sentence you may have heard once or twice. I think it is very important to be yourself, to not just do what others told you to do and to stand up for your own opinion. However, you need to move on. You need to move on to progress. You need to move on to be not “just” you, but to be a better version of yourself. If you stop moving on, you’ll become stuck. And if you are stuck, how do you want to chase your dreams?   

But how do you keep moving on? How do you get better at being yourself? To become better at something, you have two options: 

1. Learn from people who are better than you 
2. Reflect and evaluate the working process   

Of course, you can learn a lot from smart people. You can read books, watch videos, listen to podcasts or whatever. It would be ignorant to neglect the knowledge of others. But you need to reflect on this knowledge first. You can’t just use it for yourself. Your experience and situation are unique. You can search for the essence of what they say and use it for yourself. If you don’t do this and just use the experiences that others made as if they were yours, you will change too. But this change will not come from within you. Remember, you don’t want to be someone else, you want to be yourself.    

And there is nobody better at being yourself than you!   

So, the first person you should ask for help to improve is you. But how do you do that? Reflect and evaluate the working process!   

If you want to get better at holding lectures hold a lecture first. After that sit down and look at what you have done. Try to be as objectively as possible. How was your preparation, your body language, the lecture in itself? Try to find things you could do better. Be honest to yourself. Set goals for the future. You can only get better if you know where to start. 

Even if you are bad at something, don’t make yourself feel bad about it. Try to look at it objectively.   

Finding the points to work on is the first and maybe the hardest step to get better at something!   

Of course, this is not only possible for things like lecturing. To reflect on yourself is something you can do always for anything. If you are shy and want to get better at talking to strangers there are a lot of people on the internet who can help you. But first, you need to find out where exactly you need to improve.   

There are a lot of tools for self-reflection. At the beginning it might help you to look for a method that you can work with.    

Another major benefit you are getting by self-reflection is understanding for others. If you can be objective towards yourself, you can be objective to others, too. This way you are able to see the standpoint of people whom you are discussing with. Show them that you understand them, and they will be much more willing to change their opinion. You can be much more respectful to them and they will do so in return.   

I know it is not easy to be objective. But try to consider it. It might make a huge difference!

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