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Self-improvement and personal growth are big but vague words. They can mean everything and nothing all at once.

We Felicity Seekers are hungry to grow into our best version. And we know that self-improvement is the key for that.

But what are some concrete self-improvement ideas we can work on? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered!

This list will enable you to jumpstart your personal growth journey in no time!

Enjoy!

1. Start listing things you are grateful for

We start this list with a straightforward but unfortunately very overlooked practice. I want you to start a gratitude journal or list.

And preferably write it down by hand although it can also be an excellent practice to have a notes section on your phone dedicated to it so that you can remember things you are grateful for throughout the day.

Every morning I want you to write down three things you are grateful about. And try not to write the same three things every day.

These can be little things such as “I am grateful I fell asleep so fast yesterday.” Or important things like “I am unbelievably grateful for getting that job!”

Starting your day like this will make it easier for you to be happier throughout the day and let “bad” things bother you less.

2. Read daily

I always preach the importance of nonfiction books for your personal growth.

Which is why I have created my Reading List for Personal Growth. This is where I list all my favorite nonfiction books that made me grow into a better version.

However, for some reason, people always have the excuse that they can’t find the time to read. That’s – to say it bluntly – bullshit!

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. And some of the most successful people on our planet, who definitely have a ton of things to do every day, find the time to read daily.

I am not saying you need to start reading 2 hours a day, although that would be great! Simply start by reading 15 to 30 minutes in the morning before you go to school or work.

I can almost guarantee that somewhere along your day you are mindlessly wasting these 15 to 30 minutes. Most likely scrolling through your phone. So how about redirecting them into something that will bring you closer to that extraordinary life of your dreams?

If you want to do that check out my Reading List!

3. Learn a new language

Admittedly, being able to speak different languages will be a skill that will become more and more unnecessary with developing translation technologies.

But I still believe it can benefit you immensely in your personal growth journey if you learn to speak different languages.

It’s not only lovely to speak the language of a foreign country you are visiting, but it can also help you network with different people, and it can change the way you look at different countries and cultures.

At the very least, it is a fun practice to keep your brain sharp and fit.

4. Learn a new skill

You will never be able to have too many skills in life. And there is an endless list of skills you could learn. Everything from drawing, cooking, calligraphy to driving, changing tires, and programming.

And the great thing about living in 2019 is that you also have a lot of options on how to learn those skills. You could find yourself a mentor, start doing it as a hobby, purchase an online course, or teach yourself through YouTube videos.

Life is more fun if you approach it as a never-ending journey of learning. So, what skills do you want to learn this year?

You could commit to learning one new skill every three or six months. Maybe even every month, if you are really ambitious and have the time to do so.

In a few years, you might be surprised where this skill could come in handy.

5. Get outside your comfort zone once a month/week

Our comfort zone is just that … comfy. And who likes to leave something comfortable behind for something less comfortable?

However, real growth always awaits us outside of our comfort zone. So we Felicity Seekers have to get out there.

Now how can we make it as easy as possible for us? Only by doing it regularly. It’s like a muscle. The more we do it, the easier it gets.

So try to challenge yourself to step outside your comfort zone maybe once a month or once a week. Do something you feel uncomfortable doing, but you know it would benefit you in the long term.

6. Find a mentor

I know this can be a daunting task and also a significant financial step, and so far, I admit I have not yet made it myself.

But wherever I look, all the successful people I am looking up to say you need to get yourself a mentor. The value he or she will provide you with is immeasurable.

7. Exercise regularly

It’s the 21st century. By now we all know we should excerzise regularly. Yet many people still can’t bring themselves to do it.

You don’t even have to go to the gym, just do some none equipment workout videos from home. I also don´t have much space at home but still manage to do it. There are even apartment-friendly workouts so that you won’t disturb any neighbors.

Blogilates and the Nike Training App are some personal favorites of mine. You can even do most Blogilates workouts without shoes. So there is absolutely no excuse left for you not to do it.

8. Improve your eating habits

I am currently working on trying to get rid of hormonal acne through celery juice. Let’s see how it goes, but it definitely already raised more awareness in me concerning the things that I eat and how they impact my body and how I feel.

Improving your eating habits does not only have an impact on your health for the long term; more importantly, it enhances the way you feel today!

9. Set goals

To achieve the most significant personal growth possible, you have to set clear goals. How else will you know what to work on?

And don’t just set unrealistic goals. They will only frustrate you. You should set S.M.A.R.T. goals. Meaning specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound

10. Find idols and study them

Another great way to improve yourself is by studying your heroes. Find a few people who you look up to in one or more areas in life.

And then analyze what exactly got them to where they are today and try to imitate that.

What are Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds doing to have such a happy marriage?

How did Jeff Bezos become the richest men in the world?

How does Ray Dalio achieve such incredible investment results for his clients?

11. Identify your flaws and create a plan to overcome them

We all have some things we don’t like about ourselves. Maybe you are always interrupting people unintentionally. Perhaps you are uncomfortable with your style. Maybe you want to get rid of your hormonal acne.

There are most likely always things that are bothering you about yourself. How about instead of merely complaining about them you decide to tackle them strategically.

12. Cultivate a new habit every month/quarter

It’s easy to procrastinate your self-improvement goals in the hustle of daily life.

Often we suddenly have a spark of inspiration and want to implement all these new and amazing habits into our lives. Only to fail spectacularly at them, because we tackled too much at once.

Instead, try to cultivate one new habit per month or every three months or so.

These can be simple things like brushing your teeth with your nondominant hand or meditating. No matter how small or big the habit, if you only focus on one habit at a time, it will almost effortlessly become a new part of your life.

13. Take a Social Media and Entertainment Detox

Most of us spend way too much time on social media or entertainment apps like Netflix and YouTube.

Have you ever looked at the tracker of your phone to see how much time you actually spend in the different apps? It’s probably a shocking amount.

Can you imagine what you ould be able to accomplish if half of that time went into your personal growth journey?

Taking a detox will rib you out of that bad habit, and you will get a glimpse at how much more time you suddenly have in a day.

The important thing, however, is that afterward, you don’t jump back to your old habits.

14. Start journaling

I am probably mentioning journaling in about every article I write. But that’s ok since I am absolutely sure everyone can benefit from it.

It doesn’t matter how often you do it or if you use prompts or not. Simply try to get into journaling. Maybe challenge yourself to journal once a day for two weeks and after that only as often as you feel will benefit you.

At the beginning of the year, I journaled daily. Sometimes even for two hours! And I can’t begin to tell you how much it helped me on my personal growth journey.

However, I am currently at a stage in my life where I don’t feel the need to journal every day. Now, I do it maybe once or twice a week. But it still makes me feel lighter and more motivated whenever I take the time to do it.

15. Start a side hustle

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you need to know everything before you can start a business.

You will never be perfectly prepared. In fact, the beauty of a business is that as it grows, you grow with it.

Take my blog, for example. It’s about striving for felicity, how to create the extraordinary life of your dreams full of success, passion, and financial freedom.

Do I have all of that yet? No. Definitely not. But every day that I am working on this blog, I am improving my business skills and my mindset, and I am getting closer and closer to that end goal.

16. Learn how to practice self-care

Self-care is one of these things that seem like some Instagram or Pinterest trend but is actually really important to implement into your life.

Self-care enables you to recharge and tackle life with more passion and motivation. It will not only help you achieve your goals faster but also enjoy the journey more.

17. Start bucket lists

And I am not talking about the cringy type of bucket lists. No, I am thinking about three kinds of lists: One for things you want to learn, fun things you want to purchase and investments you want to make.

Having these lists will not only help you decide on what to do with your time/money, but they will be an immense motivation to work towards your goals.

18. Set relationships goals

While striving for an extraordinary life, it is easy to forget spending time with your friends and family.

But an extraordinary life requires mastery of every area of life, also meaning your social and romantic life.

So try to set clear goals. Maybe call your family and friends once a week and meet up with them once a month.

You could also start a list of activities you could do together. That way, it always stays exciting, and you can make some fantastic memories.

Phew, that was a long list So many great ideas on how to improve yourself and grow into your best version. Isn’t that exciting!

Please don’t let this big list overwhelm you. Nobody is expecting you to start implementing all of these ideas at once.

Just take one after the other, and before you know it, you will look back at your old self and be staggered by your progress. I encourage you to really enjoy the process.

Personal growth can bring you immense joy and satisfaction if you don’t take it too seriously.

Just remember that if you are doing self-development at all, you are already far ahead of the vast majority of humans.

I am excited to hear about your progress! Comment down below if you want to share your successes with your fellow Felicity Seekers.

Sophie

There are times in life when you are simply feeling lost. For example, you might be unhappy with your current situation but don’t know what exactly you want instead.

Or you might have figured out what you want but have no idea how to get there or if you are on the right track.

Most people seem to think that being lost is a feeling we encounter during a few big moments in our life.

For example, after you leave school and decide on a career or during a midlife crisis.

However, personally, I’ve made the experience that feeling lost is not a once in a decade feeling.

For me, it’s something I am regularly dealing with as I try to create the life of my dreams.

This blog is part of that journey. But as I work on it every day, I sometimes feel uncertain if this is really worth it. I wonder whether this blog is getting me to where I want to be.

As I am currently going through a wave of feeling lost again, I thought it would be the perfect time to share some tips with you on how to get over it.

1. Find inspiration

One thing that always helps me when I feel lost is inspiration. Try to watch motivating YouTube videos, read an inspiring blog post, and listen to personal development podcasts.

Those things never fail to inspire me. These sources are so packed full of passion and ideas that at least one of them will inspire you.

And as always, I can only recommend you check out my Reading List for Personal Growth. The books on this list are all highly inspiring.

You could also find inspiration by talking to new people. I am always surprised by the many exciting things I get from conversations with people I usually don’t talk to.

Read also:

2. Change your routine

I am very much a routine kind of person. 

I wasn’t even aware I was having routines for a long time until I discovered the massive niche of “routines” (My fall nighttime routine, my 5 AM routine, etc.).

And while routines are not only effective but can certainly also bring a lot of joy, they contain the danger of making our life dull. Because as Tony Robbins has discovered, one of our six basic human needs is variety.

When every day starts to feel the same, many of us begin to feel a bit lost in life.

For me traveling has always been a time to overthink my current situation and my goals in life. And when you think about it, it makes sense. 

Traveling very suddenly rips you out of the routines you’ve been following for weeks or maybe even months.

Your brain gets the variety it needs and starts working differently. Once you get back home, you likely feel less lost and have found some new inspiration and motivation to tackle your goals.

But you don’t have to go abroad to achieve this change in routine. There are many opportunities to make small changes in our daily routines. 

For example, you could drive a different route to work, or you could study in the library instead of your bedroom, or you could exchange Netflix time for Podcast time. 

If you keep your mind and eyes open, you will find many opportunities for such micro shifts.

Read also: 11 Microshifts That Will Improve Your Life In The Longrun

3. Write about it

As you probably know by now, if you are a true Felicity Seeker, I am a big advocate of the power of journaling.

Journaling not only helps me declutter my mind and feel more at ease, but it also helps me work through my emotions and thoughts.

I believe this is incredibly helpful, especially for us Felicity Seekers who commit to personal growth. 

Because even though personal development has become more accessible through Tony Robbins and other prominent figures, only a small part of our society is involved in it.

And because self-help makes you grow so much as a person, it often gets more difficult to connect with the people around you.

We Felicity Seekers have huge goals – insane goals if you ask most people.

I am not implying that people who improve themselves are better than those who don’t, but they simply look at the world differently. 

And if you have nobody in your inner circle who you can connect with on that level, journaling can become your safe haven.

Writing your thoughts and emotions down helps you express them, work through them, and release them. This enables you to get out of feeling lost in life.

4. Know you are not alone

I know this sounds very cliche and doesn’t necessarily help the situation. But often, we suffer more because of how we beat ourselves up for feeling lost than from the actual emotion itself.

Always remember it’s ok to feel lost. It doesn’t matter if you feel like that once a week, once a month, or once a decade. Remember that others are going through the same thing at this very moment.

And there have been others before you who overcame that feeling; this is normal!

If they can do it, so can you!

5. Change your mindset – Feeling lost is a good thing

Even better than knowing that others are feeling just as lost as you are, is the knowledge that this depressing feeling can actually be a good thing.

Feeling lost often precedes the most significant growth in life.

So don’t see it as a bad thing but be excited for what comes afterward.

You can expect greater clarity and purpose in life and, as a result, more happiness, success, and calmness.

6. Have patience

Lastly, the most annoying tip nobody ever wants to get is patience.

In a world where almost everything can be had on demand, patience has become a rare virtue. But it is a significant one as it can help you on so many occasions in life.

In this case, don’t despair over feeling lost. This, too, will pass.

As long as you acknowledge the feeling and try to work through it, you will come out on the other side.

Have faith.

If we need to, we can all wake up early and force ourselves out of bed. But because that is such an unpleasant experience many people resent waking up early.

But what would change if you would actually enjoy waking up early? Do you think you would do it more often?

Why not try it out? These hacks will help you to make waking up early comfortable, even if you are not a morning person!

Enjoy!

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1. Have a why

Remember those students that always asked the teacher, “what do we need this for”? Maybe you’ve asked yourself the same thing from time to time. I hope you do, less in school but more importantly in life.

You should always know why you are doing something. If we want something, it is easier to motivate ourselves to do the necessary steps to reach that goal.

But knowing your Why is not just important because it will motivate you, but also because it will help you to recognize unnecessary things you might be doing.

Time is our most valuable asset, and we have a limited amount on it. Therefore you should only spend it intentionally. You could spend it, for example, on one of the 15 Ways To Spend Your Time Wisely.

If you need inspiration for why you’d want to wake up early check out 8 Reasons You Need To Wake Up Early.

2. Don’t put your alarm clock next to your bed

What does a typical morning in many peoples lives look like?

The alarm goes off. Groaning you roll yourself over and hit the snooze button thinking to your sleepy self “just five more minutes.”

Thirty minutes to 2 hours later, you wake up and are already way behind with your day’s tasks.

However if we make the small change to put the alarm further away from the bed, so that you have to get out of bed to turn it off, it will become easier for you to resist the urge to go back to sleep.

Why? Because going back to sleep means you need to actively go back to bed. While staying awake can be accomplished by you simply standing still where you are currently standing. You might even close your eyes, but the act of standing will slowly wake you up enough that you can think clearly, remember your why and decide not to go to bed anymore.

Why should you? The hardest part is standing up, and you’ve accomplished that already.

So put your alarm clock further away from your bed and see if it makes a difference!

3. Have an enjoyable morning routine

Nobody likes to do things they hate. So why would you want to force yourself out of your comfortable bed if there is nothing exciting waiting for you?

Establish an enjoyable morning routine and see how that will influence your readiness to get out of bed.

I, for example, love my breakfast, and I allow myself to watch 20 minutes of a series during that. Yes, I know it’s not the ideal form to spend the first hour of your morning. But right now that’s pretty much the only time I am willing to spare for series or YouTube videos. Therefore it is delightful for me, and I am always looking forward to it.

4. Wake up at the same time daily

This one can be a bit tricky in the beginning. I mean, who wants to wake up at 5 am on the weekend?

However, your body doesn’t know anything like the weekend. The week with its seven days is a social construct we humans created. Just because our society agreed on it doesn’t mean our bodies will recognize it as well.

Once you start waking up at the same time each day, your body gets used to it, and it will become easier for you to wake up at that time. You might even wake up before your alarm clock naturally, provided you’ve had enough sleep. Which leads us to the next point …

5. Go to bed on time

As much as a no-brainer this one is, it might also be the hardest one for many people.

To wake up early, you have to go to bed early. You should get somewhat between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night. And I mean EACH night.

Don’t think you can compensate on your weekend for missed sleep because as we learned in the previous point, you should wake up at the same time every day.

I, for example, go to bed at 10 pm. By the time I wake up at 5 am that will give me around 7 hours of sleep. In stressful times that might not be enough, in that case, I might go to bed even a bit earlier.

But of course, nobody’s perfect, I included. So naturally, there are days where I stay up way longer than my “bedtime.” And that’s ok, too. Life is meant to be enjoyed, and you shouldn’t set yourself too strict rules.

Still, those long nights always cause a significantly shorter and less enjoyable morning.

6. Create a shutdown routine

This tip and the next one will help you fall asleep quicker and therefore enable you to stay awake a bit longer or get more sleep.

In his book Deep Work, Cal Newport recommends creating a shutdown routine. That means you decide on a precise hour of the day, from which on you won’t focus on work anymore. You will spend the rest of the day non-work related.

And if you end that work time with a shutdown routine – for example, checking your calendar, creating a to-do list for the next day, cleaning your desk and telling yourself “that’s it. Time to relax!” – It will become more comfortable for your brain to relax and stop focusing on your work.

As always I recommend you to check out my Reading List for Personal Growth as it will have many more inspiring books like the one mentioned above.

7. Create a suitable environment to sleep

It is not only important to sleep a certain amount of time but to also sleep deeply. It is no use for you if you sleep for 9 hours, but your sleep is terrible.

To achieve the most relaxing and reenergizing sleep, you have to optimize your sleep environment.

One essential thing to do, for example, is to make sure there is no light in the room. Whether it is light, that comes from outside or light that is generated by some electrical device, you should dim it as much as possible.

Do you have any more tips on how to wake up early? Share them with us! Also, share your experience with implementing my tips.

I’d love to hear from you ^^

Keep creating that extraordinary life of your dreams!

Sophie