I can assure that you are not alone if one or more issues of life are waking you up after a few short hours of sleep. You start tossing around, your head filled with issues that seem impossible to solve. When you’re lucky you will doze off after a while. I have known many times when I could not get back to sleep. It is a strong indicator that you need to learn something new!
Some issues cannot be solved directly
Our society is strongly focussed at the power of our minds and indeed the mind is important, but it does not always guide us to the best or easiest solution. Some issues of life need to be solved at a different level than the one they exist at. An example: often it is difficult to find a new job once you lost your current one. Still, “find a job” is what your mind – and most people around you – will tell you to do. After a while it looks like you’ve tried everything, and nothing worked out well. Watch closely in your life and that of the people around you and you will see that it is very human to repeat the same patterns over and over again. Very often finding a different approach to challenges will bring you closer to achieving your goals.
What Self Improvement Can Mean to You
Self improvement starts with looking at you issues all right. But immediately after having defined your problem in life, you begin to look at what is behind it. Most people find it hard to look at themselves, because they think it is about judging oneself. It isn’t. It is just looking for what is helpful or not when we try to achieve a goal. Every human is conditioned, behaving in a manner that is determined by upbringing, education, society. This means that we have acquired specific ways to tackle the issues that we encounter in life. Well, sometimes these ways simply do not work for us even if they seem to work for others. Discovering and implementing new ways to cope with problems in life, will improve your experience of life. By looking at the issues of life in a new way you can start doing things a bit different too. That is what Self Improvement can do.
First steps in solving the issues of your life
- Define for yourself what your issue really is. Avoid creating a story about it – stick to the basics. Whenever you talk about you issues with others, make a habit of it to stick to what it really is – not all the fears or doubts. These will only bring you further down instead of towards a solution.
- In the same basic way find the first reasons or backgrounds for the issue. Look at something within yourself, a feeling, a fear, a grudge, a doubt. For almost all issues of life it is true that these backgrounds are exactly the startingpoints that will help you make changes.
- Look for what you want to have after your issue is solved. This may even change your view of what the apparent main issue in your life actually is. Check if the reason or origin of the issue that you discovered in step two is still valid. If it is not, look instead for your main other obstacle towards what you want to have.
- Having done this preliminary work, it is best to find a good friend, family member or professional to discuss your points with: aim at getting clarity about the first 3 points first. Ask them to listen to you and give feedback. Tell them beforehand, that you are not asking for their solution, but for help finding your own answer.
- When you feel that you are clear about the above, you will see that the problem will already have a little less weight. You have created room to get past it, even if it is still difficult. It is important to take small steps from now on. Even if your issue is huge, it is better to take small, but carefully picked steps than huge strides that are not on target.
Summary of how to improve solving the issues of your life
The path outlined above is a framework that has proven useful for many people. A lot can be added to each of the steps. I will devote upcoming posts to discussing them in more detail. But this should not keep you from exploring the potential of this method right now. I would love to hear your comments. And if you need it, I’m available for help.
