Selfimprovement | Navigate the Chaos

Self-Improvement

Preface

The concept of self-improvement is integral to personal and professional growth. As American civil rights activist W.E.B. DuBois once noted, “The most important thing to remember is this: to be ready at any moment to give up what you are for what you might become.” Similarly, Peace Pilgrim emphasized the importance of self-work when she said, “It always comes back to the thing so many of us wish to avoid, working to improve ourselves.” These reflections underscore the lifelong journey of development, emphasizing the necessity of being adaptable and committed to continuous growth.

Introduction

People who navigate the chaos dedicate themselves to continuously developing their knowledge, skills, and experiences. Translating dreams into reality is a never-ending process and allows one to be in a state of perpetual development if they so choose. Reid Hoffman mentions this in his book The Start-Up of You. According to Reid "we are all works in progress. Each day presents an opportunity to learn more, do more, be more, grow more in our lives and careers. Keeping your career in permanent beta forces you to acknowledge that you have bugs that there is new development to do on yourself that you will need to adapt and evolve."

Unfortunately, as you travel your path of navigating the chaos, you will encounter some people who have decades of experience doing one job and believe they are experts and know everything about everything. Far too often, these individuals lack any self-awareness, have an inflated sense of ego, and provide myopic advice often best ignored. Andy Hargadon, head of the entrepreneurship center at the University of California-Davis, says that for many people "twenty years of experience is really one year of experience repeated twenty times.” When you come across such people ask yourself if you really want to listen to someone who has done the same job once and then repeated it 20 or 30 years in a row?

Definition

Self-improvement refers to the ongoing process of enhancing one's skills, knowledge, and personal qualities to achieve a better version of oneself. It involves setting goals and taking deliberate actions to develop various aspects of life, including mental, emotional, physical, and professional well-being. By focusing on growth, individuals can overcome challenges, adapt to changes, and unlock their full potential. This journey often requires self-discipline, resilience, and a willingness to learn from experiences, both positive and negative.

Through self-improvement, people can increase their confidence, build stronger relationships, and find greater satisfaction in their personal and professional lives. It also promotes a proactive approach to life, encouraging individuals to take control of their destiny rather than passively accepting circumstances. Ultimately, self-improvement leads to a more fulfilling, balanced, and purposeful existence. By committing to this lifelong pursuit, individuals continuously evolve and thrive, regardless of the obstacles they may face.

Examples

While there are many examples of what self-improvement looks like, here are ten of the most common.

Continuous Learning: Engaging in lifelong learning by acquiring new knowledge and skills helps individuals stay relevant in their careers, adapt to changes, and foster personal growth. This can include formal education, online courses, reading, or learning from mentors.
Mindfulness and Meditation: Practicing mindfulness and meditation enhances self-awareness, reduces stress, and improves focus. By being present in the moment, individuals can better manage emotions and make thoughtful decisions, leading to improved mental and emotional well-being.
Physical Fitness: Regular exercise not only boosts physical health but also improves mental clarity, energy levels, and overall mood. Consistent physical activity can lead to increased confidence and resilience, which positively impacts other areas of life.
Goal Setting: Setting clear, achievable goals provides direction and motivation. It helps individuals focus their efforts on what matters most, track their progress, and maintain a sense of purpose. SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals are particularly effective.
Time Management: Developing effective time management skills allows individuals to prioritize tasks, reduce stress, and achieve a better work-life balance. Techniques like the Pomodoro Technique, Eisenhower Matrix, and time blocking can improve productivity and personal satisfaction.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ): Enhancing emotional intelligence involves understanding and managing one’s own emotions while empathizing with others. High EQ leads to better interpersonal relationships, effective communication, and the ability to navigate social complexities.
Financial Literacy: Improving financial literacy empowers individuals to make informed decisions about saving, investing, and managing money. It can lead to financial independence, reduced stress related to money, and the ability to achieve long-term financial goals.
Networking and Relationship Building: Cultivating a strong professional and personal network can open doors to new opportunities, provide support, and enhance personal growth. Building genuine relationships based on trust and mutual respect is key to long-term success.
Resilience Building: Developing resilience involves strengthening the ability to cope with adversity and bounce back from challenges. This can be achieved through positive thinking, stress management techniques, and learning from past experiences to grow stronger.
Self-Reflection and Journaling: Regular self-reflection through journaling or meditation helps individuals gain insight into their thoughts, behaviors, and goals. It encourages introspection, leading to greater self-awareness, clarity, and a more intentional approach to life.

Characteristics

Self-improvement is marked by several key characteristics:

Adaptability: The ability to adjust one's approach as circumstances change is crucial for personal growth.
Perseverance: Continuously working towards self-betterment despite challenges and setbacks.
Self-awareness: Understanding one’s strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.
Open-mindedness: Being willing to consider new ideas and perspectives and to learn from others.
Goal Orientation: Setting clear, achievable goals and actively working towards them.

Reflecting upon her 35-year career, actor Juliette Lewis discussed the key characteristic for her own self-improvement in an interview published in The New York Times on December 27, 2021, “I think what you learn through time is that you have the ability to regenerate, if you put your heart and mind to it. You have to apply discipline and get out of your own way.”

Research

In a February 11, 2021, Harvard Business Review article, Kate Northrup suggests a strategy far more digestible for those of us with busy lives trying to put in the daily grind of navigating the chaos. Northrup wrote “If you want to thrive and be part of the meaningful change, adaptability is the key ingredient. But I don’t mean to just go with the flow and take life as it comes to you. This new brand of adaptability channels our desire to make a strategic plan, while building planned checkpoints for course correction as new information arises and circumstances shift. It’s called micro-planning.

Micro-planning is simple. It takes a larger vision and breaks it down into yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily check-in practices to plan and adjust as necessary. We get some of the same stabilizing effects that a five-year plan may have given us but with shorter chunks of planning that make more sense in our current economic and cultural context.”

This micro-planning approach allows us to view the present moment as much more important in our long-range goals and dreams. Daily check-ins help guide us along the long path required to navigate the chaos. Such a process also affords us the opportunity to miss a day yet remain focused on the long-term goal knowing full well that missing a micro step will not derail the dream.

In her January 18, 2022, Psychology Today article Allison E. McWilliams discussed micro-planning and offered a few tactics for those willing to take small steps to improve themselves and realize just how possible ‘giving up who you are to be who you might become’ is. The first tactic McWilliams discussed was the micro-planning step of being more present. Recognizing the value of our community and our relationships and how important it is to show up for one another is certainly a small step available to anyone willing to put in the effort. McWilliams posed the following questions to readers: “What boundaries do you need to set and hold over the next month? How can you intentionally hold space for those things that truly matter to you?”

Her second micro-planning tactic was being more gracious and grateful. As you leverage your mind, body, and spirit to navigate the chaos remind yourself to “give one another a bit more grace and to be grateful for our lives, our health, our jobs, and the people in our lives. A little bit of grace and gratitude will go a long way to make this world a bit better.” McWilliams then asked readers “What are one or two things you are grateful for right now?” The other tactic she discussed was the micro-step of being more open and listening more. “Listening doesn’t mean agreeing or supporting. Listening means learning. How can you stay open to learning in the coming months?”

There are plenty of other micro-steps to take with micro-planning as you go out working to improve yourself. It is important to remember Northrup’s observation that “The world is changing dramatically all around us, and we need to change with it. Clinging to a long-term strategy like the five-year plan isn’t going to work anymore. But letting go of our need and desire to know what the future holds does not mean a freefall into anxious indolence. By breaking down our planning processes into smaller chunks, we begin to check in more frequently and adapt more naturally. The five-year plan may be dead, but our capacity for doing our most impactful work and live into the goals that we set for ourselves is very much alive.”

Case Studies

Actor Aaron Eckhart, professional tennis player Roger Federer, former CEO of Google Eric Schmidt and playwright Tyler Perry each understand the necessity of self-improvement as a strategy to navigate the chaos.

After graduating from Brigham Young University in 1994 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film, Eckhart lived in New York City as a struggling, unemployed actor for several years in the 1990s. As an undergraduate at BYU, Eckhart met director and writer Neil LaBute, who cast him in several of his own original plays. Five years later Eckhart made a debut as a sociopathic ladies' man in LaBute's black comedy film In the Company of Men (1997). Under LaBute's guidance Eckhart worked in the director's films Your Friends & Neighbors (1998). Eckhart would gain some recognition as George in Steven Soderbergh's critically acclaimed film Erin Brockovich (2000) but it was not until six years later, in 2006, that he received a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Nick Naylor in Thank You for Smoking. In an interview actor Aaron Eckhart said “You always have to go out there and prove yourself to people. It never ends. That’s an important lesson No matter what level you are at. Never give up.” Eckhart noted that “for 20 years I’ve made mistakes and recovered from mistakes. I have asked myself tough questions. I’ve just tried to be a better person, and not take everything so seriously.”

Much like Eckhart, Federer has learned the value of self-improvement. Federer wis ranked world No. 4 in men's singles tennis by the Association of Tennis Professionals. He has won 20 Grand Slam singles titles—the most in history for a male player—and has held the world No. 1 spot in the ATP rankings for a record total of 310 weeks (including a record 237 consecutive weeks) and was the year-end No. 1 five times, including four consecutive. Federer, who turned professional in 1998, was continuously ranked in the top 10 from October 2002 to November 2016. Federer has won a record eight Wimbledon men's singles titles, six Australian Open titles, five US Open titles (all consecutive, a record), and one French Open title. He is one of eight men to have achieved a Career Grand Slam. Federer has reached a record 31 men's singles Grand Slam finals, including 10 consecutively from the 2005 Wimbledon Championships to the 2007 US Open.

How has he managed to stay on top of the tennis world for so long? According to Federer: “I always questioned myself in the best of times, even when I was world number one for many, many weeks, and months in a row, at certain times during the year I said, ‘What can I improve? What do I need to change?’ Because if you don’t do anything or you just do the same thing over and over again, you stay the same, and staying the same means going backwards. It’s important for me to actually hear criticism sometimes because I think that’s what makes me a better player and that means someone’s questioning me who really cares about me, and I think that’s really important in the business world as well.”

Indeed, self-improvement is important in the business world and Eric Schmidt knows this first-hand. A colleague recommended that Schmidt get a professional executive coach in 2001 when he was far along in his career. From 2001 to 2011, Schmidt served as the CEO of Google. As Schmidt recalled: “I initially resented the advice, because after all, I was a CEO. I was pretty experienced. Why would I need a coach? Am I doing something wrong? How could a coach advise me if I'm the best person in the world at this? But that's not what a coach does. The coach doesn't have to play the sport as well as you do. They have to watch you and get you to be your best.”

For those who perform at the top of their game in whatever field they compete, they most likely use a coach to help them reassess their performance. For Schmidt, his coach offered him an opportunity to see things differently As Schmidt recalled “A coach is somebody who looks at something with another set of eyes, describes it to you in [his/her] words, and discusses how to approach the problem. Once I realized I could trust him, Bill Campbell, and that he could help me with perspective, I decided this was a great idea. When there is [a] business conflict you tend to get rat-holed into it. [Bill's] general advice has been to rise one step higher, above the person on the other side of the table, and to take the long view. He'll say, "You're letting it bother you. Don't."

Finally, American playwright and director Tyler Perry exemplifies one who dedicated his life to self-improvement. Perry’s childhood in New Orleans was marked by a pattern of abuse by his father, and the bitterness from the broken relationship became a source of unforgiveness as Perry grew older, eventually moving to Atlanta. It was only after channeling his struggles through writing, that he found a deeper calling. After praying for God to help him to forgive his father, whom he later reconciled with, Perry turned his turbulent story of forgiveness and redemption into the stage play “I Know I’ve Been Changed.”

From 1992 to 1998, every time he put on the play it flopped and was considered a financial failure until he revamped it and found success taking it on the road from 1998 to 2000. Perry allowed his life to be a work in progress and as he tweaked his show he made his foray into film transposing many of his stage productions into screen gems, dating back to 2001 when he introduced his play “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” to wide audiences via DVDs that were sold on his Web site. It was the $50.7 million box office success of his 2005 debut “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” that landed him a lucrative first-look, multiyear distribution deal with Lionsgate Entertainment. Perry would go on to create over 20 films and six television shows.

When reflecting upon his life Perry said: “You have to understand that what you may perceive to be a failure may very well be an opportunity to learn, grow, get better, and prepare for the next level. If you find the lessons in what you perceive to be failures, then you won’t ever fail at anything. Everything I learned during the ‘learning’ years (that’s what I call them now) has helped me in the ‘harvest’ years (that’s what I’m living in now). Do not be hard on yourself. You have not failed. Find the lesson so you can use it when you get to your harvest.”

Conclusion

Self-improvement is a continuous process that requires dedication, adaptability, and a willingness to change. By setting small, achievable goals and being open to feedback, individuals can navigate life’s chaos more effectively. The journey of self-improvement is not about perfection but about progress and the commitment to becoming the best version of oneself. As the 16th century French writer Michel de Montaigne noted “There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.” Most people who make navigating the chaos a lifetime process routinely practice self-improvement.

As Earl Nightingale, American motivational speaker, and author, known as the “Dean of Personal Development” once noted “If the grass is greener on the other side it’s probably getting better care.” Variations on this theme include “If the grass looks greener on the other side, stop staring, comparing, and complaining and start water the grass you are standing on,” “If the grass is greener on the other side, there is probably more manure there,” or “Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side because it is fake.”

Perhaps the grass is greener on the other side because the people there take better care of it. Perhaps it is greener because they had to deal with more manure in their life and the residue of that is a plush lawn. And sometimes people use fake grass to impress others. At the end of the day, does it really matter?

By increasing your self-awareness, studying how others have navigated the chaos, and reflecting upon your own actions and thoughts, my hope is this essay helps you in some small way improve how you care for your grass.

One final thought. In MacBeth Shakespeare wrote:

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time.

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

My wish is that you never feel as though your life signifies nothing. Your life means something. The world is a better place because of you. You matter. Your thoughts matter. Your feelings matter. Your love matters. Always remember that and as the year begins anew.

Remember to be kind to yourself.
Remember to be kind to others.
Remember to forgive yourself.
Remember to forgive others.
Remember to dream big and often.
Remember to take a leap of faith.
Remember to believe in yourself.
Remember to engage in self-care.
Remember that each day presents an opportunity to begin again.
Remember you have what it takes to navigate the chaos.

Self-Reflection Questions

How often do you remind yourself that you may need to give up who you are for who you might become?
How often do you avoid working on yourself?
How often do you encourage others to work on improving themselves?
What goal or dream can you break down using the micro-planning method?
What are your initial thoughts on the micro-planning approach to improving yourself?
How often do you allow yourself to be a work in progress?
How often do you realize your failures are opportunities for growth?
How often do you remind yourself you have the potential to grow every day?
How often do you take time for self-improvement?
What steps do you take to ensure you are continuously developing your skills and knowledge?
How do you handle criticism and use it to improve yourself?
What is one area of your life where you could benefit from being more adaptable?
How do you stay motivated when working towards long-term goals?
How do you balance the desire for immediate results with the understanding that meaningful change takes time?
How often do you reflect on your progress and adjust your plans accordingly?
How do you maintain focus on your goals despite distractions or setbacks?
How do you cultivate a growth mindset in your personal and professional life?
How do you respond when things do not go as planned, and what can you learn from these experiences?
How do you prioritize your goals and ensure you are working towards what truly matters to you?
How can you support others in their journey of self-improvement while also focusing on your own growth?