Self-Improvement Introduction: Acknowledging Problems & Solutions · 9:58pm May 27th, 2021
Imperfections. Chaos. Problems. Strife.
We have to accept that life would be nothing without these. Maybe you have bad relationships with people you love. Maybe you have health problems. Maybe you’re out of shape. Maybe you’re addicted to drugs. Maybe you aren’t very popular in your clique. Maybe you never get the things you want done in the day.
However, rather than simply embrace them or accept them, our job is to overcome them to bring order into our own lives.
Now, I can’t help you in everything, given that I am not a licensed therapist nor am I a licensed surgeon. Taking care of the fine details is up to you.
However, I can provide aid in the sense that I can point you to the right directions in terms of the creation of basic healthy habits to add structure to your life, & encourage you to keep pursuing that path.
Oh, & something else to remember: I’m not at all some expert, but I’m actually a student, just like you. This course I’m making is actually for myself as much as you, because these blog posts are basically my positive affirmations that I wrote down based on my daily lessons to keep reminding myself to stick with what I’ve learned, & even teach myself some new things by means of putting them into fresh new perspectives, & to give myself incentive to push further in learning, for I have not studied every single means of self-help yet, & I have only just began partaking in these new mindsets (though insodoing my mindset has become tremendously improved in just a month!), so don’t think of me as a teacher. Think of this as shared study notes, & I’m a student in the same class as you.
The first steps are to acknowledge we have problems, & then acknowledge that other people have problems too. But what are the causes of our problems, & what can we do about them?
The roots of our problems in real life often amount to habits. Oftentimes, our problems can be traced back to bad habits, but we can also just as easily fix our problems with good habits. After we have early discussions on the subject of enhancing self-love & willpower, we will borrow a page from both Stephen & Sean Covey, & slowly tackle their established “seven habits”, which are as follows:
1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the End in Mind (but do this carefully, for reasons that will be explained below)
3. Put first things first
4. Think Win-Win
5. First Seek to Understand, then Seek to be Understood
6. Synergize
7. “Sharpen the Saw”
While all of the Coveys’ habits deal with mastery of the self to a degree, the first three deal with this the absolute most. The next three, habits 4, 5, & 6 deal with mastery of self in such a way as to developed constructive relationships with others. The final one is a habit of self-renewal.
Each one is simple, but each one is very powerful for reshaping the self. But these are vague aren’t they? What does it mean, to be proactive? What does it mean to synergize?
The best way to figure this out is by means of figuring out what their habits aren’t, so without further ado, I shall paraphrase the Coveys…
1. React.
Take no responsibility. That means both being a victim & doing what you want regardless.
2. Begin with No End in Mind
No plans. No consequences. No tomorrow.
3. Put First Things Last
Do the easy things like watching anime before doing the things that matter. Blow stuff off.
4. Think Win-Lose
Everybody is out to get you, & if they win, you lose.
5. Seek First to Talk, then Pretend to Listen
Just talk, ‘cuz you can, your side of the story first. Once you’re done, just pretend to listen.
6. Don’t Cooperate
People are weird, so don’t get along with them. You always have the best ideas.
7. Wear yourself out
Take no time to improve yourself, because you’re to busy for that. No studying or exercise.
…This…sounds a lot like some people I actually know. Even sounds a bit like me at points until probably very late last year. I realized that there is a positive correlation between these habits you shouldn’t have, & life sucking, to the point where you wonder, do you develop these habits because life sucks, or does your life suck because you have these habits? The correct answer is probably both, but leaning more towards the latter than the former.
Remember, because a habit is basically a routine, you have to analyze how you spend each day, most especially how you spend your mornings. I spend my mornings bodybuilding & sweeping the floor (I prefer brooms). Such are good habits, & are often made consciously. But I have other habits too, such as thinking negatively & feeling inferior. These are bad habits, & are made unconsciously. Part of the point of the seven constructive habits both Coveys introduce to us is to train ourselves to make concious mental decisions. But before we get to them, I will introduce you some far deeper, more fundamental habits, related to self-love, as the main issue with both Seven Habits books is that they operate on the assumption that you already love & know your real self, something that is not true about all FIMFiction users. But when you learn to love yourself & achieve the fundamentals of moving forward, you shall be able to use these habits in order to seize control of your life, improve your relationships, find joy in things, & balance all of the necessities.
As we continue our self-help course, we shall look over Mel Robbins videos, Millennia Thinker videos, the Seven Habits books, books by Scott Adams, study Ayn Rand books (this one requires a tremendous amount of caution, given her admittedly weak grasp of the English language, as well as her highly specialized philosophy), exchange stories about our lives, and so many more, a self-help course that will go on for long-term, until it’s finally time for me to leave FIMFiction, or it’s time to move the course to a blog I made myself. I have two currently hidden blogs, one on gardening that is almost presentable & will get distributed links within this year, & the other a multifunctional blog that I intend to unleash to the public by late 2022.
See, a major tick in this is that the self-help course I am creating for FIMFiction’s users is not really a goal, but a system. You should never have too many goals, but rather have only a few goals, & instead bring order to your life through numerous systems. The problem with most people is that they treat all things as goals, but goals can be overwhelming to the point of being scary to complete. Ever made finishing a book by a certain deadline a goal, & you never reached it? You often had days when the length of the slower-paced chapters overwhelmed you? A few days of cramming in as much reading as you could, only to be less than halfway through by the time the deadline came?
That is a goal. & goals often fail.
& what if you do reach your goal? Let’s say your goal was to reach a certain weight. Then you got there, & then you stopped maintaining your healthy weight, & then you needed to lose weight again?
That is a goal. & goals often fail.
Not all goals fail of course, like graduating from college, or finishing writing a book. However, you usually can’t really reach these goals without systems.
What are systems?
Well, going back to the metaphor of reading a book, let’s you make you made a system for yourself, to read at least one chapter every day or two? Put aside a part of the day, every day, to read some of that book.
& before you knew it, you finished the book far sooner than you expected on the schedule. If you are on the autism spectrum & don’t pay attention to the same things as others & have poor short-term memory, you can’t really reasonably make reading a book a goal unless you absolutely love it. It’s hard to accomplish in your neurotype.
That is a system. Systems are not deadlines, but rather, putting aside a bit of every day to tend to habits until you’re finished.
This also applies to the weight metaphor; if you instead maintain systems of healthy living every day & you only take weight into account for a slight change of your already existing routines, then you will maintain your healthy weight easily.
That too, is a system.
This self-help course should be best treated as a system. It’s not your goal, you are building systems to improve your life.
The idea is to create habits around your life so that you can defeat whatever is the chaos in your life. You can start & stop at any time. You can leave & return at any time. The system being built is to bring structure & improvement to your life in general, to continue to find ways to help your life in any small way possible.
Now I don’t agree with Ayn Rand on all things, namely how extreme she can take recommending being selfish, but I agree strongly with her heavy focus on symbiotic relationships, so if you like my course, all I ask for in return is that you provide me with feedback of any kind. Now, if you’re really satisfied, you can offer me anything…photos, cartoons, memes, videos, art, you don’t have to make any of it yourself, just anything you think might please me. Nope! It does not have to be porn either, it can really just be stuff you’ll think I’ll like.
But only if you’re really satisfied.
If you’re not satisfied, you give me nothing.
If you’re a little satisified, just give me feedback.
If you’re very satisfied, just give me any random things you find on the internet.
However, you must know this: The time will come, sooner than you expect, when I start expecting you to think outside of the limitations of my study notes. Again, as I cannot stress enough, I’m not a guru, just a fellow student who’s slightly ahead in the game & especially keen on writing down as much as he could from the teachers, & even these notes are not above question, so I request that you think apart from me, especially later on. Technically, you should be doing this from the beginning, & I think most of you will, but I’m aware that a few of my readers may have trouble with this at first. However, the further the lessons go on, the more critical it will be that you think apart from myself. Please remember that.
Sage advice.
I need to use this....