Being Your Best Self: Steps to a Better You

Many of us can honestly say that we try to do everything to the best of our ability - well most of the time. But do we really try to be our best self at all times? And how do we know if we are? Here I will break down the steps that I believe can help you to reach your goal of being your best self.

The first thing you need is honesty. Be honest with yourself. Many of us have reached that point in our lives where we feel so lost in the world. Then we try to fix this by trying to be more similar to our peers or what someone on the television, or what some best selling author says we should be... Unfortunately they are usually wrong.

There are two more things that we need to consider before we go any further.

1. Be You

Lets combine the second and fourth words in the headline, Your-Self. This is separated by one word, BEST . Be your best self , be you! Discover what you like to do and focus on what really captures your attention. Learn more about these things and you may be surprised to find out that they actually do not interest you as much as you thought they did. Sometimes we change so much of ourselves for other people that we forget who we really are. For example you may have dated someone who was into football then decided to learn more about the game to get interested in it also, then when you broke up you wanted to believe that you did like football even though you really don't.

2. Accept your evolution

As human beings we go through many changes in life. It is quite inevitable. The person you are at 17 is surely not going to be the same at 27. As you experience new things, become involved with new people, and learn and experiment with new lifestyles along with your maturing mindset you will grow into a different type of person. Accept and be open to this.

Now that we've gotten that clarified, lets get started by splitting our "self" into three parts: Mind, Body and Spirit.

^Mind
The things that you choose to focus on are the things that stick with you. They are your thoughts and dreams, and the things that we think about the most are normally the things that we then manifest into our daily lives.

Feed Your Mind

What do you fill your mind with?

• Do you spend most of your time on Facebook or Twitter trying to stalk peoples relationship statuses and posts looking for some sort of drama? Frequenting sites like MediaTakeout and Worldstarhiphop? Watching nothing but Maury, Jerry Springer and The Bad Girls Club?
  
• Do you spend your days playing online and video games, learning nothing but cheat codes and watching YouTube videos, and tons of horror and comedy films?
  
• Do you read often, spend hours on the computer researching and studying the latest facts, and watch educational channels like Discovery and History Channel?
  

A healthy combination is ALL of the above. But with careful moderation. It is okay to seek the latest drama if done to a minimum, all work and no play leads to a miserable lifestyle and trying to learn as much as you can about the world you're basically stuck in is excellent. But what is the best ratio? We need to put them in order of what actually provides enrichment to our lives.

Of course education should be most frequent. Every day your brain stores the information you feed to it so make sure that it is worth the storage. Playing games and watching movies just for fun would be very closely next in importance, we need to take a break sometimes to entertain ourselves. Next, the human curiosity to see whats going on with other peoples lives is quite normal though recently it has been receiving much more attention than anything else. The media makes money from this. With more focus on the ending or start of a relationship than on the healthy progression of another; and more coverage on celebrities personal lives than their actual talent, this has obviously gotten way out of hand. Limit the drama. Remember that the things that you focus on are most likely to be manifested in your life. If it does nothing to bring you closer to achieving your goals, then it's probably not worth it. Also keep in mind that the type of music you listen to the most also influences the things that you think about and even the way you handle certain situations.

^Body

The "best" body is a healthy one so be sure to take good care of the shell you are living in.

Diet

Ever heard of the phrase "you are what you eat"? What do you feed your body? Of course this varies much by region. It is safe to say that people of the Caribbean, South America, Africa, and some Polynesian countries eat quite healthier foods than people in North America, Europe, Australia and many parts of Asia. We all know how to live healthy lives but we choose not too. Exclusively eating healthy food is probably not the most realistic thing to ask ( I sure don't), but if every year we tried to eat a bit healthier diet than the year before it could work.

Exercise

This is also difficult at times to implement into our busy schedules. Try to start of slowly; Thirty minutes of walking or just doing a simple workout from a fitness video is a good start. The more you get into it, the more you'll start to like it and you might decide to make more time to do so.

Spirit

This is the hardest part to accomplish because it is the deepest. In one my previous articles I spoke about how self-love helps you to connect with your spirituality, and how important this is for a healthy, happy lifestyle. Here's a couple steps to enhance your spirit.

Agathism & Positive Thinking

We are going to go through a series of hardships in our lives and there is nothing we can do to stop that. No matter who or what you worship we can all agree that this is inevitable. Agathism is the belief that though bad things do occur, in the end it will all be worked out for good. Bad things do happen to good people but instead of putting all of your energy into complaining about it you can still get something good out of the situation. Look at all of these charities that have been started because someone lost a loved one and decided to use that experience to help others, now thousands of lives may be saved from that situation.

Although thinking positively does not eliminate all of our problems, it helps us to handle them in a much more effective manner. Would you rather lose a loved one and be depressed and sulking, having poor grades in school or poor performance at work and shut out everyone around you until they become sick of being around you and your negativity? Or would you rather take a brief moment of deep grievance then by taking it one day at a time, get up and try to live your life the best you can, because you want you and they would want you to. Grieving and being depressed for a year won't bring them back to life, but continuing to live a better and positive life would ensure a greater and successful life for you. Pain can be a huge motivator if you have the right mindset. Also, be sure to always be grateful for all the little things that make your life a bit easier.

Meditate Frequently

Take the time to relax and empty your mind. This is hard to do at first but it helps to at least try to focus on at least one thing before eliminating that and thinking about nothing. You may want to try this when you are laying in bed before you go to sleep or as soon as you're awake. Just try your best not to let your thoughts distract you by giving them a brief recognition then letting them go. At a certain point of calmness you may start to pray (if you are religious) or think about the things that you desire and want to accomplish. Picture yourself in first person achieving these goals. How do you feel? Notice your surroundings. Not only does this practice release these images out into the universe, but it allows you to experience these things for yourself before they even happen which works out to be an excellent motivator in pursuing your goals. You may also like to think about studying the Law of Attraction.

I believe that these steps could be beneficial to being your best self. You do not have to start everything all at once, most of us are just way too busy for it. Take it one step at a time. It's not going to be easy, and there are many obstacles that will pop up and make you feel discouraged. But remember that you are doing this for yourself, you have but one life and you deserve to live it to the best of your ability.