STOP making these mistakes on your self improvement journey (99% are making mistake #3!)

Louie Humble

25d ago in Good Content📹

I started my self improvement journey nearly 8 years ago now.

In that time I’ve made just about every mistake you can make- including these ones.

Along the way, I’ve also seen these mistakes be repeated time and time again by others on a similar journey.

Try to avoid these 5 mistakes, and you will make 10 times more progress- I promise you!

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COMMON MISTAKE #1: Trying to run before you can walk.

Usually, when we start our self improvement journeys we want to see the results INSTANTLY.

The deep ocean that is online self improvement content tells us that we HAVE to be masculine, strong, fit, productive, attractive, focused, energised, healthy, hardworking and MUCH more.

So naturally it makes you want to change EVERYTHING in your life as it makes you feel worthless and not enough.

However, this method almost never works. At least not for long anyway.

In response to this feeling of inadequacy comes an urgency to change. As a result, people will then start to make drastic life changes like extreme diets, fitness plans or unrealistic daily routines.

Whilst these may work for a week or two when motivation is high, as soon as they have the first blip in motivation or have a setback, they are RIGHT back to square one again.

The reason for this is usually because the FUNDAMENTALS aren’t right.

And trying some crash diet/fitness plan for example is simply papering over cracks.

Let’s say that you did stick to this and lost a tonne of weight or got absolutely shredded in a few months.

What’s the plan for after this?

Return back to the old habits?

The ones that made you unhappy and want to change in the first place?

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SOLUTION:

Instead of rushing into self improvement and trying to run before you can walk- focus on improving the fundamentals.

I’m talking about sleep, exercise, hydration, nutrition, learning, relationships etc.

Look at your daily habits and whether they are contributing to the person you want to become or not.

If you want to build a business and become wealthy but are running off 5 hours sleep every night, how much harder is that going to be?

If you want to become productive and do deep work but your time on TikTok is 6 hours each day on average, is there any wonder you haven’t made any progress?

Focus your energy on improving your fundamentals bit by bit every day.

Minimise your bad habits one day at a time, and start to ramp up better ones.

Eventually, you’ll have given yourself a MUCH better foundation so that you can actually start to improve your life for good, not just a week or two.

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COMMON MISTAKE #2: Consuming but not acting.

This is the one I’ve probably been most guilty of in my self improvement journey.

Like I mentioned above, there is an absolute OCEAN of content out there on self improvement.

Often, it feels like you’re being pulled in a thousand different directions.

Don’t get caught in the trap of ‘feeling’ like you’re making progress just by watching a video, listening to a podcast or reading a book.

I’ve read just about every self improvement book you can think of.

But can I remember the lessons from a lot of them- absolutely not.

Apart from the titles, I can’t remember a lot about what was in them!

Sure, these things can be great tools to improve your life, but ONLY if you actually use them properly!

Otherwise, it’s simply procrastination in disguise.

This was a hard pill for me to swallow, but it’s true.

I wasn’t implementing what I was consuming, and therefore it was going in one ear and out the other.

I may as well have just been watching Shrek 2.

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SOLUTION:

When you consume long-form content, think of at least ONE actionable step that you can take from it and make a note.

What I’ve started doing is keeping ‘mini book reports’ in the notes of my phone that I update during and after I’ve read a book.

These aren’t essays- just some key points of what I felt were the most useful bits TO ME.

From this, I’ve actually compiled of what I like to view as my ‘second brain’.

This is a library of self improvement advice/tips/methods that I have put in my own words and can refer to at any time.

Now, I try to do this with podcasts and videos alike.

Don’t get me wrong, you don’t have to do it for EVERYTHING you consume- it’s just something to think about.

Otherwise, you will forget the content and that information is lost FOREVER!

Be more intentional with your content consumption.

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COMMON MISTAKE #3: Having an ‘All or Nothing’ approach.

This is probably the most common mistake I see from my peers and people I have helped on their journeys.

The mistake is having an all or nothing mindset.

You reading this may also recognise this behaviour in your own journey.

A good example of the ‘All or Nothing’ mindset is with the gym or exercise.

Say that you want to build your dream physique and so you are going to the gym as much as you can (makes sense).

However, your busy life makes it difficult to get your workout in sometimes.

One night, you’re REALLY pushed for time after work/school as you have something planned, so would only have 10 minutes for the gym.

Your all or nothing mindset tells you not to bother going.

What would be the point in going for 10 minutes, right?

Because of this you opt to do NOTHING.

This mindset can be so damaging as this mindset will frequently interrupt your consistency and discipline and take away progress that otherwise would have been made.

Over time, your progress will me SO MUCH SLOWER than if you would have had a mindset of just doing what you can to keep the habit going.

To not break the chain.

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SOLUTION:

A much, much better approach is to get to grips with just doing SOMETHING every day.

With all or nothing, there is no in between.

This means you succeed or fail.

With just doing SOMETHING, you succeed every single day- just not as much as you might think some days.

But progress is progress- and going to the gym for 10 minutes, or going on a 1 mile run, or writing just 1 email or doing just 10 seconds in a cold shower will accumulate to more progress over time than you’d get by having an all or nothing mindset.

By just doing SOMETHING, you are not easily deterred by last minute changes by your schedule.

Also, the mental weight of doing whatever it is you’re trying to be consistent with decreases dramatically when you know you only have to do something and this is still progress.

No more abandoning things and spending the rest of the day feeling guilty!

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If you made it this far, thank you for reading! Truly.

Comment to let me know if you have made these mistakes like me, and if there are any different ones you have made!

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I love helping other people with their self improvement journeys in any way I can.

If you want to chat about yours, just message me- I’d love to hear about it!

Good luck

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