Has anything ever truly improved for you?

[Mondrian]

Sometimes things seem to get better and other times things seem to get worse. Inwardly, I mean.

Last year I quit smoking (Allen Carr method) and it has been one thing in my life for ages that I can really say that there has been an actual improvement. I mean, that I have changed something about myself for the better. Sometimes I wonder whether I've just shifted the addiction elsewhere, though.

There is a lot of talk about self-improvement and self-help, self-development but who can say for sure they have made a change for the better. I mean, they have actually brought about an inward improvement?

It would be heck-of-an-encouraging if the answer was nobody!

[AjaTrinidad]

Originally Posted by Mondrian

Sometimes things seem to get better and other times things seem to get worse. Inwardly, I mean.

Last year I quit smoking (Allen Carr method) and it has been one thing in my life for ages that I can really say that there has been an actual improvement. I mean, that I have changed something about myself for the better. Sometimes I wonder whether I've just shifted the addiction elsewhere, though.

There is a lot of talk about self-improvement and self-help, self-development but who can say for sure they have made a change for the better. I mean, they have actually brought about an inward improvement?

It would be heck-of-an-encouraging if the answer was nobody!

Heeey! Your life's not over! How do you know it will never improve?

Sorry for all the exclamation marks!

[Mondrian]

Originally Posted by AjaTrinidad

Heeey! Your life's not over! How do you know it will never improve?

I don't think my life's over or that it will never improve.

[Cochonette]

Has anything ever truly improved for you?

You're asking this on a self-improvement website?

[Angela]

Originally Posted by Mondrian

It would be heck-of-an-encouraging if the answer was nobody!

I beg your pardon? Are you saying you would find it encouraging to hear that none of us has made positive change in our lives?

[Acting Like Godot]

I'm a little puzzled by the OP too.

It sounds somewhat extraordinary to me - the idea that improvement could be such a rare, difficult thing.

[lifetimelearner]

Originally Posted by Mondrian

Sometimes things seem to get better and other times things seem to get worse. Inwardly, I mean.

Last year I quit smoking (Allen Carr method) and it has been one thing in my life for ages that I can really say that there has been an actual improvement. I mean, that I have changed something about myself for the better. Sometimes I wonder whether I've just shifted the addiction elsewhere, though.

There is a lot of talk about self-improvement and self-help, self-development but who can say for sure they have made a change for the better. I mean, they have actually brought about an inward improvement?

It would be heck-of-an-encouraging if the answer was nobody!

because I can feel it and people around me ask what has happened to me -for the better that is !

and why would it be encouraging if the answer is nobody ???

[Angelique]

Originally Posted by Mondrian

There is a lot of talk about self-improvement and self-help, self-development but who can say for sure they have made a change for the better.

Define better.

[AjaTrinidad]

Originally Posted by Mondrian

I don't think my life's over or that it will never improve.

Um, I was being playful.

[firefly]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

I'm a little puzzled by the OP too.

It sounds somewhat extraordinary to me - the idea that improvement could be such a rare, difficult thing.

I suspect that many/most people find radical, permanent self-improvement to be extremely difficult, especially when it comes to personal "demons" like addictions, limiting beliefs, etc.

After all, if everyone found the process easy and intuitive, there would be no need for Steve to write about making changes as simple as giving up coffee or waking up early (some of his most popular posts). It seems like the very existence of the "self-help" industry points to the fact that many people aren't particularly skilled at helping themselves.

[Luv]

Originally Posted by Mondrian

Sometimes things seem to get better and other times things seem to get worse. Inwardly, I mean.

Last year I quit smoking (Allen Carr method) and it has been one thing in my life for ages that I can really say that there has been an actual improvement. I mean, that I have changed something about myself for the better. Sometimes I wonder whether I've just shifted the addiction elsewhere, though.

There is a lot of talk about self-improvement and self-help, self-development but who can say for sure they have made a change for the better. I mean, they have actually brought about an inward improvement?

It would be heck-of-an-encouraging if the answer was nobody!

I have to say that I can completely understand where you're coming from, I have really been there!

Yes, I've made lasting INWARD changes, especially in my temperament, awareness, happiness, etc.

For example, I used to be extremely irritable and angry, would go off at the drop of a pin growing up -- but I recognized this as a terrible trait years ago and have worked very hard to overcome that limitation. And for the most part now; I have!

I still get fiesty at times (lol), but now its a matter of when I ALLOW it to grace me, for it no longer controls me or my actions. =)

Also, as well as you, I quit smoking over 2 years ago and immediately switched to other addictions in replace of it too. But since I became aware of that pattern, I've shifted my awareness moreso to the underlying CAUSE of why one would feel an addiction/obsessive trait in the first place.

What do you feel you're losing? What do you feel you want to replace? Do you feel a part of you, or your life, is missing and/or without purpose somehow? Do you have feelings, thoughts, experiences that you're trying to 'choke out' or 'stuff down'? Really feel whats going on beneath the surface within you..

Addictions (especially smoking, drugs, overeating, anorexia, oral-related) usually are born out of lack of loving feelings towards yourself. Its a big, bold sign screaming from your subconscious that something on the love-front isn't quite right.

If you did truly love yourself, you wouldn't feel any desire to harm your body and mind in these ways.. in fact, you couldn't even fathom the idea!

This is something I was wondering myself just this morning!! So your question came at a perfect time for me to offer what I've gathered as well..

[st33med]

Why do you seek nobody to improve? It makes no sense to limit others to brag about yourself.

Why not ask for encouragement instead? Positive reinforcement can be delivered really well in this forum!

Me? I have improved myself a lot ever since I visited this forum about two years ago. My own personal growth really started about six months ago, when I became empowered over my life and emotions and when I started to discover my spiritual abilities in healing and intuition.

Love,
Andrew.

[ZephyrusX]

I’ll occasionally come across people who think that people develop very little over the course of a life time. But from my own perspective, I see very little evidence for this. People change all the time often for the ‘better’ and often in seemingly small but accumulative ways. Sometimes I get the impression that some people fail to see these changes because they give too much weight to the ‘looming’ bad habit or obsession and they fail to see anything else. Or they give too much credence to the present and not only fail to see the changes in the past, but also over look the fact that people do overcome long term bad habits or obsessions.

For example, when I was in high school, I was freakishly shy and at the time it seemed like a huge issue. Now that I am no longer freakishly shy, the issue doesn’t seem all that important and I put more emphasis on some current issue in my life. On the one hand, that is the logical thing to do; it allows me to continue ‘progressing’ if that is the right word. But it also means that I put less attention and focus on the positive changes in my life in order to overemphasize and focus upon the negative issues in my life. If taken to extremes, it may even seen like I have never ‘progressed’, which is obviously not true. What would happen if people woke up every day and took a moment or two to remind them selves of all the positive changes they have gone through in their life?

We can only measure success if we have some form of measurement. For me, my ‘measuring rod’ was a point in my life where I told my self that I wouldn’t be able to succeed at anything and just end up in another blue-collar job like the rest of my family. If we forget what we are comparing our present state to, it may seem like we are not progressing at all. When this happens to me, I'll invoke a memory of the past that basically summed up my previous perspectives on life.

It would be heck-of-an-encouraging if the answer was nobody!

I am a little puzzled by this as well? Are you hoping that other people develop slowly so that you can feel better about your self? ‘Oh well! I’m just like everyone else!’.

Thanks for the post; it was fun replying to it

[Mist]

When we realize that we have to change something about ourselve our action usually won't immedialtely act that way.

Million of people read books about entrepreneurship or "how to get rich" type of book but how many of them actually became what they want to ? They may try the advice then and there then gave up.

What makes us change is the "event" after the realization that we should change. I procrastinated a lot in the past until I was about to become homeless.

I ate a lot of junk food in the past but now I don't eat that anymore. This change didn't come overnight but there were some "events" that make me completely change.

[Vibration]

To me, Mondrian means that he lacks an objective means to measure his net self improvement, especially where some things get better, some get worse, and some remain the same. And surely some of these are weighted differently, having more or less importance than some others.

My answer to this: PD and SI (self-improvement) are so unique to each person, and there is no monitoring or policing of it on anything but an individual level. As far as I know there is no official criteria or model to measure it by.

So I think it remains a thing entirely up to one's interpretation. I don't know of a way to quantify it, and doubt that anyone else does either, other than to say up or down. So yes, my answer is also nobody.

I think you should error on the side of up; over-estimate it, for no other reason that to encourge yourself to go further and feel good about yourself.

[Mondrian]

Thanks. Guilty as charged and of more.

I guess one can get a bit down seeing so much apparent self-improvement around and none within oneself. Not that I necessarily think that I havn't developed for the better or that apparent improvement in others is illusory.

I feel it would perhaps be like the a-ha moment of the twist at the end of a great film to discover that there never had been any improvement for anyone.

I do count quitting smoking as an improvement but if it was an improvement it was through getting rid of false beliefs. A kind of 'less is more' improvement.

I suppose one can get caught in the idea that one is improving oneself where one has the concepts of the improved self and the unimproved self and in this duality there is perhaps always only the movement from one to the other - now better, now worse.

What I pick up quite often reading these forums is something like the idea that it is not you or I who improve but you or I who stand in the way of that which cannot be improved, get better, or worse, whaterver 'that' 'is'.

[Noelle]

Yes, but gradually. I have not experienced a sudden, dramatic positive change, and I am skeptical if such things can be acquired. If you have patience and don't mind waiting for results, then you can definitely improve your life.

[Criseyde]

I really question the whole idea of "improvement." I'm not sure I can say that I am now better than I was a few years ago. I've changed a lot, but I wouldn't be who I am now without who I was then. It's an iterative process. I'm a lot happier with my life now, though, if that's what you're asking.

[JaredR]

Originally Posted by Mondrian

Sometimes things seem to get better and other times things seem to get worse. Inwardly, I mean.

Last year I quit smoking (Allen Carr method) and it has been one thing in my life for ages that I can really say that there has been an actual improvement. I mean, that I have changed something about myself for the better. Sometimes I wonder whether I've just shifted the addiction elsewhere, though.

There is a lot of talk about self-improvement and self-help, self-development but who can say for sure they have made a change for the better. I mean, they have actually brought about an inward improvement?

It would be heck-of-an-encouraging if the answer was nobody!

Some things have improved. I take better care of myself now than I used to, in terms of addressing my emotions and being healthier. Other things have not improved yet, like living in line with my life purpose and what's most important to me. I'll be honest and say that I have not seen the radical improvements in my life that I would like to see, but PD has given me hope for real change, and that's worth it in itself.

[Strangemagik]

Could it be that it seems that way to you because you are seeking contentment or happiness and you find that you don't stay that way after each improvement?

[secrets0stolen]

Heck yeah!

[Mondrian]

Originally Posted by Strangemagik

Could it be that it seems that way to you because you are seeking contentment or happiness and you find that you don't stay that way after each improvement?

It seems to be this way. Is it possible to ever not feel the need for contentment or happiness? Maybe for a short time when the improvement is taking place we are happy and content and then time passes and these feelings fade and that improvement or insight is in the past. From here, must we always move again? Is there never any consolidation of change?

[Solipsist]

Originally Posted by secrets0stolen

Heck yeah!

x 2

Next on my list, though, is Alan Carr, apparently

[Brutha]

Let's see:
-I'm a passable public speaker thanks to toastmasters when I was really bad at it before.
-At the moment I'm working on my own project that I consider to have the possibility to be a large meaningful contribution to the world. I'm still in the programming phase and haven't yet made money but I'm positive that I will.
-Through dancing I substantially reduced fear of physical intimacy and I improved my fitness over the last year.