Self-Improvement at Any Age

The art of self-improvement keeps you young, hopeful, and open to growth.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock

A quality I admire in some older people is their vigorous pursuit of self-improvement well past retirement age. Even in their mid-to-late 70s, they try to improve each day and hold on to their dreams for the future. I enjoy being around such people and have met many at my local gym.

It seems that trying to improve yourself keeps you young at heart. It assumes that the future is still malleable and that you can be a part of it. The art of self-improvement requires agency, optimism, and passion—virtuous qualities that we should all strive toward.

Let me go one step further: Self-improvement isn’t just for adults. Even children are capable of imagining a better version of themselves and working toward that goal. If you have kids in your life that you love, use your influence to encourage them to not be complacent.

The kinds of self-improvement I have in mind aren’t necessarily popular or trending on social media. Many aspire to be influencers or gain wealth or connections. I say to strive for a good and quiet life overflowing with virtue and generosity of spirit. Seek to build lasting institutions, lifelong friendships, strong neighborhoods, and thriving places of worship.

You need to be constantly improving yourself to meet the challenges that will arise. The greatest work of humankind is building a civilized society that passes on our values and joys to the next generation. We can all participate, no matter our age.

5 Self-Improvement Tips That Have Served Me Well

1. The Best Way to Get Better at Something Is to Do It. You might be tempted to do something easier. You might want to buy a book on the subject, or make a purchase, or lay out a detailed plan. But those are all distractions. The fastest way to improve at anything is simply to do the real thing.

2. The Best Way to Achieve Happiness and Pleasure Is Indirectly. We all recognize that while eating junk food feels good in the moment, it doesn’t make you feel good in the long run. That’s because easy pleasures such as junk food or scrolling on your phone supply a quick spike of pleasure that crashes just as fast. That rapid rise and fall doesn’t satisfy—it’s more like an itch that screams louder the more you scratch.

3. Let Your Happiness in Life Be the By-product of Doing Hard and Meaningful Things. Train hard for a race, work hard on a project you care about, or devote time to your family. You’ll find that these challenges produce a long-lasting afterglow of contentment and satisfaction.

4. Do Fewer Things, and Do Them Well. One of the simplest life hacks that works no matter who you are or what you’re doing is to ask what in your life would improve if you focused on it more. Focus is a superpower that concentrates your limited energy into a powerful force. When we spread ourselves too thin, we never quite build up the momentum or compounding skills necessary for progress.

5. Use Intentional Training to Improve Your Mental Stamina and Ability to Focus. For most things in life that people want to achieve—recognition at their jobs, respect and impact in their communities, and love from their families—the formula for success isn’t complicated. If a friend asked you for advice in these areas, you would have no problem saying something good, helpful, and true. You can apply the same advice to yourself.

What holds us back in life is the ability to remain consistent and stick with challenging work that requires our full engagement day in and day out. Thankfully, no matter where you are now, this is a skill that you can strengthen, and far more quickly than you might imagine. Train like an athlete would by starting small and challenging yourself to go harder and longer each day, with plenty of rest built in.

There is no secret to beating procrastination, you just need to start before you feel ready. The only way to get over the resistance of doing hard work is to jump right into it. Get started before your plan is complete and before your mind has time to talk you out of it. Once you have that first bit of momentum, it’s drastically easier to keep going.