Self Improvement

What's something about yourself that you feel you need to work on? What steps are you taking to achieve that? I'm talking more about attitudes and behaviours than physical changes and the like. What about you as a person have you resolved to make better?

i need to learn how to put myself first before others. im always helping others out and helping them out with their problems instead of helping myself out first. i dont prioritize myself. i am trying to learn to take steps to fix that. i am trying to take time out of my day to listen to myself and help myself and my problems out, even if that means telling people i cannot help them currently, as hard as that may be. i am trying my best to work on that.

it's really hard, but i'm trying.

My laziness.

Generally, I know I have an attitude of "meh, that thing would be so quick to do so I'll just do it later" when I think my life in general, in many ways and situations, would be improved and make me feel like a more accomplished person if I instead forced myself to start thinking "that thing would be so quick to do so I'll just do it now and be rid of it".

I'm a pretty flawed person and there's a lot of things I need to work on. That being said, I think if I could improve more on one certain thing it would probably benefit me a lot all round. Simply put, I'm a person with a lot of pent up frustration, anger, anxiety and so forth and I'm not very good at dealing with those things in a healthy way. Either I suppress it and it eventually boils to the surface explosively or I just crumble under the weight of it. I need to find more ways to express my emotions healthily so that I don't inevitably become a problem for others or a risk to my own health.

That being said, I do take steps to improve on this. I see a psychologist regularly which has been beneficial and if I catch myself acting in a way that is unpleasant for other people, I ask them what I can do to handle the situation better and will then bring it up with said psych.

I have a lot I can improve, the main one being that I'm a shut in and I'm deathly afraid of social interaction. But I'm working on getting into a program for people like me to find work and semi independent living.
I have a lot to learn though, I'm sure most of you can attest that any interaction with me is painful, I'm terrible at it, so I keep myself away.

I'm attempting to be more outgoing and do things in public by myself. I've always sort of feared human interaction and tried to avoid it whenever possible, usually having one of my few close friends around me as a social buffer. However due to a recent fallout with people, I've decided to use this opportunity to force myself to be more "outgoing".

I still don't go out of my way to talk with other people, but doing things by myself out in public is sort of helping me get better at being more comfortable around people. A couple months ago I ended up playing connect four with some random people at a bar so... progress? I dunno, I've always sort of felt socially inept whether in person or online so this is an obstacle to get over. I'm already shaking my head as I'm typing this.

My physique. - This one is just an ongoing thing and something that stems from consistency in the gym, which I've had for a long time.
My career (or lack thereof). - I'm pursuing more opportunities with freelance work.
My finances. - Lord knows. I don't make enough to really influence this anymore. It's causing problems with my mental health.
My social life. - I just want more friends and to go out more.

Body Image.
Thats why i go to the gym every single day whenever I'm free, and spend the next few hours doing some exercise and getting myself into good shape.

Having more Wisdom
I used to be the kind of person who relied way too much on my own friends' advice until i realised that I can answer my own issues and questions by simply knowing who I am, what am I good at, and even the main reason why my friends like having me around in the first place. There are still days where i need to ask my CLOSEST of friends about some things i need answers, but even they know that I've improved.

Four years ago, there were a lot of things I felt I needed to work on. In the past four years, I've improved almost all of them.
1. Weight loss. I've dropped 30 pounds in the past year and a half.
2. Pre-diabetes. I'm not formally diagnosed, but I show a lot of the signs. I've done a good job of cutting back significantly on sugar and that's probably partially responsible for the weight loss.
3. Exercise. I've started doing cardio and resistance sporadically; I drop it every now and then, but I always pick it back up, and even if I'm doing it off and on, the overall effect trends toward the positive: my endurance and strength have both increased substantially.
4. Driving. I came to the conclusion about a year ago that I was not a very good driver. I committed myself to improving my driving habits and I've succeeded wonderfully at that; I'm a much safer driver than I was a year ago.
5. Apathy. I used to more or less just let things happen and coast along. I'm starting to realize this isn't the best way to do things and taking more control of things now.
6. Cost-cutting. About six months ago, I went through my finances and ended up reducing a lot of my monthly costs.

I still have some things to work on. There are a lot of things I waste time on that I'd like to cut back on and I still sometimes lack discipline and put off things I should really be doing, but it's a work in progress.

I want to work towards being a stronger, reliable, and a more motivated leader. I'm working on that by trying not to procrastinate so much but I don't think it's working lol.

Things that I really need to work on and have started working on are getting more comfortable in social or new situations and speaking for groups. Teacher education is helping a lot on these fronts luckily. It sounds cliche, but it has really changed myself as a person in a short time.

I do still need to work on not procrastinating though.

How easily tense and worried I can become. /: Even minor things turn into huge problems that are very difficult to overcome. Living as a sensitive and anxious person is way tougher than you can imagine! Unfortunately I have a huge problem with avoiding things that make me scared, and that's obviously not helping to overcome anything. Would be great if I could get more courage to take that first step and continue with it.

Lately I've been fighting the anxiety for some things, but definitely not all of them.

• Attitude - I think people think I can be really mean or stand off-ish, but I am actually a really fun, nice and quirky guy if you get to know me.
• I can come across as abraisive sometimes, particularly if I disagree with you. I'm not afraid to call people out or say what I think (which is a good thing), but I think I can be a bit less intense in the way I approach things.
• Indecisiveness - I want to have my finger in all the honey jars, just in case some of them break. It's not an entirely bad thing, it's not illogical, but I need to be more confident in my decisions.
• I need to adopt techniques that help me de-stress and organise my life. I tend to exacerbate and blow up problems in my mind when in actuality, they are small and easily resolved.
• I need not waiver from my opinions for anyone or anything unless for good reason

...among other things!

My perfectionism is the root cause for many of my flaws and I'm not exactly sure how to go about tackling that.

It's a shame because I am legitimately prone to terrible anxiety once I feel like I'm anywhere not near perfect in many aspects because I would feel like a failure otherwise. Hence me putting so much pressure on myself to surpass expectations and whatnot in every way that I can.

To easily distracted. If I start doing something I need to do that will be great in the long run something else appears and I lose focus.

Over the past couple of years I've shed a few layers of the rotten shell that I used to mistake for myself. Bad stuff. Knocked it on the head, mostly. But here are a few things I need to work on:

Fitness - since I'm going to be an actor, I need to be in peak condition and you can't start early enough. I want to structure my own diet, which is sort of unfeasible at this point, and to run along a beach everyday. My my old back injury is a real rattata to deal with, though.

Knowledge - don't really appear to have any... and I can't seem to count. Or think.

Thinking before I speak - I'm a loudmouth and it never leaves a good impression when you speak too hastily.

Skills - like learning an instrument or just some stuff I can pull out at parties. I don't know how to do anything remotely impressive.

Stop comparing myself to others and feeling like rubbish for it - I alternate between arrogance and insecurity at the drop of a hat. Comparing myself to taller, talented, more privileged individuals is a sure recipe for feeling like trash. But y'know, that's bearable. It's when other people start comparing me. My circumstances are beyond their ken. If I ever find someone who has lived a life anything like mine, I'll be surprised. It's like that Cyndi Lauper album. I'm just going to exchange the She bit. I'm so unusual.

Unreasonable fits of anger usually prompted by disappointment - I'm a big baby. A big, violent, angry baby that smashes stuff up. Need to quash it before I do something stupid.

Coordination - I'd lose tempo with a psyducking pendulum.

Anxiety - it stops me from doing things I want to do.

Sentimentality - can't step on a leaf without feeling guilty.

Laziness - grunt grunt grunt. Ask me to sweep the floor and I'll get pissed.

And I think that covers it. I'm mostly perfect, really.

1. Develop a thicker skin.
2. Exercise more consistently.
3. Socialize more irl.
4. Try to be more comfortable in crowds.
5. Not be so worried about people hating me.
6. Drink less coffee.