25 things you need to start doing for yourself

Many people are probably familiar with the phrase “although no one can go back and make a new beginning, anyone can start now and make a new ending”, credited to Chico Xavier. This sentence pretty much sums up how attitude changes work: there is no way to change what has passed, but what lies ahead is an open field of possibilities.

Dr. Jô Furlan, physician, researcher in the field of Behavioral Neuroscience and the first behavioral trainer in Brazil, explains that the change in thinking, which generates changes in personality and attitude, “basically is the result of changes in our beliefs. After all, you are what you believe you are. When you acquire, implement, and absorb constructive beliefs, you create the foundation for positive thinking.” However, according to the doctor, changing a belief is not something so simple, which makes behavioral or thinking change a great challenge.

People often end up boycotting themselves without realizing it, resorting to attitudes that don’t help them, or running away from change. The researcher points out that this happens because “the simple word ‘change’ is already something frightening for the vast majority of people”. At the same time, this difficulty in the process of change may result, according to Furlan, from the “inefficiency or ineffectiveness of the technique used to break the limiting belief”, the one that generates negative behaviors and which should be replaced by a positive belief.

For the doctor, the most important and most impactful changes in a person’s life would be taking responsibility for their own choices, becoming proactive (anticipating instead of reacting) and training assertiveness, since “the communication process based on assertiveness tends to eliminate noise and misunderstandings”. However, we list 25 small attitudes to put into everyday life that can go a long way towards achieving a deeper change, and bringing the inner satisfaction you are looking for:

1. Start accepting yourself more

Accept yourself unconditionally. But realize: accepting yourself doesn’t mean you ignore your flaws and don’t try to correct them. Accepting yourself means that you focus on the positive, making this side of your personality stronger and stronger – which helps you to develop your qualities and overcome your defects.

2. Start loving your body more

Imperfections are just imperfections because society or you have defined them that way. Changing the way you look at them makes you take care of your body in a healthier way, which will have far more positive consequences than if you lived to fit into patterns. Also, if you don’t love yourself now, you will hardly love yourself later, even if you get a “perfect” body. So it doesn’t matter if you think you need a diet or that you have a few extra wrinkles: treat yourself as if you were the most beautiful and extraordinary person that has ever lived on the face of the earth.

3.Start taking better care of your health

Not to make you look more beautiful, but to make you feel extremely comfortable inhabiting this body that is yours, because if you don’t take care of your body, how will you enjoy the fruits of all the work you do during your life? Exercise, see the doctor regularly, take care of your teeth, hair and also your mental health. Taking care of yourself, in addition to teaching a lot about discipline, is also great for emotional balance.

4. Start accepting that not everything is perfect

It is necessary to accept that things and people are as they are, with mistakes and imperfections whose change is far beyond your capacity. This doesn’t mean that you won’t act to improve things, but accept that the best possible is sometimes far from what you consider perfect. But it’s the best it can be.

5. Start exchanging competition with others for competition with yourself

Being inspired by other people can propel you forward, but wanting to be better than others ends up pushing you away from them, in addition, each person has their own baggage of life, so that even if they make the same effort, the result may be different (and usually is). So, instead of comparing yourself to other people, compare yourself to an old version of you, and always be better than you once were.

6. Start being truly you

When it comes to being inspired by other people, you have to be very careful. Inspiration should serve for you to seek the best in the other to help you improve; you should never try to become someone else, no matter how wonderful the person you look up to is. You are you, and you also have a lot of amazing things to offer. Be the best you can be, but be completely you.

7. Start analyzing yourself

Be honest with yourself about both what is good and what needs to be changed. This kind of self-analysis helps you realize what kind of behavior or behavior change you need to invest in, what you want to achieve, and what kind of person you want to be. Ask yourself: what works in my behavior? And what does not work?

Self-analysis also helps to better understand what kind of message you convey, with your words, your expressions, your way of acting, making you, consequently, understand a little bit of the reasons that lead other people to treat you the way they treat you. — warmly, coldly, with greater or lesser respect, etc. Knowing who you are and what you appear to be is much easier to make these two things go together, so that people perceive you as you really are.

8. Start facing your problems

Nobody knows more about your problems than you do. Likewise, no one is better suited to deal with and resolve them. When a problem afflicts someone, the first action is usually to run away from it or try to push it to someone else to solve it. But that’s your problem, and he won’t get out of there until you face him and send him away. But remember, you don’t have to get rid of it overnight: every small effort towards solving a problem counts and, in the end, when you least imagine it, the problem that bothered you so much will no longer exist!

9. Start to believe in your potential

If your mind thinks it can do something, it will do it much more easily. This is why faith is said to remove mountains: believing makes you move from desire to action, and action makes you achieve what you desire. If you believe you are capable, you will work much harder to be capable, and you will end up solving problems that, if you thought negatively, you would never be able to. And it’s not that believing you’re capable makes you control everything that happens to you, but that security makes you react more positively to situations, having better results, even in crisis situations.

10. Start being tolerant of yourself and learning from your mistakes

As just believing in yourself is not enough, things will not always go as planned, and you will not always gather all the knowledge and means to make plans come true. When that happens, don’t blame yourself too much. Have the same tolerance for yourself that you have for a child or a friend who has made a mistake. This tolerance will help much more in a new endeavor than self-harm for not getting things right the first time. If it didn’t work out, gather ways to increase the chances of success next time.

In addition, it is essential that the mistakes themselves serve as resources: they serve as a precious lesson on what not to do, if you know how to take advantage of them in the right way. Remember that every child, when he is learning to walk or talk, fails, makes mistakes, and it is these same mistakes that make him succeed. Love your mistakes, they are part of the path to your success.

11. Start living in the present

Planning is a very important thing, both in professional and personal life. But after the plans are ready, it is necessary to leave the future in its place and focus on the present. The path you will take to reach the future can have many obstacles and, if you only look at the horizon, it is possible that you will stumble many times and end up not even getting there. So, appreciate and enjoy the walk, the present moment. By the time you get where you want to be, you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy it. Focus on enjoying the moment you live now.

12. Start using social media for good

If people thought of social media as a big meeting room, they probably wouldn’t do many of the things they do. The impression of the internet’s unreality makes one not realize how serious and real what happens there is. Analyze what you do on the network. Would you do the same on a date with friends, talk about the same subjects, share the same information? Avoid complaining and attacking other people. Always remember that, no matter how few contacts you have, on the internet you become an opinion maker, and this must be done responsibly. Think that every post and share you make can help change the world in some different direction, which direction would you like the world to go?

13. Start being optimistic

Being optimistic is not being a dreamer. Being optimistic is believing that your performance in the present can bring you good things in the future. If you don’t believe that your present can bear some good fruit in the future, you are pessimistic, and this attitude ends up preventing you from flying higher and higher.

But if you are a pessimist, don’t despair: optimism is something you learn with practice and a lot of dedication. When things are tough, stop, breathe, and try to find some light that can guide you, some possible positive future consequence for what is happening right now. Over time, optimism will become a habit, which will help you adjust your emotional compass and tell you what the next step is.

14. Start reviewing your beliefs

Don’t worry, changing your beliefs has nothing to do with your religion. Changing your beliefs is about every little truth you’ve always believed in, and that can get in your way in the pursuit of your goals. If you were made to believe that you were incapable of achieving a certain position, job, knowledge, but you want to achieve it, change your belief, go, do it. If you’ve always heard that women can’t have a certain profession, and you’re a woman who wants to have that profession, do as the actress Emma Watson recommended on her Twitter account and… have this profession.

15. Start to value what you have

People always tell each other that “the important thing is the way and not the arrival”, but they don’t always act that way. What you have already achieved is important and should be valued, no matter if there are people who have more than that. If you don’t value what you already have, when you get where you want, that won’t satisfy you either. The habit of wishing for something far away will be so…