To become the best version of yourself, you need to do what most people are not willing to do.

You need to take action.

How many people think about becoming the best version of themselves in the coming year? A lot.

How many people devise a plan to become the best version of themselves in the coming year? A few.

But very few take action to become the best version of themselves. You need to become part of that small minority who takes action. If you do, then you can turn your dreams into reality.

Don’t get overwhelmed by convincing yourself that you need to be outstanding all year long. The thought of keeping that going for 52 weeks stops people in their tracks before they get started.

How do you become the best version of yourself?

To become the best version of yourself, you don’t need to make each day of the year ‘the greatest day of your life’.

You probably need 14 to 21 outstanding days plus a couple of hundred better than average days.

Yes, we will get our handful of bad days, and the rest can be totally average, and we can still become the best version of ourselves.

Get outside your comfort zone

If you are comfortable but want to be the best version of you, then you need to get outside your comfort zone. That is where change and growth happens at a faster pace.

Stepping outside your comfort zone isn’t easy so here are a few ways you can aid yourself to step outside of your comfort zone.

“Be willing to step outside your comfort zone once in a while; take the risks in life that seem worth taking. The ride might not be as predictable if you’d just planted your feet and stayed put, but it will be a heck of a lot more interesting.” – Edward Whitacre, Jr.

Fear exists to increase our awareness of the consequences not to stop us dead in our tracks. If fear was not a factor, what are some of the things you would want to achieve?

Ideally, it should make you feel uncomfortable just thinking about acting on these things. You are experiencing the fear associated with getting outside your comfort zone. And that is perfect!

Identify An Action

Take a good look at your list and for each item identify an action that you can do every day to bring you closer to achieving it.

For me, I prefer to pick just one item and work on it and practice it until I move it within my comfort zone. I will give you an example shortly. Then I move onto the next item.

For example, I used to experience dread at the thought of speaking in public. You get butterflies in your stomach when you are excited about something. My butterflies transformed into knots.

So I took a public speaking course and then I took every opportunity that I could to speak in front of people.

Whether it was a group of 8 or an auditorium of 1400 people I was there, getting outside my comfort zone.

Creating opportunities to learn

Now I am comfortable speaking in front of others without the stomach knots I used to have. In fact, I then started to coach others how to speak in public.

Remember, I said I took every opportunity to speak in front of people that I could? The universe presents opportunities to us to help guide us in our journey.

“I want to challenge you today to get out of your comfort zone. You have so much incredible potential on the inside. God has put gifts and talents in you that you probably don’t know anything about.” – Joel Osteen

Saying ‘No’ to opportunities that feel scary keeps you trapped within your comfort zone. When presented with an opportunity, say ‘YES’ and embrace the learning experience that will help you grow.

Opportunities will present themselves for you to strengthen your weaknesses and build your strengths. And you can even create more opportunities for yourself.

Cliche

Remember, if you put your mind to it you can do pretty much anything.

It is an overused cliche, and we all know that at 52 I will not become a supermodel even if I fully commit to it. But pretty much anything is true.

It is a matter of perspective. Taking action when faced with a fearful situation demonstrates to you that it really isn’t that scary.

Your fear dissipates, and there is another obstacle you pushed through. And then you move to the next item on your list.

Take it one day at a time

Start each day with the intention to be better than average. You will be amazed at the shifts that occur in your life when you continually do better than average work.

Or show better than average gratefulness, or focus, or happiness.

“Where I am today… I still have my ups and downs, but I take it one day at a time and I just hope that I can be the best that I can possibly be, not only for myself, but also young people that are out there today that need someone to look up to.” – Demi Lovato

Set daily goals

Each and every day set goals and then work your butt off to achieve them. If you reach the majority of them, you will do just fine.

Related Post: Easy Ways To Make A Big Change In Your Life 

Remember you are aiming for a couple of hundred better than average days. And setting daily goals puts you ahead of the masses because they don’t set goals at all.

You can procrastinate

Surprise! You can procrastinate some stuff. As long as you face 80% of the situations that make you uncomfortable or afraid, head-on instead of procrastinating and talking yourself out of it.

“I try to procrastinate, if I can, productively, like I’ll work on something else as procrastination. Or I take a walk. Because often I find, if you get out, more things come to you.” – Noah Baumbach

That means to become the best version of yourself, you can procrastinate 20% of the time. Try not to procrastinate more than that though! If you struggle with procrastination you can find help here.

Go easy on yourself

In the process of self-improvement, you are going to experience failure. You may even experience many failures.

That’s fine. It is part of the process of self-improvement. The last thing you need is a critical voice in your head that makes you feel inadequate and terrible.

Go easy on yourself and instead install a nurturing parent in your head that accepts you for who you are and wants you to behave in accordance with your best self.

Play more

Are your most joyous moments when you are sitting behind your computer at 1:00 AM trying to finish something you didn’t enjoy doing in the first place?

Most of us wouldn’t be happy if at the end of our lives we looked back on our time and realised all we did was work ourselves to the bone.

Life seems to flow more effortlessly when we are less uptight, and we approach things with a strong sense of humour. Today’s world is an extremely competitive environment.

That may be a reason you are seeking to improve yourself, we all want to “measure up” in one way or the other.

“Just play. Have fun. Enjoy the game.” – Michael Jordan

An essential aspect of a happy life is maintaining a balance. I think you will find the more you play, the more you realise you already have everything that you need to be happy.

Put others first

One example that is particularly relevant to me is calling my Mum more often. Other suggestions include complimenting people more often, volunteering on weekends, help your niece or cousin with their homework, etc.

By nature or nurture, I lean towards being a competitive person. This can come across as cold.

Consideration

As soon as I started showing greater consideration and appreciation for others, I realised how much I was missing and how much better life could be.

There is no way you can become the best version of yourself in the next year without recognising that you are a social animal. A person that finds fulfilment in helping others.

There you have it. Seven tips to become the best version of yourself in 2018. If this is your aim then just take action.