Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Easy self-improvement

What's the easiest thing you can do to improve yourself? Take a compliment, and make it twice as true.

What's your favorite compliment of all time, or of the last year? Chances are, your complimentor has identified something that comes easily to you, a natural gift of yours that was appreciated. It may be more valuable to improve something that you're already pretty good at than try to rebuild yourself in something that is difficult.

Let's say it's some mode of communication, maybe written communication. Where else can you use this skill? How could you be even better at it? What is it that makes you good, exactly?

These kinds of questions, when asked about something you're already doing well have a much lower "effort." If you've picked an area you're good at, that you're excited about, you may find that they return energy to your day instead of subtract it.