You’ve written down a few answers about why you might want to improve. That’s a great start! As with everything we may revisit them. You may find that you can expand or change that list.
There are lots of reasons you might have come up with about why you want to improve. Remember that I asked about intrinsic reasons, things that have value to you for their own sake. This is just my very short brainstorm list for your consideration; some of these may resonate with you, and others may not.
- make a bigger contribution to a person, group, or cause (a cause can be just about anything – some purpose that has meaning to you and others)
- have better relationships romantically and with family, friends, co-workers, community members (by community I mean any group of people that you interact with)
- feel proud, content, satisfied, or happy (in my mind I bundle a lot of things behind these but you might split them out)
- feel healthier (here too, there are a lot of sub-items)
Exercise
Take at least 5 minutes to review and revise your Why list. It’s important to get clear about this. If you don’t know your core reasons for improving, it will be hard to keep motivated to do the work.
Next, spend at least another 5-10 minutes to write down a list of What? What areas of your life do you want to pursue improvement in? In this exercise, there are a couple of approaches. I encourage you to pursue both. One would look into what contributes to your Why? list. Perhaps you listed feeling happier. What would contribute to making you happy? The second would be about life goals. If you were to look back on your life from old age what would you be most proud of?
You might feel an overlap perhaps between “Why you want to improve” and “What do you want to improve”. I think it’s important to be aware of the difference but not to be strict about it. The idea is to think about those things that give you satisfaction, value, meaning, for their own sake, and then what areas contribute toward them, and to make sure both areas are covered.
About Learning
Were you disappointed that I didn’t provide a long list and tell you what the right answer is? There might be right kinds of answers, answers that meet the intent of the question, but the right answers are your own. I will encourage you to consider things you might not have thought about, but it’s up to you, on an ongoing basis, to think, decide, and revise your answers.