Apply these three self-improvement ideas to transform your life in just six months. 

It’s easy for personal development addicts like me to get stuck in the learning and consuming phases and not implement what is learned.

We read numerous books, listen to podcasts, take online courses, and attend webinars, but rarely use the information we gather.

As a result, we have a mind filled with data and ideas but rarely achieve real transformation.

However, there are three practices that I’ve adopted for the past three years that have led to tangible life improvements. They are simple, practical, and fun, and they’ve made my life far more colorful.

Today, I’m going to share these three self-improvement practices with you.

Self-Improvement Hack #1: Monthly Experiments

The first practice I’ve used to “upgrade” my life and make it more interesting is monthly experiments.

By “experiments,” I mean trying and exploring new things.

I started doing monthly experiments about three years ago. At that time, I felt a bit bored and wanted to find ways to make my life more enjoyable without having to travel somewhere or do anything complicated.

I decided to make a list of simple and accessible things I was curious to explore and then committed to doing one of them per month.

So far, I’ve tried a cacao ceremony, the Wim Hof Method, ecstatic dance, Joe Dispenza’s meditations, cross-country skiing, Theta Healing, sound bath, card reading by a medium, and many other things. This month, I’m trying Deepak Chopra’s 21 Days of Abundance Meditation challenge, and I think next month I’ll try Quantum Healing Hypnosis.

As you can see, these are not monumental activities, but simple things I’m curious to try and that pull me out of my routine.

And that’s the purpose of monthly experiments: getting out of our routine.

It’s easy to get comfortable in our day-to-day lives, stick to the activities we are used to, and hang out only with the people we already know well.

But when life is always the same and nothing out of the ordinary happens, time passes much more rapidly and life is sort of bland.

At least, that’s how I feel. The moments in my life I remember most are those that stand out. Since I do monthly experiments, when I look back at the previous year, I feel like I “did something” that year and that I made it interesting.

You can simply make a list of at least twelve experiments – twelve things you are curious to try and explore and that aren’t too complicated – and do one per month. That’s it!

Self-Improvement Hack #2: Learning Themes

The second practice to upgrade your life and make it more interesting is to use learning themes for self-improvement.

It’s an idea I learned from a YouTuber, Antonia and the Universe. Every year, she picks a theme that she then explores in-depth. For example, one year, she learned about nutrition; another year, she learned about yoga; and another year, she focused on productivity.

She recommends picking a theme that is both useful and can improve the quality of our lives.

I love this idea because it goes beyond reading books or taking courses; it implies implementing what we learn as we learn it.

If your yearly theme is nutrition, you won’t just spend the year reading books and listening to podcasts about healthy eating; you’ll also try recipes and are likely to change the way you eat.

I don’t know about you, but I’m the type of person who loves learning but tends to remain at the superficial layer of a topic. I may read a book about productivity and then just move on to the next shiny topic of the week. As a result, I don’t know anything in-depth.

Antonia’s method forces us to focus on one thing and go deep with our learning.

Self-Improvement Hack #3: Monthly Challenges (2 Types)

One of my most favorite ways to improve my life is to do challenges. There are two types of challenges you can do:

Type 1: Those that help you develop self-discipline, build good habits, or break bad ones. (This is usually the case with 30-day challenges.

Type 2: And challenges that push you out of your comfort zone and help you overcome your fears.

Both types are challenging for different reasons, and I like to do one of each per month.

With challenges to build self-discipline or good habits, you can make a list of things you want to change in your life and commit to changing one of them for at least thirty days (a 30-day challenge).

For example, this year, I’m focusing on health and wellness challenges. I made a list of healthy habits I want to build and unhealthy habits I wish to break, then made each of these a challenge for me to tackle. So far, I’ve done three water fasts (those were between four and seven days, not 30-day challenges), a 30-day yoga challenge, 30 days without sugar, and 30 days of intermittent fasting.

I have written an article about the power of 30-day challenges for personal transformation and one with tips to succeed when doing a challenge, in case you are interested.

As for challenges to stretch out of our comfort zones, these are a bit more difficult to do, at least in my experience.

Overcoming a fear or even just getting uncomfortable is hard. Who enjoys taking a cold shower upon waking up?

A good way to do that kind of challenge is to do it along with someone else and make it a game. The two of you could write challenges on pieces of paper, put the pieces of paper in a container, and pick a different one every month. Those challenges could be:

•         Donating blood.
•         Going to a busy bar by yourself on a Saturday night.
•         Asking someone for their phone number.
•         Walking on a university campus while wearing a ridiculous outfit.
•         Speaking at a Toast Masters event.

You could also make a list of things that scare you and commit to doing one of those activities or overcoming one of those fears each month, starting with the least scary and moving on to the next item on your list.

That kind of challenge is great to build courage and self-confidence, two essential qualities to develop if we want to reach our full potential.

When our comfort zone is narrow and we lack confidence, we rarely dare to pursue big goals and go after our wildest dreams, which is honestly a bit sad.

If you lack ideas for your challenges, there’s also a good book, titled Rejection Proof, about using challenges to get out of our comfort zones and overcome our fear of rejection. You will surely find some original ideas for challenges within those pages.

Which of These Self-Improvement Hacks Are You More Likely to Try? 

These three practices have made my life more exciting and helped me to grow. I hope you’ll give them a try!

And if you’re into healthy and wellness, you can find ideas for health and wellness challenges in this post.

Have a beautiful week!

Emilie ♡