Everyone is constantly striving towards their own life goals, and trying to keep balance in their lives while doing-so. Everything you do in life should be involved with “bettering yourself.” Sometimes, we get off-track in life and our day-to-day goals become more of struggle to stay afloat and just survive. Therapy, is a way to keep your eyes on your life goals and keep bettering yourself, through the good times an the bad times.
Tips for Bettering Yourself and Becoming a Better Person
First thing that is needed to better yourself, is “the will” to be a better person. You have to want to be a better person and you have to be committed to being a better person. Without the true and motivational urge to better yourself, you will have a very hard time doing the “little things” that go into becoming a better person.
How to Find the Motivation to Better Yourself
Finding and holding-onto the urge and desire to better yourself is the most important and firs step in self-improvement. Just like starting a new exercise routine, this first step can be easier-said-than-done. Visualizing the person you want to become can help you to taking the first step. If you want to become more physically fit while bettering yourself, picture yourself as a strong, healthy, happy, future-you. Hold onto that image and remember that as you do the hard work along the way.
Starting a consultation with a therapist that specializes in self-improvement is a great way to get that first spark of motivation given to you — if you can’t find it yourself. Therapists are motivational life coaches that can help break through the barriers that are holding you back from finding your motivation.
Negative thoughts and emotions like shame, embarrassment, hopelessness, and traumatic memories can act like a brick wall that prevent you from getting better mentally and physically. Counselors and therapists are often needed to help break down those walls so that an individual can “Get moving” and find their motivation to change themselves for the better.
How To Think Better Thoughts
Many people have a hard time being a good person because they are constantly thinking negative thoughts. Lots of people naturally think negative thoughts about themselves or other people from time to time, but if these thoughts are persistent, obsessive, recurring, and are harming your overall quality of life, then these negative thoughts are a problem. This problem needs to be taken care of first to make room for positive thoughts throughout the day; positive thoughts about yourself, about others, and about life in general.
The first thing you need to do to get rid of persistent negative thoughts, feelings, and attitudes, is to recognize that they are bad and a problem. They don’t help you, and only hurt you. So why do you hold onto the negatives so tightly? Why is it so important for you to be critical of things instead of just being happy?
Example of Bettering Yourself With (CBT) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
The above observations are a part of (CBT) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: a form of therapy that uses a process to analyze your thoughts and make you ask yourself: Why?
Simply using CBT to train your brain to analyze your thoughts and behaviors can help you to keep the negatives out and focus on only positives. For instance, if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, and are having a negative attitude first thing in the morning, you can either let those negatives grab ahold of you and the rest of the day will be negative; or, you can recognize first thing in the morning that there is a big negative that has latched onto you and wants to ruin the rest of your day, then deflect that negative — concentrating on a positive — and changing your attitude and outcome for the rest of the day.
Working with a CBT Therapist in Arizona can help you to perfect your CBT skills, and use this technique in more advanced ways: like stopping panic attacks, avoiding bad decisions, preventing outbursts of anger/rage, or even quit using addictive substances.
How To Get Over Negative Habits, Behaviors, and Actions
People with negative thoughts and behaviors are NOT bad people. A person is NOT inherently bad, or broken, or hopeless just because they have negative, dark, or bad thoughts and behaviors. This is important to recognize and understand. Treating negative behaviors and actions starts by treating the negative thoughts and emotions that are occurring in a person who is compelled towards bad actions.
CBT and other forms of psychotherapy helps a therapist and an individual suffering from negative thoughts and emotions find the source of these negatives. Together, the therapist and patient then work to remove the negative stimuli from daily life, controlling the triggers for negative thoughts like shame, regret, low self image, etc.
The biggest part of “getting over” the negative thoughts that attack you is to recognize that those thoughts are BAD in themselves — that is where the negative is getting into your life. You need to deflect those thoughts and not let them affect you. The more you deflect those negatives as soon as they start to attack you, the more you will build-up your natural defenses against them. Eventually the brain creates its own defense against negative thoughts — as it recognizes that they are bad and are hurting you.
Getting started on deflecting negative thoughts is always the hardest part — just like starting anything else; but, therapists can help with the “getting started” part until you learn enough self-therapy skills to keep yourself 100% mentally healthy on your own.
How to Stop Being Negative and Mean
There is a serious problem in modern society with many men and women that are simply negative and mean. We don’t mean “ornery,” or stubborn, or abrasive, but people that are “mean” as-in: vindictive, cruel, and selfish to the point of hurting others. This is not okay in any society, and should not be tolerated by others, but we find ourselves in this situation in many countries on Earth in 2024.
Being mean and negative all the time is a mental health issue that requires some mental health therapy in order to reverse. So-called “Karens” or a male or female that stir-up problems, abuse power, argue, or complain to the point that it is a feature of their character or personality. These are people that simply suffering from obsessive negative thoughts and emotions, have not dealt with these mental health issues, and are allowing their mental health issues to turn into negative behaviors and actions.
Once again, the trick to bettering yourself and to stop being negative and mean is to simply recognize the thoughts and emotions that are causing you to WANT to be mean and negative. WHY are you feeling like this? Is it because of some unresolved feelings you have? WHAT first brings on the negative feeling at the root of your urge to be mean or engage in a mean behavior? Many times, there are bad memories, traumatic experiences, and subsequent shameful feelings that are at the root of your negative thoughts, emotions, and the subconscious urge to be mean, start drama, or start arguments.
De-Coupling Positive Chemical Benefits from Negative Behaviors
Why does the brain get you in the habit of starting fights, being mean, being argumentative, and other negative behaviors? If the brain is so smart, why do brains “misfire” and keep some people in constant bad attitudes and thinking negative behaviors? The answer is self-medication.
It is true that the brain does not like negative thoughts and behaviors, and does initially recognize them as bad and as something that is hurting you. If you don’t deal with the negative thoughts and emotions yourself, your brain/body step-in to take-over and deal with the situation. Unfortunately, the decision your brain makes is not a good long-term solution. The brain self medicates you with feel-good chemicals to make you feel better, and may also put up some self defense mechanisms like: making false memories (changing the way you remember a situation to make it less traumatic to you), putting the blame on someone or something else, and telling you that YOU were right all along.
What comes from this terrible way the brain/body dealt with the situation? The person becomes physically addicted to the feel-good chemical release and self-medication. Many start to “self-destruct” at this point — looking for negatives, making bad decisions, wallowing in their own self-pity, and the problem usually gets worse from there. Why are some people constantly mean and negative? Because it actually is making them feel good now. At this point the problem needs to be addressed before the individual increases their bad behaviors into criminal, immoral, or dangerous acts.
Letting Go Of The Thoughts and Emotions That Control Your Life
Being a better person is as simple as putting more focus on the positives in your life, and letting go of the negatives. The negatives are often stronger than the positives though, so everyone can use some extra help and strength to keep the negatives from crowding-out the positivity in your life.
