Self Improvement Tips

What are Self Improvement Quick Tips?

Self Improvement Tips (or Quick Tips) are simple thoughts, ideas, exercises, suggestions, phrases you can say, or other actions that support empowering approaches to personal development.

I will explain it quickly; you can use it quickly. I like to keep it supremely simple. Each Quick Tip needs to be practiced repeatedly to be effective. So instead of thinking of this as a "quick fix," think of it more as tip you can practice quickly.

Many of these Self Improvement Tips are similar to or supportive of the Personal Development Techniques, but I've created this separate section so that you can refer to the Quick Tips when you have just a few minutes.

While I devote one page to each of these Self Improvement Tips, I've presented the Quick Tip right at the beginning, so that you'll easily understand it, know if it appeals to you, and know how to apply it. Most Quick Tips will become more meaningful if you practice regularly and if your choice is part of a broader plan for your personal development.

While each Quick Tip is something you can read in little time, you are most welcome to linger and explore a variety of ideas and quick tips, as well as other parts of this Empowering Personal Development Web Site. I provide you with more information than just the Quick Tip itself so that you can journey on another path or play in another way.

The additional information will vary. For example, I might link you to related Articles, Personal Development Techniques, resources at other web sites, or provide audio or video clips. I'll choose information that I think encourages you to practice each Quick Tip more effectively or to help you to move to another technique or process that will be even more effective for you.

You may find that one of the Self Development Tips appeals to you for just a limited period of time. Be certain to vary it or find another so that you don't make yourself immune to the empowering impact of the Tip.

Quick Tip

• Activate Your Inner Smile
• Building Trust: A Quick Tip for Regular Practice
• Easy Meditation for a Quick Tune-up
• Empower Yourself with a Positive Question
• Personal Transformation: One Step at a Time

More Quick Tips Coming Soon

Here are some Quick Tips we have planned, ready to publish soon:

• The 60-second Relaxation
• A Morning Affirmation
• A Morning Grounding Exercise

Do You Want a Quick Tip on a Situation You're Facing?

I would love to hear from you with requests or suggestions for a Quick Tip. Please feel free to contact me.

Keep in mind, if this is a really, really big problem, you might need more than a Quick Tip to resolve it. Even a Quick Tip that you use repeatedly, intentionally, and effectively may not be enough. Instead, you may need a Personal Development Technique or Process that you use over a period of time, several different strategies, or some personal consulting or coaching. 

Activate Your Inner Smile

A Self Improvement Quick Tip

Your inner smile is between you and yourself. This is a two-minute practice — a Quick Tip — that you can do standing up, sitting down, or lying down. I encourage you to spend at least two minutes to fully embrace the experience. If you practice this regularly, you can activate your inner smile in seconds when you need to embody the essence of peace and joy.

Sitting on an airplane, waiting in a shopping line, or readying yourself for a meditation are perfect opportunities to practice this exercise. If you're really feeling good, keep the good feeling activated for as many minutes as you can beyond the suggested two minutes.

The Inner Smile Process

• Be still, with eyes open or closed.
• Honour where you are.
• Start the smile wherever it begins most naturally.
• Feel the energy move all through your body, radiating outward, downward, upward, inward.
• As you activate your smile, let it have its own life.
• Become the smile. Feel the good feeling.
• Let your organs and cells open. Notice how one smile bounces off another.
• Rest gently in your inner smile for as long as you want.
• Move out into the world, smiling from the inside, radiating your essence.

More of the Story

I place a high value on smiling to and with other people, but that story is different from the one I'm telling here. This Quick Tip is about finding, feeling, and opening to your own inner smile. It's the smile you feel and express when no one else is around because you feel self-love and joy.

The starting place for your feeling is wherever you are: happy, sad, tired, angry, numb, playful, frowning, peaceful. Perhaps your face is in neutral or your heart feels empty or a little heavy. Start wherever you are. Honour your launching pad. The smile itself may start anywhere; for example, at your mouth where you likely think of a smile, in your heart as a feeling, or in your head as a thought.

If you're sad and don't want to smile, you need to honour your feelings. If you're sad and want to smile, you may need to start slowly. By starting slowly you can begin to feel your smile activating and growing.

This is not a "fake it 'till you make it" exercise, it's an exercise of feeling yourself into the joy of the smile inside you. If, however, you must "fake" a smile to begin the activation, I wholeheartedly encourage you to do that. In other words, begin in your head with the intention or thought that you want to begin it, or even that you want to want to smile. If you have trouble getting started, you may need a bridge to your intention.

I have intentionally kept this process general so that you'll embody it in the way that's most meaningful for you. If you like the exercise, I hope you'll become interested in your own inner smiling process and refine it in a way that works even better for you. You may find that you most benefit from approaching your smile activation in essentially the same way each time. On the other hand, you may find that your curiosity prompts you to experiment in different ways. Find your way.

When you have fully activated your inner smile, you'll feel it in every cell of your body. This is not a grin on your face, but a feeling that emanates from your heart, radiating through your cellular structure. It glows from within, dissolving sadness and stimulating kindness. It keeps you youthful and curious about life.

In my own personal development consulting practice, I activate my inner smile before each client session. Always, when I pick up the phone for a client, I have a vibrant and happy expression on my face which my words travel through. I also start every day with a smile. I wake up smiling.

The quintessential inner smile is the presence of a happy baby, unencumbered by the worries and other thoughts of adulthood. Pure joy. No need to explain, justify, or hide. It's the energy that you feel when you see the spontaneous wagging tail of a puppy that can barely stand or hear the melody of a purring kitten. Little children and animals know this joy without needing to practice an exercise. They are our best teachers because they teach us self-love.

If you practice this exercise regularly in the way that suits you the best, you'll find that you are calmer and more peaceful. Over time, you'll feel the youthfulness and vigour that keeps you healthy. This exercise can also help you to create or maintain your calmness even when chaos is all around you.

 Building Trust

A Self Improvement Quick Tip

Building trust happens in blocks of time that can be measured in seconds or minutes, but the results can impact you for years. I've placed this process in the "Quick Tips" section because you can practice the recommended technique very quickly. The key, though, is to practice the technique often if you expect to enhance your personal development. If you practice it a hundred times each day, you'll more likely find that it becomes second nature. So, instead of expecting "quick results," you'll find it more helpful to think of "quick steps" or "quick practices."

The approach is basically the same whether you want to be building trust where it doesn't yet exist (for example, in a new relationship), re-building trust where it's broken (for example, trust was present and then an event or condition reversed it), enhancing the trust in a satisfying relationship, or fine-tuning your self-trust.

The idea is: start where it's easiest, become familiar with the feeling of trust, and carry that feeling to the area you want to experience or build trust. Here is each step with just a little more information.

The Building Trust Process

Start Where It's Easiest

If you experience deep satisfaction with one aspect of your work, feel what it's like to trust there. If a walk in the woods evokes ecstasy or freedom, experience being "in the flow" of trust there. If you feel total trust when you're with your partner, use that as your barometer for feeling trust. Let this be your home base for trust, whether you're physically in the situation that is easiest or you're visiting it in your imagination.

Become Familiar with the Feeling of Trust

In the situation you've identified as easy to feel trust, become really familiar with the feeling. Give it a name or imagine a colour or hear a sound or draw a picture. Use whatever helps you to feel the feeling of trust and know that you are feeling trust. You may find it helpful to approach this in the way I explain in describing your Empowerment Stance.

Carry that Feeling to the Situation Where you Want to Build Trust

When you've soaked yourself in the good feelings of trust, let those feelings emanating from you, and then turn your attention to the subject where you are adding, changing, or building trust. If this is a situation where you're learning to trust again, you may find it more challenging than a situation that is new and fresh with no history.

If you drop the feelings of trust, relax and try again later. It's important to be gentle with yourself. It's better to spend just a little time doing this often than to spend too long at one time. It's important to think of building trust as an ongoing, continuous process rather than an occasional event.

More of the Story

While I've said that the process is essentially the same in any situation you have a desire for building trust, clearly a situation in which broken trust exists requires special attention. Give it time. Give it space. Give it love. Give it more. As it feels safe, give it a little more of trust of the quality that you feel in that easy situation.

I talk with many people who understand intellectually and speak articulately about the idea of "trusting the Universe" and "trusting the moment." Understanding intellectually and speaking articulately are worthy starting places, especially if you find that language helps you to integrate your thoughts and be in touch with your feelings. However, you can feel challenged when the circumstances are close and personal.

The essence of trust is very fluid. When you're trusting, you are in the flow. When you're building trust, you may find that the fluidity is intermittent. Trust can wash away old memories of distrust and mistrust and non-trust. "Trust" and "truth" are often associated with each other. Trust is aligned with Truth from a higher source; that is, trust is pure, not manipulative.

So often when I hear people speak about trust, the context is about trusting (or not trusting) someone else. Sometimes this is useful. However, I think it’s more useful to consider the extent to which you trust yourself. When you trust yourself, you know when to trust others. This is not a game of semantics, but the core issue of Trust. It’s a feeling in you, a communication from your inner self.

As you're in the process of building trust, remember to trust the process.

DailyAffirm Explores Trust Each May

During the month of May, we explore the theme of Trust on DailyAffirm for Personal Development with five different types of affirmations and practice exercises. A new message is posted each day. The essence of the DailyAffirm Process is to proceed through the month with a series of different types of concepts, affirmations, and exercises to explore the theme. In order to fully embrace trust, it is helpful to acknowledge that the lack or opposite of trust also exists. The key is to differentiate and choose.

Incidentally, DailyAffirm has been available to the internet community since 1994 as a transformational personal development process. Additional information is available on the top tabs and sidebar at DailyAffirm. If you visit in any month other than May, you can find entire process online by click the May archives.

Establishing an Over-Arching Intention for Trust

Before beginning the process, it's helpful to identify an intention for Trust. In fact, I like to call it an over-arching intention. That is, a statement that guides you in the exploration and embodiment of trust throughout the month in essentially any situation. You may find it helpful to decide which aspect of trust you particularly want to focus on, for example, building trust with a specific person, enhancing trust with yourself, or learning to trust again in a relationship that's important to you.

Find more about intention as an article at this web site. If you're uncertain how to write this intention, just make an attempt. Keep it simple. Here are a few suggestions for statements of intention about the theme of Trust (note the simplicity of the words and the depth of the ideas):

• To experience the world as a trusting place.
• To resonate with the consciousness of trust.
• I am trust, trusting, and trustworthy.
• To trust myself.
• To be a consciousness so that trust can thrive.

Releasing/Cleansing Affirmations for Trust

The purpose of Releasing and/or Cleansing Affirmations is to let go of unwanted and unneeded stuff. This month these affirmations support you in clearing away non-trust and releasing resistance and contradictions to trust.

Old, outdated vows may be the most potent source of non-trust issues in your life. To experience this release, you might request that an angel support you in keeping your path clear of non-trust by dissolving toxicity, erasing negative images, and cutting bonds of attachment to non-truth and despair. Can you give yourself permission to let the angel of trust support you?

Receiving/Accepting Affirmations for Trust

The purpose of Receiving and/or Accepting Affirmations is to open to allow something to be or to become. Open to receive and accept trust into your life.

As you open to receiving and accepting this week, consider what you need to make the process of building trust easier. Is anything lacking in your life that you need to open to? What are you ready to accept into your life? If by accepting something or someone into your experiences you must release something, then return to one or more of the affirmations for May 1-7 and release, release, release to make space to receive, receive, receive.

Being/Intending Affirmations for Trust

The purpose of Being and/or Intending Affirmations is to ground your purpose, especially your higher purpose. To be and to intend are different, yet interrelated. Trust opens you to more trust.

As a successful person, you most likely use many methods to enhance your productivity and/or efficiency. A popular and valuable tool is the "to-do" list — you probably have one or even several! This week as you write your "to-do" list, be certain to also prepare a "to-be" list with such items as:

       . Remember to trust

• Trust myself
• Remember who I am
• Trust my magnificence

Acting/Claiming Affirmations for Trust

The purpose of Acting and/or Claiming Affirmations is to bring something into manifestation or to direct the energy of your intention to a desired manifestation. Allow all your actions to be associated with trust. Then, move through the week energized by the movement of non-trust to trust, distrust to trust, broken trust to trust, and so on.

Your power is in your attention. Give your attention to trust. Align with your intention. Ponder the power of One. Feel the energy of inspiration. Act.

Integrating/Embodying Affirmations for Trust

The purpose of Integrating and/or Embodying Affirmations is to allow the energy and meaning of the affirmations to merge with your consciousness. It is important to understand that it is a continuous process to allow trust to integrate into various aspects of your life. Do it, and then do it again and again and again.

To embody the ideas of trust that you touched on through the month, review the previous four weekly exercises and identify any significant learning that stands out for you. Collect insights to remind you later in times of trust and non-trust.

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 Easy Meditation for a Quick Tune-up

A Self Improvement Quick Tip

This easy meditation is simple and brief, which is why I've placed it in the Quick Tips Section. I recorded it as a guided visualization meditation that helps you to recharge yourself in the middle of the day, in under four minutes. Use this brief guided meditation to refresh yourself any time you need a tune-up during the day.

You can listen right at your computer by pressing the play (arrow) button or you can download to save the mp3 for your iPod or other mp3 player by clicking the appropriate link. Let it calm you down or lift you up -- whatever you need for your empowering personal development.

More of the Story

I've been leading clients in relaxation and meditation techniques for over 25 years as one of the most powerful of all the personal development strategies. That was unusual at that time, but these days, many people offer such guided experiences and tips on meditation. It's so much easier now for beginners to learn to meditate. With the advance of technology, high-quality recordings of guided visualization are easy and plentiful.

I've often recorded brief and easy meditations on voice mailbox systems for my clients. One client told me about a stressful business trip that left her frazzled by the time she arrived at her hotel room. Before unpacking, she reached for the telephone to call for her messages, and she then listened two times to the three minute meditation I had recorded for her!

Meditation really is an easy process. This brief guided visualization can be an easy introduction to meditation. Sometimes people talk themselves right out of meditation, so if you really want to meditate, pay attention to your self talk and other conversations. In addition, if you wish to pursue a meditation practice, you may enjoy reading one of my ebooks, Practice Meditation Now with three of my longer guided mediations.

Empower Yourself with a Positive Question

A Quick Tip for Self Improvement

Some things you do or say empower yourself. And some things disempower you. When you find yourself in a challenging situation, it's helpful to have a powerful plan of action. Rather than a script or a rule that limits you, I suggest you ask yourself a question that guides you.

The challenging situation might be isolated or recurring, with those you've just met or known a long time. Rather than analyzing the situation or trying to persuade others about something, if you ask yourself the following question, you can empower yourself:

"What is the most empowering thing I can say or do right now?"

More of the Story

Of all the empowering questions I use and suggest others use, this is among my favourites. It's a "pause and reflect" question. I find that many times when I ask it, I don't have a conscious thought of the answer, but I'm propelled into an action or a statement. I know what to say or do. What follows is empowering — for others and myself.

Whether you're in a mess or feeling great, this is a powerful question to use to guide yourself and enhance your own personal development. It's certainly worthy of being a basic operating question or a default question — one that springs forward in your awareness when you most need it. In other words, the best time to ask it is when you really don't know what to do or say.

Many people operate their lives with disempowering questions. Disempowering questions -- whether you ask them out loud or to yourself -- invite disempowering answers. Empowering questions invite empowering answers.

My premise is that you're always asking questions, always. So you, and only you, get to decide the quality, depth, and consciousness of your questions. If you select a question that helps you to empower yourself, you manage your journey in a more satisfying way.

"What is the most empowering thing I can say or do right now?" is a favourite question for me because it's an empowering question that helps to evoke your higher consciousness and it's designed to surface empowering words and actions. In addition, it keeps you in the present moment when everything takes place.

The question alone lifts your consciousness. It lightens your load. It opens you to possibilities that might not otherwise be obvious. It gently guides you in your personal growth.

So, I ask you, What is the most empowering thing you can say or do right now?

Personal Transformation: One Step at a Time

A Quick Tip for Self Improvement

Transformation is an integral part of life.

For this Quick Tip, I'm suggesting that you make a choice to notice one subject that you want to change as you're walking or running or skipping. The idea is to make each step count as a step toward what you want to transform.

So, identify the subject, find empowering words for personal change, and take a step. Examples below.

More of the Story

The most powerful personal development changes take place incrementally. Many people seek and applaud quantum leaps. Usually the "quantum" leaps are defining moments or distinguishable markers, but the incremental changes before the marker are what make you ready to benefit from the more dramatic situations. If the incremental changes have not taken place before the "quantum" leap, they will occur afterwards in order to integrate and benefit fully from the transformation.

The incremental changes are not nearly as noticeable as the dramatic events, but you are far more likely to embody the changes. So, while you might like to leap from a bad habit to a good habit, you can only change the habit by taking the steps.

Physical Strengthening Example

Recently I twisted my knee. It really wasn't a big deal, but I've had a knee injury in the past, so I didn't want to re-activate that. So I walked, and with each step I thought, "my knee is getting stronger." Sometimes I varied the words to follow the rhythm of my walk or to insert other ideas, like "my knee is getting more flexible," or just "stronger knee."

The positive transformation was already taking place, though it was much more subtle than if I had broken a bone. The idea was to use each step to strengthen my knee. By using the comparative (more flexible, stronger, more vibrant), I empowered the knee to make a change in the direction I wanted.

It took only a few steps for me to make a positive connection with my knee, knowing that I was not colluding with the twisting. No problem materialized.

Mental Clarity Example

A physical situation, especially a body part involved in taking steps, is an obvious way to use this Quick Tip. Here's a different type of illustration. I was frustrated with some software (sound familiar?) and the more I stayed with it, the more frustrated I felt. So I took a little walk, saying, "With each step, I feel calmer." And for some of the steps I used "clearer."

I could have said, "I let go of frustration." However, that would have put the emphasis on what I don't want. If I had needed to, I would have taken a few steps to let go of frustration. However, I wanted the emphasis to be on stepping TOWARD what I want rather than AWAY FROM (or toward!) what I didn't want.

Mindfulness

All transformation takes place in the mind. The more aware you are of your thoughts and how you feel when you give your attention to a subject, the more you can change in the direction you want to change. Awareness of a dynamic expands the dynamic.

I want to acknowledge that some people suggest a mindfulness exercise similar to this one that can help you to be more present to your activity and your environment. It helps you to be more mindful, more aware. That's a worthy exercise, also, and one I suggest from time to time, but is a little different from this Quick Tip about personal transformation, one step at a time.

OK Anytime; Not Necessarily All the Time

I'm really not advocating that you do this ALL the time. Rather, I'm suggesting that you pick a topic that's meaningful to you and make your physical movement be parallel to the movement you want to make on the topic. This practice helps you to integrate what you want, one step at a time. There's no need to be obsessive, just intentional. You might do a walk around your home or office or stroll from your front door to the corner. Keep it simple.

So, improve one part of your life, one step at a time.

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Ross Galán, NLP Spiritual Life Coach
Spiritual Life Coaching School