New Year, new you! But does it have to be a “new you”? How about the “old you”? Why should you feel the pressure of inventing a completely new self each year in January just to revert back to your old habits by March?

But what if you just improved your “old self”? You certainly should not lose your sense of self by forgetting who you are, mistakes and all.  

It is a wonderful ambition to have a goal and a new beginning for self-improvement, yet, you don’t actually need to start from scratch to be better. In fact, you can use what you already know as a guide for the future. Often times, it is easy to be discouraged because we focus on our failures rather than learning from our mistakes to create new insight on how we can improve. By implementing the experiences and the progress you have made you can achieve your goal for improvement. 

As the great legend, John Wooden states, individuals must not “let what [they] cannot do interfere with what [they] can do”. Though it may seem impossible to have doubt in our own capabilities, self-doubt simply prevents us from taking action to engage in what is possible to achieve.    

Let’s say you have an objective to remove stress from your life, in order to improve your lifestyle try to include goals that involve activities that you enjoy. For example, Mother Teresa states that our actions are not solely based on success but “how much love you put into” your actions. So, whenever you feel self-doubt remember to have faith and passion in every aspect of your potentials. And Let it Shine!