How to Become Your Best Self - We all have a primal need to become the best version of ourselves, to do well in life.
Consequently, there is no dearth of literature on self-help, fitness, weight loss, life transformation, self-development, better relationships, career growth and the like. Life coaches, authors, motivational speakers everywhere have been making successful careers out of this need for continuous human growth and fulfillment, for many decades.
The very fact that you are reading this indicates that you too would like to grow to perfection. However, no matter how hard we try, we fail to transform. We remain dissatisfied, stuck, and unfulfilled - disappointed at our failures and look for quick fixes to kickstart our dream lives.
Why is this so? This article presents the reasons for the desire to grow and 10 steps towards growing to become your best self.
1. Become Your Best Self - The Need for Growth
The desire for growth exists in all of us. However, our ignorance about the principles of true success that drive the universe, prevents us from achieving the perfection we seek intrinsically.
In his latest book, 7 Divine Laws to Awaken Your Best Self, global spiritual leader, Vedic scholar and bestselling author, Swami Mukundananda addresses the reason for this wide gap between our ideal and actual selves. He also outlines 7 eternal principles governing fundamental life transformation gleaned from the Vedic scriptures.
“Like the laws regulating physical phenomena, there are also spiritual principles governing the journey of life. Knowledge of them helps us understand why success comes so easily to some but remains a struggle for others.” – Swami Mukundananda, 7 Divine Laws to Awaken Your Best Self.
Filled with inspiring anecdotes, and deep wisdom expressed in simple, touching, and humorous language, this book will propel you towards expressing your absolute best in every area of your life. We present you a gist to get you started on your journey. You can also buy the book in US and India.
2. Believe in Your Infinite Potential
So much of our potential goes to waste because of our faulty beliefs about ourselves or about success in general.
Some people are ambitious and grow very quickly in terms of external opulence – money, position, power, fame, prestige. Regardless of what they accomplish they feel empty inside. Others remain chained to their couches, addicted to television, food, alcohol, or other vices, unable to motivate themselves because of their negative self-beliefs and excuses such as: “I am not talented enough”, “So and so is more intelligent than me”, or “Success is not in my destiny”. Ring a bell?
Swami Mukundananda states that the desire for growth is intrinsic to our soul and this sense of discontent will remain until we have reached perfection in every respect. As souls - tiny parts of God, we too have infinite potential like God. God Himself desires us to be perfect!
The Law of Infinite Potential therefore states: All souls have infinite potential for growth, whatever be their present state.
Hence, we must have faith in our own infinite potential to grow because creation wishes us to reach super consciousness. Isn’t that just a shot in the arm?
3. Become Your Best Self - Understand Where True Growth Lies
However just having faith in our ability to grow is not enough. We must also be ambitious for the right goals.
Growth itself can mean different things to different people depending on their goals.
Due to our intellectual fallacies, we have been looking for growth and fulfillment in the wrong direction – we think our material possessions will always remain with us, we view our material body as our true self, and thus think that true bliss lies in the fulfillment of material pleasures.
Famous Hollywood actor and comedian Jim Carrey once said,” I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer”.
This speaks volumes about the fact that true growth does not lie in any external material opulence or fulfilling one’s selfish desires.
But…If external growth is not enough, neither is stagnation appropriate. Those who have no enthusiasm to accomplish goals likely suffer from a lack of meaning and purpose.
Human life is too precious to waste away. To make it meaningful we must have noble goals such as developing a good character, serving God, or making a positive difference to others, instead of temporary material goals that give rise to anger, envy, desire, and greed.
In other words, we must derive motivation, purpose, and inspiration not from worldly goals, but from within – to not just survive in life but to thrive in the pursuit of that which is beneficial for our soul, which is who we really are, not our body.
4. Make the Right Choices to Pursue True Growth
Once we have decided upon the right goals, we must also choose to act upon them consistently for transformation. Success is not a lottery that opens for us one day. The choices we make determine the paths of our lives. For example, if you consistently put off things until the last minute, the quality of your work will suffer, thus causing you stress. This will become a vicious cycle resulting in disastrous consequences. However, if you install the habit of working towards your goals a little bit every day, you will make vast progress over the course of a year.
The Law of Incremental Growth thus states: Personal excellence and life mastery can only be achieved by consistent small steps of incremental improvement.
Every choice we make trains our brain in the positive or negative direction thus building behavioral momentum. As we build momentum, we speed up our transformation. However, this momentum can work against us if we make poor choices out of laziness and lack of self-control.
We must exercise the muscle of will power to choose effectively even if it causes us pain in the short term. Otherwise, we will have to experience the pain of stagnation in the long term!
Read more about how behavioral momentum can help us develop will power in this article or in the book.
5. Install the Right Beliefs Based on Proper Knowledge
Self-control, discipline and will power are some of the most sought-after traits in the world. However, will power alone is a finite resource. Soon the mind gets exhausted with having to work hard to change stubborn old habits and patterns. Even more powerful than will power is why-power. When we find a strong reason to pursue good habits, discipline will be automatic and not something we have to force upon ourselves. Such reasons stem from beliefs we store in the intellect. While will power means to control the mind, why-power stems from the intellectual beliefs.
The Law of Beliefs states: The trajectory of our life is determined by the beliefs we hold in our intellect.
Our beliefs are the strongest driving force in our lives that determine our goals and values. This is the reason we find that in a family of lawyers, the children also elect to pursue law. Similarly, the children of businesspersons also inherit the astute business mindset.
However, if a good education and family background were enough to guarantee transformation, we would have an ideal world free of negativities. Despite attending world class universities, having the best resources in life, or reading self-help books, people remain unhappy. This means that the decisions that they made were based upon faulty knowledge. Regardless of how inspiring contemporary motivational speakers or authors may be, the knowledge they provide has its faults, is not foolproof and does not work for everyone. For example, a motivational speaker who believes that earning a boatload of money is the way to happiness, will gain many gullible followers with the corresponding desire to get rich quick. But after a while the same followers will realize that all the money in the world cannot make them happy. Similarly, there are many books about the “Law of Attraction” claiming that one can attract abundance simply by thinking, “Today I will get rich”, “Today, Love is coming my way” etc. Since human nature has a propensity for the fulfillment of selfish desires, people follow such incomplete knowledge in droves and remain disappointed when they do not see results. One cannot manifest by simply thinking. Culturally (mis)appropriated versions of ancient Indian philosophical concepts have been adopted by many life coaches, to suit the fulfillment of temporary worldly pleasures, in the name if inspiration and motivation. Under their influence people cultivate wrong beliefs that lead to ruin, while the life coaches stand to profit.
In such a situation where can one find foolproof knowledge based on which to cultivate the right beliefs for transformation? The answer lies in developing faith in the knowledge of the Guru (God realized saint) and the Vedic scriptures. The Guru has no selfish desire of making a living through inspiring others but to share the knowledge solely for the benefit of our souls, thus is a trustworthy source of knowledge.
The most vital belief we will ever establish in our life is the one about where happiness lies. But due to widely prevalent faulty knowledge we have been looking the wrong place. Learn more about the fallacies in human knowledge and why divine knowledge is superior, through the book.
6. Understand What True Happiness Is
Anything we do in life, every goal we pursue, every decision we make, regardless of our background is because we want to be happy. Not just humans, every living being does things motivated by the selfish desire for happiness. This is because as souls, tiny parts of God – who is Happiness – we too desire Happiness. But the happiness we desire is infinite (in quantity), ever fresh (in quality) and eternal (never ending) like God. God is seated within our hearts as the soul of our soul, therefore all we need to do to be happy is to get closer to God. How do we accomplish that? By doing what God desires of us – becoming better people.
The Law of Happiness thus states: True happiness comes by growing from within to become a better person.
Inner growth is the foundation of outer success. It does not matter what we have accomplished in life, if we are not peaceful from within, we are not successful.
We must improve ourselves before we can do great things.
7. Become Your Best Self - How to Improve Ourselves
Having established our true nature and soul purpose, we come to the real question which is the topic of this article – how indeed do we improve to become the best version of ourselves? Does the proof of self-improvement and a good character lie in having the luxuries of life or a perfect body? Far from it.
Our mind is the sole parameter of our character – we are where our mind is. If having accomplished great things in life, we are not free from the common diseases of anger, envy, greed, and desire, we have not really improved our lot.
As per the Vedic scriptures – desire is the mother of anger and greed. Desire itself stems from attachment. Attachment in turn stems from contemplation of happiness in the wrong place. Does that mean we should give up desiring things? That will lead to stagnation!
Moreover, if we try to suppress desires, they will swell even more! The human mind cannot remain thoughtless for even a moment. It is constantly making desires. The solution then is to not finish impure desires but redirect them towards all pure God. The same desires become supremely elevating and help us accomplish our divine goals. Several saints in history have transformed their lives not by finishing their desires but by increasing them manifold through devotion for the pleasure of God in His service.
The Law of Sublimation states: The sovereign recipe for purifying the mind and its thoughts is to dovetail it towards the Supreme in Bhakti.
God is so merciful that he has given us full freedom to redirect any desire towards Him depending on the relationship that we cultivate with Him. Read the book to understand the depths to which we can discover joy and fulfillment in a relationship with God through sublimating all our desires.
8. Love God Selflessly to Become a Better Person
Regardless of what relationship we adopt with God, we must love Him selflessly. Since eternity we have been worshipping God for the sake of material pleasures. He is our eternal relative who has already given us not only our very life but also the materials to sustain it – air, food, sunlight, and water. He travels with us as our soul traverses bodies through endless lifetimes. Despite our bad karmas he never leaves us. Entire books can be filled, and it would still not suffice if we were to write down the graces of God upon us. Armed with the knowledge of his immense graciousness, let us fill ourselves with gratitude and give back in selfless love.
9. Learn the Meaning of True Love
But to love God selflessly is easier said than done. What is true love? In worldly relationships love fluctuates depending on whether our friends and relatives fulfill our desires and expectations. And we extend the same attitude towards God as well. Even if we are detached from the world and want to love God alone, we love Him for our happiness.
The Law of Love states: Our hearts can only be satisfied by true love, which is a deep and noble affection for the others’ happiness, without seeking personal benefit in return.
True love is when fulfilling the desire of our beloved personally hurts us, yet we feel happy for the opportunity to make them happy. That is true service – like a mother who takes care of a child even though the child may throw tantrums and reject the mother.
When God’s well-being and happiness becomes the center of our lives instead of our own, we will acquire a humble attitude, pure intentions, and true inspiration in pursuit of a noble purpose. Read the book to know more about how we can develop a selfless attitude through cultivation of spiritual intelligence. And when we learn to love and serve God selflessly based on eternal spiritual knowledge, the same attitude will be extended to our work and our relationships. We will see God in all things and all things in God – which is the view of saints – unity in Creation. We will realize that our own welfare lies in serving God’s purpose and without this we will never be happy.
God Himself becomes enslaved by the selfless devotees and bestows upon them infinite knowledge and bliss – thus fulfilling the desire for ultimate growth.
10. Get the Right Mentor for True Growth
A mentor is someone who has gone before us and is compassionate enough to share their experience for our benefit. They can point out our blind spots to us that prevent us from growing. Having the right mentor can give us a serious leg up in our career paths and prevent us from making ignorant mistakes with disastrous consequences.
What we would not be able to learn through several months of self-study can be easily gained by working under the right mentors.
It is therefore crucial to find the perfect mentor…for us – someone who is selfless, trustworthy and is willing to give us the time and space to grow while also challenging us to bring out our best.
When mentors are so necessary in the material world, it is even more crucial in the spiritual world to find the right mentor due to many pitfalls. Unlike the outer world where one can see tangible results of one’s performance, spiritual growth is an inner journey where progress is not immediately visible. There are also stricter parameters for a spiritual mentor – not only must the mentor be a theoretical expert, but they should also have crossed the material obstacles to experience the ultimate truth.i.e., be God realized. Only such a mentor’s words can deeply impact us. This mentor is also known as the Guru. The Guru is not merely a teacher. Wisdom cannot be gained from the Guru through payment in a transactional way. When we surrender our mind and intellect and wholeheartedly follow the Guru’s instruction, we are blessed with divine wisdom and ultimate perfection that we seek.
The Guru is thus the beginning, middle and the end of our journey to become our best self.
But how do we find such a Guru with our ignorant material intellect? Read the book to know! And in the meantime, we hope that this humble guide based on the eternal wisdom of the Vedic scriptures shared by global spiritual leader Swami Mukundananda, starts you off on your inner growth journey!
What did you gain most from this? – Share with us in comments your questions and perspectives!
Take the 21 Day Purpose of Life Challenge that goes with this book to implement the wisdom daily.