By Loretta LaRocheMore Content Now

My grandmother was a square, stout little woman. She wasn't obese, she wasn't even really fat. But she was soft. Every now and then she might have gotten on the scale and she'd say "Ahh! How'd those five pounds get there?" But that didn't change the way she felt about herself. She kept going, and she made her macaroni, and stuffed everything in sight including peas. Maybe she'd eat a little less to make up for those five pounds. But she felt good about who she was and her place in the world. Five extra pounds on the scale was not a life or death issue.

It's hard to believe, but her world was so different. Yes, that's a big DUH! She did not aspire to look like anyone else since movies, magazines and television were not yet a huge part of the culture. She and her immediate community of friends and family were not barraged with constant information that led them to believe something was wrong with them. They weren't assaulted with marketing techniques that made them feel deformed for having a little cellulite, or that they should check into therapy if they felt like having fried eggs for breakfast.

Now we are given the hardcore facts behind everything. We can find out what our body-fat ratio ought to be, we can discover what disorders we might be prone to, and we have gadgets that can inform us of every bodily function. Virtually every message sent to us by the media and by the marketing of almost every product for sale in America is that "you can improve yourself."

Many people, in their quest for self-improvement, have become so dreadfully serious and stressed out and dull that they're losing what's most important about life. Fun! Connection! Pleasure! Excitement! How many times have you heard people go on and on about what they ate today? The fat police: "I ate a slice of pizza at lunch, I just can't believe it!"

Why can't they believe it? Did they somehow suffer amnesia immediately after they swallowed their last bite? Then they have to tell you they're going to have to work out twice as hard to rid themselves of the pizza slice. PLEASE! Just stop! I often want to respond by saying " I ate everything in site and it made me so happy!"

We all have faults, neuroses, physical imperfections and psychological quirks. That's what makes you unique. If you want to change, try to consider that changing behaviors involves complex interactions between genes, chemistry and lifestyle. Self-improvement should not be a prison sentence, but one that builds toward a happier, healthy life. And please don't become overly serious about it. Do it with a sense of humor and above all try to make it fun.

- Author, humorist, PBS star and Fortune 500 trainer Loretta LaRoche lives in Plymouth. To share your pet peeves, questions or comments, write to The Humor Potential, 50 Court St., Plymouth, MA 02360. Visit her website at stressed.com.

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GET A LIFE: Quest for self-improvement shouldn't be stressful - Wicked Local Mattapoisett

By the time I finally fell asleep that night, I had completed the initial branches in the Dutch course tree. I could read useful phrases like Goedemorgen, hoe gaat het? (Good morning, how are you?) and useless ones like De neushoorn heeft een hoorn en een staart (The rhinoceros has a horn and a tail). The next day, I caught myself wading through the spiteful comments on a gossip blog and stopped to practice Dutch plurals instead.

The app eventually became a type of productive therapy, replacing other time-wasters in my life. Cant sleep? Lets learn more Dutch. In the mood to text an ex? Maybe I should start the Danish course instead. Fighting the urge to tweet that ill-thought-out opinion on current events? Youll feel so much better reviewing Dutch prepositions.

I liked how structured it was, that I could measure my progress in terms of winning points and completing levels and outdoing my friends. I am a frustratingly left-brained person: I take comfort in things that can be quantified. But more than that, though the points gave me a sort of rush similar to getting a stack of Instagram likes, it never felt like an empty thrill. I had finally committed to a self-improvement project, and every time I leveled up in a language, I felt I was one step closer to fluency. I became obsessed.

Six months later, I was at a street festival in Toronto. I walked by a booth where a woman was selling stroopwafels, and I overheard what I hadnt yet heard outside Duolingo: Dutch. I was only a few lessons away from finishing my course. I approached the booth, eager to try out what Id learned. Hoe gaat het? I said, suddenly aware of my heavy Canadian accent warping the words. She just stared straight back at me and said: Excuse me? I quickly shuffled away.

Learning a language to fluency requires discipline, frequent practice, ideally immersion much more than a simple language-learning game can offer. Thats fine, though. Fluency stopped being my goal a while ago, when I realized that trying to master several different foreign languages in the span of a few months would only be another stress-inducing, insurmountable project, exactly the sort of thing that led me to seek distractions in the first place. More than anything, though, Duolingo made me confident in my decision-making I had good taste in bad ways to spend my time.

Any online time-waster offers an escape from the world, often by preying on your worst instincts: envy, pettiness, poor impulse control. But Duolingo offered an escape that made me feel connected to the better parts of the world, and of myself. I may not have become a globe-trotting polyglot, but language learning did trigger a curiosity into other lives lived. My phone hadnt made me a better person, exactly, but at least it didnt make me worse.

It took me about two weeks to make it through the Swedish course earlier this year helped, of course, by never having to speak it out loud. To celebrate, I found a stream of The Devils Eye, the film by Ingmar Bergman. Five minutes in, I realized I couldnt understand a word they were saying. I turned on English subtitles and watched the rest of the movie, phone comfortably in hand.

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Letter of Recommendation: Duolingo - New York Times

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Self-improvement is not easy. With the explosion of self-help books and the self-help movement, many believe that self-improvement is impossible; that it is really a type of scam that people fall for. These individuals would have you believe that any kind of self-improvement is beyond the average person and that there is no real way to change the basic self.

But the need for self-improvement is an inherent need within all of us. Self-improvement is possible, its just that most people are not willing to make the decisions required to truly change and grow as individuals. I believe that many assume that in order to improve the self you need to fight against the current, that you must make a great effort of will or else change is will not happen. In this site you will find that this is not the case, that in order to better yourself, all you need to do is to create an achievable goal and follow the natural inclinations of the self.

As a species we are continually growing. Most of this growth has been achieved through unconscious processes. We grow and develop without the need for us to consciously think about this growth and development. But things have changed!

The human species has begun to take conscious control of its evolution and self growth. The self-improvement movement represents that innate need inside all of us to grow as individuals and to expand our capabilities.

Future Evolution = Conscious Evolution = Self-Improvement

Self-improvement is achievable, it requires:

In this site you will discover how to understand your true desires, so that you can discover your real motivations and discover the path that will bring you the most joy.

Through personal self-improvement, we begin to grow, develop, and evolve. As we grow and develop as individuals, we also participate in the growth and development of our species. We are all together in this, the self-improvement revolution is that innate drive within all of us to begin to take conscious control of our evolution.

I recommend that you bookmark this site, browse around in The Best of JohnKreiter.com section, and use the Search box at the top of the site to find particular information using keywords.

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John Kreiter | Self-Improvement and Interesting Knowledge

When you were growing up, you were probably reprimanded on multiple occasions to share with siblings, friends, cousins and others while you played. It was so easy to want to keep your precious toys close to you and not let anyone else touch them. Sure, the other kids probably wouldnt hurt your toys, but the toys were important to you. When you are grown, those early lessons of self improvement you learned stick with you, making it difficult for you to be selfish as an adult.

In general, it isnt good to be selfish. It makes you feel good to share what you have with others who need it. For instance, if a coworker comes to you and asks for help with a project, you could say no because you have your own work. However, you drop what you are doing and help your coworker because he was nice enough to ask. Your own work might suffer a little, but you would feel far too guilty if you left your coworker hanging.

Despite the positives of not being selfish, you can also benefit from being selfish, at least some of the time. If you have ever talked to someone about self improvement, you may have heard that putting yourself first is important too. You dont need to always put everyone else before your own needs and desires. In fact, if you do, you are far more likely to find that people are taking advantage of you. You deserve to be happy and have your needs met too.

When you put yourself first, you will feel more confident and can lead a happier life. You dont need to turn others down all the time, but you deserve to be treated as a person as well. Therefore, when someone makes a request from you, take a little time to consider that request and then make a decision. Weigh out the pros and cons of helping that person with their request against denying it. For instance, if you go back to the coworker example, the project your coworker needs help with is due next week; however, the project you are working on is due tomorrow. It would be much better to say no and finish your project first.

Putting your own needs first can be hard for some people. You may be trained to always put others needs before your own as an act of kindness. Through self improvement techniques, you can learn when it is okay to say no and when it is okay to say yes. You should never sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of someone else, even if it means hurting someone elses feelings.

In the end, your happiness is in your own hands. If you dont focus on self improvement and learning the difference between being selfish in a bad way and being selfish in a good way, you may find yourself taken advantage of by everyone around you. From coworkers to family, you may find that it is so difficult to say no, you end up overextending yourself and ultimately sacrificing your own satisfaction.

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Mind Power and Self Improvement Tips: Mind Cafe

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Do you want to progress in life? Do you want to learn how to be more confident, get more out of life and be abundantly happy? Have you tried things in the past and found your progress to be unsatisfactory? Maybe you have recognised you self-sabotage, or have a resistance, you want to overcome? If you say YES to any of the above, then there is a lot for you to learn and gain from being a member.

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Why do I need it? If you have read many books on personal development then you might (but probably not!) either:

Notice, I have used two extremes and YOU will NOT fit into either Ive deliberately used these extremes for illustration purposes which may appear as black & white thinking even though I know there is a world of grey/nuance/perspectives between these statements This book will help you to NOT fall into either of these two extremes (the new born evangelist for a technique or the throw the baby out with the bathwater cynic) It will help you to keep in mind there is no panacea while also recognising stories that tell of extreme circumstances/results are for illustration purposes only either to make a point or to inspire and finding exceptions doesnt mean the technique is invalid plus 6 other ways to gain a better understanding of the material you are studying.

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Personal Development Club - The Self Improvement Coach

Hello and welcome to waystoimprove.net! This site contains tons of advice in a variety of categories, all geared to improving your life in some way.

Why have we organized this content into ways? We believe in action, but we also believe in having concrete steps in order to guide that action. We also understand that having too much information may be as useless as having not enough.

Thus, our goal is to provide you with the quickest and most effective ways to meet your goals. Whether you want to get in shape, make money, or embark on some self improvement goal, our ways will both give you the information you need to know and the steps you need to take to meet your goals.

How should I use this site?

There are a few ways to browse the content. The best way is to bookmark our site and come back often, as we are constantly adding new content, both to posts weve already written and in the form of new posts. You can also browse categories (shown in the sidebar to the left) such as Health & Fitness and Money & Finance for directories about the posts on this site. Finally, you can skim the Related Posts widget in the sidebar for the latest posts weve added.

Come back often, as this site is a perpetual work in progress. We hope to create a database of actionable information for you that will be helpful whatever your goals.

OUR BEST POSTS

First, check out the webbook in the sidebar to the left its a great book about how to conquer procrastination and get everything you want out of life.

In addition, heres a list of some of our most popular posts. Enjoy!

I Need 2000 Dollars Fast!

I Need 3000 Dollars Fast!

Ways to Save Money on a Tight Budget

I Need a Hobby!

I Need Money Desperately!

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Article Summary:

Focus on yourself and improve yourself. Dont be a nice guy youll get no respect. Dont hibernate. Put yourself out there to meet women, either offline or even with online dating such as this free site to get you started.

Finding a girlfriend can be hard unless you put yourself in the right situations armed with the right approach. In this article, Im going to give you both. Arent I swell? 🙂

Anyway, follow these three tips and youll be on your way to success. Focus on Yourself First Many guys think that the key is to focus on the girl [] Continue Reading

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Distract yourself with fun and games. Work on improving yourself. Meet new ladies you can even try online dating, the easiest way to get back in the game.

Breakups are hard. I remember all of mine vividly, even though Im in a happy relationship right now. They just take over your life somehow, and you cant think about anything else about the person.

We want nothing more than to know how to get over your ex girlfriendand here are a few pieces of advice that Ive gleaned over the years. Take Action to Cause Distraction The most important tip is to keep yourself [] Continue Reading

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Improve your mindset have confidence in yourself and youll show confidence to everyone. Meet more women, as many as you can, to improve your chances. Try online dating here is the free dating site you always wanted. Never give up!

So, are you saying to yourself, I need a woman? Then you are lucky you found this page 🙂 Here Ill give you the three key tips that you need to meet a woman and these are really the ONLY tips that you need in the end as long as you apply them consistently. Here we go!

Improve Your [] Continue Reading

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Avoid the cliches bars, clubs, and the like unless you are really into that scene. Go to places that you like to go to and that have activities you can get to know someone organically. Dont forget online dating; here is the last dating site you will ever need.

Many years ago, I was a frustrated guy who didnt know how to meet women. Even worse, I didnt know whereto meet women.

I was sick and tired of it, so I decided to really get this figured out. One of the things I figured out wast he best ways [] Continue Reading

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Go somewhere fun and low stress; interaction is the key most of all. Be yourself dont try to put on a show to impress her. Learn why now is the right time to meet a new woman.

I remember almost every first date Ive been on. Some have been great, some have been mediocre, and some have beenwell, we wont talk or REMEMBER those. 🙂

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Destroy your fear of failure and your fear of rejection. Dont focus on one woman there are truly plenty of fish in the sea. Dont forget you can meet women online check this site for a truly innovative way to meet women.

It was just a few short years ago that I was single and perpetually looking for someone. Luckily, recently I met someone and married her 🙂 Yay! But how did I do it?

How did I go from having no prospects at all to having a wife? In other words, how is it that I found out how [] Continue Reading

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Get yourself out there you need to meet women regularly to get a date. Come up with your routine that works for you. Check out this dating site that will knock your socks off.

Oh I remember the good old days, trolling around for a date, more often that not coming up empty. Luckily, I learned a lot of tips and tricks along the way that helped me find dates as I implemented those tips. I dont need tips anymore, though Im happily married 🙂

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Plan a low-cost, low maintenance, but high fun date. Be yourself, but be your best self.

Most guys are not taught the important things in school such as how to date a girl, or even to meet one and make her a girlfriend for that matter! 🙂 Consider this then a crash course in the best ways on how to impress a girl and show her a good time. Planning the Date The first thing to keep in mind is to avoid setting up some fancy dinner or other expensive event, especially for the first date. Going into the date with [] Continue Reading

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Make sure your inner game is under control you need to be confident, you need to believe, and you need a great attitude. Get out into the field you need to make success happen for yourself. Learn how to find a girlfriend super fast & for free

One of the hardest things in life is to find a girlfriend, but not only a girlfriend, but the right one in the first place.

However, its only hard if you dont have the tools and information you need to meet that special someone. So this article is dedicated to giving you some [] Continue Reading

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I was desperate to find a girlfriendand then I learned what I was doing wrong. Be nice, but dont be a nice guy! Get yourself out there; dont hide inside. Learn where to meet a girlfriend anywhere, anytime

Im happily married now. But it was just a few short years ago that I was alone, with few prospects for a date, much less a girlfriend.

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Ways to Improve

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Dallas Orthodontics & Braces, FREE Exam | Apple Orthodontix

Recently readers have asked me to share my favorite self improvement resources. Most of these sites dont revolve around classic self improvement topics, but they all contain valuable information you can use to improve your life. Here are 101 online self improvement resources, organized into 5 general categories.

Its a rather long list, so if you dont have much time Id recommend bookmarking it with del.icio.us and coming back later. Feel free to add your own favorites in the comments.

These resources specialize in helping you make the most of your time.

Sites in this category cover all topics traditionally related to personal growth and development.

These sites, focused mainly on art and science, never fail to make me think.

Although many of these are targeted at my fellow bloggers and webmasters, some are relevant to everyone. They all aim to help you become a financial success.

These sites contain massive amounts of information and are my favorite destinations (other than Google) for serious research or casual reading.

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101 Online Self Improvement Resources | PickTheBrain ...