Ok, so you want to become the best version of yourself, but how?

Well, let’s start from the beginning. What does it mean exactly to be the best version of yourself? Does it mean to be a “Pinterest Girl” or an “It Girl”? Does it mean to be a super fit person? From my point of view, being the best version of yourself is about being yourself, meaning that for everyone, the answer to this question will be different. Maybe the best version of yourself is being a Pinterest Girl or a fit person or maybe it’s having the best grades in your class or looking like a Victoria Secret model. For me, being the best version of myself means none of these things; for me, it means being kind and having a good relationship with my body and mind. So before we continue to the next step, I would like for you, the person who opened this article wondering how to become their best self, to think of what it means to be your best self.

Great, now that we’ve covered the first part, we can go on to the answer you were looking for when you opened this article. So again, you want to become the best version of yourself, but how? Becoming the best version of yourself is a goal, and like any other goal, you must go through a long process in order to achieve it. But this kind of goal is not a one-time goal; it’s not like creating your own business or buying a house. It's a kind of goal that is supposed to last a long time. So, considering that everyone has a different meaning for the best version of themselves, and that it’s supposed to last a long time, the process of becoming the best version of yourself can’t be contained on a 10-step list that someone else gives you. What this process entails are habits. 

Let me expand on this. Everything in life is a habit. Every little thing you do is a habit. Your diet is a habit, your sleeping routine is a habit, and your studying method is a habit. Changing our habits means changing our lifestyle and changing our lifestyle means changing ourselves. So, if we have the best habits, we will become our best selves. 

The question now is, how do we change our habits? The habit loop is a pattern that our brain follows when we do something over and over again. It consists of three parts: the cue, the routine, and the reward. The cue is what gets us doing the routine. This could be a place, time, object, or anything that works for you. The routine is the habit itself. The reward is what we get for doing the routine. When we exhibit the same behavior over and over again, our brains start to remember the cue and the routine and expect the reward. This is why it can be hard to change a habit because our brains are used to following this pattern. But with practice, we can learn to create new habits or break old ones because as I said earlier, achieving a goal takes a long time, but it’s worth the reward. The thing is, becoming your best version of yourself doesn’t consist of acquiring a single habit. It will probably entail a lot more, but the key is to incorporate new habits or to change old habits day by day.

To explain how this works, I would like to tell you briefly how I am working on becoming my best self. As I said before, I am the best version of myself when I am kind and have a good relationship with my mind and body. So, some habits I’ve been incorporating have been reading instead of watching so much TV, drinking more water, exercising, helping others, and so on. I’ll give you an example. My cue is a certain music playlist, my routine is exercising, and I have more than one reward for exercising. Some of these potential rewards include feeling better about my body and releasing tension or anxiety. My rewards are sometimes something measurable/tangible such as eating a tasty snack or having a nap. 

So to finish, this is what I suggest: take the meaning of the best version of yourself that you thought in the beginning and think of three habits that will help you to achieve that version of yourself. Think of each habit’s cue, routine, and reward. For the following three months, you will start incorporating each habit into your daily routine, one new habit each month. After those months, think of other three habits and so on. At the end of the year, compare your current version of yourself to the new version of yourself, and if it worked, go for it again.