Have a think about your past – are there any issues that you remember immediately, and recoil at the memory in the same instance? These are the experiences you need to focus on. To truly move on in life, you need to learn and accept your past – be it an embarrassing moment or something far more sinister.

To begin, write down the experience in full. If it is something embarrassing or you’re ashamed of it, don’t worry, only you will ever see it. Write down exactly what happened, why it effected you so badly and what kind of effect it still has on today. Instead of recoiling and dismissing the thought, spend a good half an hour actually thinking about it – for some, this is the first time in decades that they’ve really relived in the memory in full, and the process can be liberating. However, it can also be upsetting, so try and bear in mind that you’re doing this for the greater good.

With the entire incident written down, send it to yourself in the post. When it arrives, open it and read it again. As this is happening on a fresh day, it allows time for perspective and sense to come through and you should feel slightly differently to how you did at the time of writing.

At this point, if there’s something you can do to rectify the past, do it. It may be contacting someone you had a fight with or apologising for past behaviours, it could even be something extreme like going to the police. If you can do something, then do try and do it, for only until the issue is resolved can you really move on. Force through the awkwardness, telling yourself that at the end of the road a calmer, happier you await. After all, a short period of unpleasantness is infinitely preferable to more years of misery at a certain memory.

With this done – or if it wasn’t something you could rectify – then complete the exercise by destroying the written text. Fire, as long as it is done safely, is most people’s preference for this, as you can watch your past burn away slowly rather than a sudden and almost violent action like tearing it apart. Watch the past smoulder and try to finally release all that negative energy surrounding it.

You may need to repeat this process several times, and in fact it may even be best if you do. But by confronting an uncomfortable past, you are opening doors for a more pleasant future. Good luck.

It is often assume that only wholesale changes apply to getting out of a rut, such as leaving a bad relationship or getting a new job. The truth is much more trivial than that, and those in jobs they like and marriages which are loving can still feel worn down by the repetitive nature of their lives.

One of the biggest causes of repetition is traditional, that one thing that tells you time and time again to repeat the same actions. And all just because you’ve done it before. Every Christmas, for example, you find yourself eating the same food, with the same people and getting bored singing the same songs. It might be ‘tradition’, but unless you enjoy that tradition, it’s utterly pointless. This applies to everything where tradition exists; unless you still actively enjoy the activity and would do it even if it weren’t tradition, stop doing it!

Changes in even smaller phases like that can rejuvenate the mind. To begin, go for those things that really seem pointless – such as watching a different genre of film from your usual, changing your IP provider or buying a different newspaper. You might not like the experiment, but even small differences can help stop you from feeling like you’re just living Groundhog Day.

For the ultimate feeling of breaking the pattern, do something that you’ve never had the courage to do before. Maybe you’re always wanted to try skydiving but have been too scared, or you’ve had a crush on someone in your office but have never had the courage to say something. In these instances, simply ask yourself “what’s the worst that can happen?”. By running through the worst case scenario, you’ll find it loses it’s fear. This type of thought processing is known as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and is widely accepted by psychologists across the world as genuinely having the power to change lives. By facing your fears and doing something completely different, you’ll unleash a feeling of new energy unlike anything you’ve ever felt before.

One of the biggest problems people have with their bodies is their weight. This can range from feeling too big or too thin, to just not liking their shape. By deciding to finally do something about whatever it is that bothers you, you’ll almost feel better immediately.

If you need to lose weight, then join a healthy eating plan. Note the non-use of the word “diet”. Learn to eat well, regularly and allow yourself the occasional treat. If it helps, consult a dietician for advice. It is always best to seek someone calling themselves a “dietician” and not a “nutritionist” – dietician is a protected term (such as Doctor) whereas anyone can call themselves a nutritionist. The truth remains that simple methods are the most effective, so while the latest diet craze may be supposedly having wildly spectacular results for others, in the long term a plan of sensible eating will work the best.

Even if you’re happy with your weight, exercise is hugely beneficial and should be encouraged for all. Exercise produces endorphins, known as the feel good hormone, and many find their natural disposition is greatly improved by regular exercise. Self improvement is all about feeling better, after all.

You don’t have to go the gym to exercise; literally anything that increases heart rate is classed as aerobic exercise and is therefore encouraging the body to produce endorphins. Of all the hundreds of ways to increase your heart rate, there is going to be something you enjoy. Once you’ve found it, the benefits are two fold – you enjoy the activity, while getting the resultant buzz from the endorphins and keeping fit, too.

Very few physical problems are utterly insoluble. If you really think fixing a body issue will make you happier and improve your life, then there is no reason – nor any social stigma – that should discourage you from doing it.

Some of the things you dislike about yourself, the things that have spurred you into believing you need to improve yourself, can be solved purely through effective time management. If you dislike how short tempered you can be, or how you never see your friends and family enough and worry they feel neglected – the problems are easily solved.

One of the best ways to change the way you use your time is to document it first. There are numerous programs available, free, on the internet which run a clock on how long you spend working on a computer. They’re actually designed for freelancers who bill by the hour and need to prove the time they’ve spent working, but the function is the same for finding out where your time goes. Install it on your work computer and you’ll soon see where your time really goes, and how the six hour stint you’d thought you’d spent working in the afternoon was actually an hour of working and a lot of time spent checking Twitter, writing emails and posting on forums. It should be quite a wake up call.

Knowing where you go wrong, set yourself goals. Organise a chore you dislike – anything from cleaning to responding to letters – and set aside an hour a day in which you do nothing but that. If you have time spare in that hour, start pre-empting the next chore. By compartmentalising those chores that you hate, you’ll free yourself up the rest of the time.

Keep a diary and stick to it, don’t cancel engagements just because you’re too tired or feel like you can’t be bothered. These little non appearances add up, and if you usually just cancel, you never know what you’re missing. Use a diary you can carry in your pocket or briefcase; amazingly, so many people don’t, and then wonder why they miss appointments.

Essentially, when instigating a system which you hope will improve your life and self, you need to know exactly how your life works. Writing everything down and analysing the results will let you see where improvements can be made – and don’t worry, before you know, documenting your life will become second nature.

Charitable giving is one of those things that everyone means to do, but never gets around to. If you are genuine about improving your sense of self, make today the day where you actually do something. If you do decide to give money, first be sure you can afford it – there is little point in rendering yourself financially troubled just because you gave to charity. The whole point may be to help those less fortunate than yourself, but not by making yourself unfortunate.

With this kept in mind, find a charity that you feel passionate about. There are major national charities which get a lot of press and airtime, which subsequently leads to a lot of donations. Occasionally, instead of giving to one of these institutions, look around the internet for a smaller charity. The more obscure an illness, usually the less funding it gets – but that doesn’t mean it does any less of a job. These people still need help, and your money will be more useful to them. Still give to the big national charities, but do mix it up a little and vary your giving.

That said, only choose three charities at most to donate to. While you may just be giving for the sake of giving, it is important to think about what can be done with your money. If you have $100 to give, and split that between five different charities, each organisation only gets $20. Instead, select just two institutions and suddenly your money goes a lot further. Just remember that next time you donate, you can give to two completely different charities. Over time, your giving should even itself out.

But what charities need, perhaps even more than small donations, is your time. For true self improvement that is more than just a neat lifestyle choice, instead of giving cash, give yourself. This can include fund-raising, helping to promote awareness or just general administration work. If you have a particular skill – such as web designing or arts and crafts – offer to your chosen charity for free.

By doing this, you really will be improving your character. Giving just cash, all the time, can be a little too easy – but by actually helping a charity to function, you’re doing much more for the greater good. Experiences like these can teach you things that will change your life as a whole and make you a better, happier person – which is exactly what self improvement is all about, after all.

Some of the most drastic self improvement measures anyone can take involve changing their mind, rather than any kind of physical situation. One of the main things that fans of self improvement advocate is trying to remove, or at least depress, your negative impulses. This can have a big effect on you, making your life seem better and also making you a more attractive person to spend time with. A new attitude can be the beginning of a new you.

At this junction, an old phrase becomes apposite: “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. Other adages along the same lines exist – such as “every cloud has a silver lining” – but for most the former is the most astute. It is all about taking the bitter, unpleasant things in life and making them more palatable.

It is natural human instinct to react negatively when something bad happens to us, but very rarely does that negativity ever produce any results. Sitting around talking about how annoyed or disappointed you are achieves nothing but perhaps making you feel a touch better. One of the biggest parts of self improvement is to take that bad situation and try and see the good in it. This takes work and practice, but eventually can lead to a more positive, less cynical – and therefore more pleasant – you. There is a positive to everything – you just might have to look hard to find it.

It isn’t, however, what adulthood is about. Adulthood is about realising that some things aren’t possible. This might sound like a ridiculously simple sentiment, but it’s something a worrying amount of people fail to grasp.

In truth, it’s easy to see why, and the blame does not lay solely at the feet of the individual. In modern society, we’re foisted the idea of the ‘can do!’ attitude. If you want something, you’re encouraged to get it – and worry about the consequences later. When we can turn back time’s effect on the body and spend money without actually having it, a lot of people fail to see why they can’t have it all. These are the people that quit their jobs to form a band and six months later, with no money and no home, still say it was worth it, because they lived their dream. It wasn’t worth it, and a full five years on, those people have seen the light and just refer to their band period as ‘The Embarrassing Incident’.

The biggest key to self improvement is to understand, and accept, your limits. You may still dream of being a fighter pilot, but to achieve true contentment you need to see that it isn’t going to happen. Instead, when embarking on a course of self improvement, see what you realistically can change. Maybe pay off your mortgage early or give more to charity – obtainable goals are the key, and through them and not their flight-of-fancy counterparts, you will see your life improve.

The problem with always striving for something bigger or better is that you can lose sight of the good things you already have. Modern life is so frenzied; we live in a world seemingly obsessed with statistics, targets and goals and amidst the desire to reach the next level, the current level can be completely ignored. And the current level might not be so bad, after all.

One of the keys to self improvement is learning to accept your lot in life and what you have. If you never grasp this seemingly simple concept, the quest for more is never ending. Many people work themselves into the ground in their desire for a bigger house or faster car, only to discover that when they have the object of their affection, it has lost it’s lustre. Unless you learn to appreciate the now, you’ll be needing to buy cars faster than the speed of sound and houses the size of ancestral homes before you can sate the desire for more.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with wanting a better life. But the key is to balance it with your current life. Reality talent shows have brought screaming wannabes to the masses, all of whom proclaim an endless desire for fame and fortune that has pushed them to the limits of their sanity. Yet, for the lucky few who do indeed make it, they find the life they so desired was not all it was supposed to be. With every new level you attain, there is another set of problems.

To begin to appreciate the life you have, all you need to do is try and focus on the positive aspects rather than the negative. One good trick is to finish each day with a list of three things you enjoyed that day. Even if it’s something as simple as what you ate for lunch or a program you saw on television, it’s a positive end to a day which helps channel the mind into appreciating life as it is. There’s no harm whatsoever in striving for better, so long as you retain a sense of perspective. After all, as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for – you just might get it.

Yet it is really the late 1980s and 90s that brought self improvement and self help to life. The boom was huge and seemingly ever-lasting, going from very little to an awful lot. Self improvement found it’s way in to popular culture and has never really let go, making an admirable leap – that probably made some marketing guru a fortune – from hippy-like to generally accepted.

The self improvement industry is, quite literally, huge. If you type ’self improvement’ into Amazon, over 10,000 books alone will be listed for your perusal. There is then the huge numbers of websites dedicated to creating a better you. Google Blog Search lists over 500,000 blog posts that have some element of self improvement contained within their text.

There are then hundreds of self-styled “life coaches”, some of whom claim that using their unique skills they can teach you how to live a better life. No matter what you’ve got to spend, it would seem that any amount will buy a little self improvement.

The problem with such a saturated market is that, for someone beginning to explore self improvement, the options can seem endless and mind boggling.

The easy answer is to look for things focusing on the aspect of life that you yourself which to improve. This may seem simple, but in the mire it can sometimes take a little effort to find something truly relevant. When you’ve found what you think you’re looking for, be smart and check previous user reviews. Don’t be misled by outlandish claims of miracle works on the back of a book or website banner – find out for yourself what real people really think.

If at first you don’t succeed, don’t dismiss the entire industry because of one bad experience. There clearly is something in self improvement, or it wouldn’t be such a dominant market, so keep trying until you find the exact right fit.

Your sense of self should be looked upon in the way that grand artists view their masterpieces – they never quite know when they’re finished. In the case of your self, how can you ever really know you’re as happy as you possibly could be? There are times in life that everyone experiences that, when they happen, genuinely seem like they’re the happiest they could be – but then something happens years later that blows that prior experience out of the water.

Very few people on this earth can look in the mirror, at both body and soul, and be truly content. Philosophers as far back as Ancient Greece have pondered the concept of happiness, often stating that happiness is subjective. For example, if a man earning $30,000 a year and was given $1,000 as a gift, he’d be delighted. On the opposite side, if a man worth $30 million were given $1,000, they’d probably think it was nice – but it wouldn’t make them as happy as the first man.

What this point is trying to illustrate is that, throughout life, we as human beings change. Once upon a time that man worth $30 million – unless it was an inheritance – would have been as happy with $1,000 as the first man. As his life has gone on, his experiences of happiness and joy have changed – and so do yours. Maybe not to such an extreme extent, but in life you should never stop learning.

Put simply, there is always room for improvement. How can one person ever declare themselves truly “finished”? Is there no aspect of your life – really, genuinely – which could do with a little tweaking? If you can definitely answer no, then congratulations. If, as is more likely, the answer is yes, then self improvement can help you become the person you can be. This doesn’t mean the current version of you is bad, but the future one could be even better.