First of all you must understand yourself. If you want to improve something, you must know what your tools are. You must know what you can do. You must be able to do it. You must be able to judge that it was done correctly, and has in fact, improved.
There are several mindsets that all humans enter depending on differing contexts and various types of lifestyles.
The first mindset is the BODY.
This is the mindset you find yourself in while playing sports, or while working out, or while doing any kind of physical activity. Notice that your thoughts are secondary and supplemental to the goals of the body.
As you move your muscles, you see the direct results of your actions. Improvement here is very easy to judge. Have you completed the menial task? Have you cleaned this or made that? Have you moved your muscles in the correct way to accomplish your goal?
To improve at any BODY related goal, you must simply practice. Muscle memory forms with time, and you will improve as long as you keep at it. Very simple brute force style of improvement. Nothing works better for BODY related goals.
The second mindset is the MIND.
This is the mindset you find yourself in while thinking, or indeed feeling. Things appear to the body through phenomena, which the mind interprets and contextualizes through its understanding of past experiences.
As you experience phenomena, you will notice that you have certain opinions on certain things. Some contextual objects will make you think or feel a certain way, despite those thoughts and feelings not being part of the object itself. This is the subjective world.
To improve the mind, you must see what is subjective, and what is objective, at the same time. You must see both the phenomena and the reaction of your thoughts. In this way you can judge your reactions (a reaction to a reaction if you will) to determine if they are helping you towards your goal.
It should go without saying, but any thought that does not move you toward your goal should be ignored completely to the point of disappearance. This includes thoughts like pessimistic, self defeating, suicidal, distractions, fantasizing, regret, and many others.
There are 2 kinds of thought. Active and passive. Passive thoughts happen all the time and are uncontrollable in the moment. Active thoughts are based on focused intention and determination to explore a concept, and are completely controllable.
Active thoughts become passive thoughts over time. If you think about something often enough, it becomes a habitual thought, and will pop up in passive thoughts even when you weren't trying to think about it.
Active thoughts will disappear if you stop thinking about them. Passive thoughts will not go away until you break the habit.
To improve your thoughts, you must actively think about things that move you toward your goal. This includes optimism, self love, focus, determination, and even pride at an accomplishment, among others.
If a passive thought pops up that is not good for you, as it bound to do, you must not listen to it. No matter what.
If a thought does not help you, it doesn't matter if it's true, or logical, or obvious.
Only allow that which helps you to remain in your mind.
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Now you are on your way. Your mind is being honed towards your goals. Your body is being honed towards your goals. When they are in alignment, your life is much easier. You do not second guess yourself, because you know what is happening already. You have already made preparations for possible outcomes, and you have accepted that things take time and effort.
This is where you will live for a long time. You must master this skill completely in order to truly improve, as it is only the first step. If you have not mastered the skill the rest of this book will not make sense. Read it for insight, but do not follow it to the letter until you have a solid understanding of both body and mind.
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When your body and mind are in perfect sync and are working towards your goals, what do you then do?
Ask yourself...
Wait. If my mind and body are both working, and I am watching them work, judging them for performance and quality, who am I?
The third mindset then.
The third mindset is Awareness. This is the “real” you. The one who sees all and makes decisions accordingly. Awareness has access to phenomena in the moment through the body, and phenomena from the past through memory or fantasizing. Awareness is not attached to body or mind, it is separate and free.
Awareness determines which mindset you are currently in, by focusing on either of the phenomenal types. You can be in the moment experiencing the now, “true” experience through the body. You can be in the past or future or in any place you want to be, dream-like experience through the mind.
You can choose to experience no phenomena as well. To focus on neither the body nor the mind. To experience simply being, without context.
When you experience being without context, you see that you are not anything you had once thought you were. You see that everything you have ever thought or done was a natural reaction to a situation you were exposed to from your past experience. The “you” that you called yourself this whole time, was in fact, not you.
To continue improving, you must determine what goals you should set according to your own desires. While at the same time understanding that those desires are part of a system you no longer identify with.
This means you can pick and choose your goals without the input of your habitual thoughts telling you what you should set your goals on. Yet you must still have a baseline moral code to follow.
Awareness allows you to improve your moral code, which you can change at will.
For now, set your moral code as improvement of all things. I recommend you commit to it as much as you commit to your religion, or your family, and you will see improvements you never thought possible. If you commit to improvement less, you will see less improvements, obviously.
Now that you have reset your moral code, go back to all your previous goals that you had set for your mind and body. Revise them to match your current moral codes and higher goals.
The process repeats,
Your awareness sets a moral code.
Your mind thinks actively to create passive habitual thoughts congruent with the code.
The body follows the thoughts made by the mind, trusting it to be trustworthy.
The mind takes in the information from the body about the consequences of actions.
Awareness determines if the goal was met or not, and if the moral code should be revised again.
The process repeats.
This is the path to improvement regardless of your intention or lifestyle or goals or context.
BODY
MIND
AWARENESS
All 3 are required and you must live all 3 at different times depending on your situation. Learn to improve them all, and you will gain everything you ever wanted, as long as you put in the time and effort.
Good luck!