Self-improvement are those activities that improve one's life. We can say something you do to make yourself better than how it was before.
To give up on something in life, one needs to improve in that area. There are some things I need to give up in this new year and they are:
Bad thoughts: “The thing you think about determines the quality of your mind. Your soul takes the color of your thoughts”- Marcus Aurelius.
Naturally, human beings are designed by God to think more than other animals. That's the reason we are more intelligent than other animals.
Thoughts are good and also bad; if your thoughts are good, it is the best and if your thoughts are bad, it can affect your mental health negatively.
Just like what Marcus Aurelius said, your thinking determines how healthy you will be. A corrupted man thinking about corruption: and if such a man is given an opportunity in any parastatal, he will surely execute what is in his mind. When we see someone thinking of killing someone or looting money, such a person might have thought in that direction.
If the atmosphere creates the avenue of executing our thoughts, it is what you conceive you will execute.
This is the reason we need to feed our mind with healthy and good thoughts.
Toward the end of last year, a friend of mine took me to a beer parlor. Because I don't drink alcohol, when we got there, he said they should bring a red label.
I Knew the red label was an alcoholic wine, so I told him I'm not drinking. They should give me my Hollandia yogurt.
I replied to him, Steph, You know I don't take anything that contains alcohol.
He replied, “You are not yet a man, if you don't take something like this, alcohol it eases my mind, gives me happiness, confidence and strength 💪.
I refused to take alcohol; then, I ordered for Hollandia yogurt
When I got home, I began to think about what he said, that alcohol gives confidence, strength and makes one happy. I continued to ponder the words for days in my mind.
After 2 weeks, I went out by 8:00pm in the evening; I bought a small red label; brought it home and drank it. The taste was something else. I didn't finish it.
I called that night a wonder night: I vomited and slept in my bathroom till the second day.
In the past years, there were negative thoughts that came to my mind which polluted my mind and made me not think positive. This year, I'm shaping my thoughts toward good not bad anymore which will allow me to grow.
Those negative thoughts affected my mental health, productivity and behaviors in my place of work, with my friends and relatives.
No more distractions: distraction is not good, when one is distracted such a person may not be able to achieve his/her goals.
In the year 2023, I had a plan to repair my laptop. After I had gotten the money to repair it; a bet website popped up on my phone. When I checked their odds, it was incredibly good. This made me put the money I wanted to use to repair my laptop on the bet. I believed I could get 3x in just a day. I placed a bet the first time, I lost the money; yet, I believe that I would get the money back. That was how I lost the whole money I should have used to repair my laptop.
This is 2024, I haven't repaired it.
This is the reason I promised myself in this year 2024 that I would not allow anything to distract me from my goals. I believe if I repair my laptop now, I would have gotten the money back. It is the laptop I used to play 
Though, my phone can do it; but, I don't like using the phone every time; and I got distracted while using the phone from Facebook and WhatsApp.
There were times I kept on watching jokes, meme and funny videos 😂🤣 on Facebook while working. I watched those funny videos for hours.
A message from Whatsapp is another issue: I checked messages every minute. The moment I received a message, I checked it immediately. From there, I may spend 30 minutes or more before returning back to what I'm doing. This is a pure distraction and I want to put an end to it.
One day my boss gave me an assignment to register some students for an international competition. I never knew the registration would close on the second day. Though it was written there, I did not read it.
While I was registering the 3 students that I picked for the competition.. a video popped up on my Facebook.. from one video, I watched more than 10 funny videos. That was how I stopped the registration from there. The second day I was about to start registering them again, there was a message in the site that ‘registration has closed’.
I just have to lie to my boss that I couldn't do it because of the heavy traffic that slows the website down.
I stand up for success, and success is not achieved by merely making mouth, No room for laziness, no room for idleness. Success comes to the people who are desperately and consciously searching for it. When it seems unsuccessful or you smell failure around you, never discourage yourself from being successful.
“Discouragement and failure are the two surest stepping stones to success.” - Dale
Thank you for reading my post.
