Factors to improvement

I spend a lot of time thinking about improvement.  How to improve myself, how to help others improve, what helps people improve, what hinders it, etc.

My theory is that there are four variables involved in this:


Your awareness can come from your own self-perceptions (a mirror, a picture, a video, body awareness) or from others (critique, comments).  In my mind, this is the most important aspect because if you don't know what could or needs to improve, you can only improve with luck and have little control of your own progress.

The willingness to change can be surprisingly difficult for some people, whether it's out of ego, pride, stubbornness, or other personal factors.  Even for those who sincerely want to get better, factors like the following one can change this for the worse.

The ability to change has the most impact.  The progress you made on things at first eventually stops having as much effect.  People have to find new ways to keep improving after a point, or they lose their ability to do so.  It's frustrating to WANT to get better and not being able to!

Finally, for most of us, the group culture can affect how easy or difficult it is to improve, depending on their resources, how long you've been in the group, the infrastructure, number of other members, etc.

At first, it might seem like improving is simply a matter of wanting it, but like most things, on closer look, there's more to it than that.  Be aware, be willing, find ways to make it happen, and find how it best will work in your group.  It seems like a lot of work, but the payoff is worth it!