We live in a culture that touts the benefits of continual self-improvement, but it can be hard to figure out how to actually carry that out. If you’re too ambitious, you’ll burn out, but if you don’t challenge yourself enough, you’ll get bored and make no progress. How can you succeed in improving in the areas where you most want to? How do you know what needs improvement in the first place? The tips below can help.

Start Slowly

The idea of self-improvement can be intoxicating, and this can lead to creating an overly ambitious plan for whatever it is that you hope to accomplish. You might decide that you will spend an hour a day on your new project. Carving out this much time is actually a pretty ambitious start, and you might even stick to it for a week or so. While you can make a lot of progress, you may find that you’re neglecting other areas of your life. In some cases, such as if you’re going from being totally sedentary to exercising, it can be counterproductive, making it more likely that you’ll get injured and give up. Instead, try to start with just one small change, and add onto that slowly over time.

Problem Solve

Another common mistake people make when they are trying to improve themselves is allowing obstacles to stop them in their tracks. You need to be good at problem solving so that this doesn’t happen. If you’ve decided that you finally want to get your college degree, you may be deterred by the costs. One solution would be to look into scholarships for college students. You can search online for different ones that you might be eligible for. Whatever challenges you may be facing, brainstorm some solutions and then work your way through them methodically to find the best ones.

Be Accountable

Find a way to be accountable, whatever that means to you. You do need to set some concrete goals so that you’ll have a way to measure your accountability even if you are just aiming to establish some habits, such as writing down five reasons you’re grateful each day. Beyond that, you can keep yourself accountable or you can work with a friend, a group, or even an app to help track your progress and stick to your plan. Choose milestones, and give yourself rewards when you reach them.

Personalize

Above all, when it comes to succeeding at self-improvement, you need to figure out what works for you, which often means wading through reading and hearing a lot about what worked for someone else. There can be a lot of trial and error in this process as you reimagine your relationships with yourself and others, and often, it’s about following your gut. You may need to cultivate some self-awareness so that you can genuinely assess how well a certain approach is working for you. You’ll also know better than anyone what things you need to prioritize when it comes to choosing your areas of improvement. For some, working with a counselor or a life coach can be helpful in making a plan and identifying the best way to stick to it.