Your Best Self: Activities, Journaling, & Tips

Your best self is not about perfection—it’s about aiming to be the best version of yourself. It’s living according to your values, pursuing your passions, and using your individual strengths and talents. 

Here’s how your best self differs from two related concepts (Bak, 2014):

• Actual Self: This is who you are right now, with your strengths, weaknesses, and current life circumstances.
• Ought Self: This is the person you think you should be based on external pressures or expectations. It includes things like your sense of duty, obligations, and responsibilities.

​Your best self builds upon your actual self, incorporating your values and aspirations. It emerges from your core values and desires, not external pressures.

• Mindfulness and Meditation: Cultivating mindfulness helps you stay present, manage stress, and develop self-awareness, essential for aligning with your best self.
• Goal Setting and Planning: Clearly defined goals and actionable plans enable you to progress toward your best self systematically.
• Physical Exercise and Wellness Practices: Taking care of your body through exercise, proper nutrition, and adequate rest enhances overall well-being, contributing to your best self.
• Learning and Skill Development: Continuous learning, acquiring new skills, and seeking knowledge empower personal growth and self-improvement.
• Creative Expression: Engaging in creative pursuits such as art, writing, music, or hobbies fosters self-expression and taps into your unique talents.
• Vision Board: Create a vision board filled with images and words that represent your best self’s life.
• Strengths Finder: Take a strengths finder assessment to identify your top strengths and how to leverage them for success.
• Gratitude Journaling: Reflecting on what you’re grateful for fosters positivity and motivates you to be your best self.
• Volunteer Work: Helping others is a powerful way to connect with your values and become a more compassionate person.

• Self-Awareness: When you become clear about how you see your ideal self, you become more self-aware and authentic. This knowledge provides direction and helps you make choices aligned with your values, leading to a more fulfilling life.
• Motivation: A clear vision of your best self fuels your motivation to take action and reach your full potential. It gives you a sense of direction. When you know who you want to be, you’re more likely to set goals and take action to achieve them.
• Self-Esteem: Research shows that people with more positive views of themselves (believe they’re closer to being their best selves) have higher self-esteem (Showers et al., 2015). Understanding your strengths, values, and aspirations boosts your self-esteem and confidence. You become more assured in your abilities and convictions, which translates into a more positive self-image and assertiveness in pursuing your dreams.
• Enhanced Well-being: Research suggests that writing about your best possible self improves well-being (Carrillo et al., 2019). Striving to be your best self fosters personal growth and a sense of fulfillment. 
• Relationships: Clarity about your values and aspirations helps you form deeper and more meaningful connections with others. You attract like-minded individuals who resonate with your authentic self, leading to more fulfilling relationships and collaborations.
• Life Satisfaction: Clarifying your best self can lead to greater overall life satisfaction. When you live in alignment with your values, pursue your passions, and nurture meaningful relationships, it contributes to a profound sense of fulfillment and well-being.

Here are some common themes that come out when people describe their best selves:

• Strong character: This includes traits like honesty, integrity, and compassion. Your best self acts with kindness and fairness, even when it’s difficult.
• Living with purpose: This means pursuing goals that are meaningful to you and feeling engaged in life. Your best self is working towards something you believe in.
• Self-awareness: Your best self understands its strengths and weaknesses, and is always working to grow and improve.
• Resilience: Life throws curveballs, but your best self can bounce back from setbacks and keep moving forward.
• Healthy habits: Taking care of your physical and mental health allows you to be your best self. This includes things like eating well, getting enough sleep, and exercising.
• Positive outlook: Your best self has a can-do attitude and focuses on the good in life.​

If you need some ideas for how to become your best self, check out the items below:

• Self-Reflection: Regularly reflect on your values, strengths, goals, and areas for growth. This can be simply taking a few minutes each day to think about who you are at your best.
• Take Action: Consistently take small steps. Each day, do something to be a little more like your ideal self. 
• Set SMART Goals: Create Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound goals aligned with your best self. Setting SMART goals helps keep you on track, and it’s motivating as you see progress.
• Seek Feedback: Solicit feedback from trusted mentors, friends, or coaches to gain insights and improve. They may also see your strengths in ways that you don’t, which can boost self-confidence and motivation.
• Practice Self-Compassion: Be kind to yourself, accept imperfections, and learn from setbacks without harsh self-judgment. Remember, nobody is their “ideal” self all the time. You’re human!
• Stay Flexible: Adapt to changes, reassess priorities, and pivot when necessary while staying true to your core values.

Journaling can be a great tool to clarify how you see your best self and to find ways to bring it out. It can also aid in self-discovery and growth. By reflecting on experiences, you can identify patterns and habits that hold the key to your best self (Roberts et al., 2021). 

Sometimes, it’s the seemingly ordinary moments that hold the most value. For example, a businessperson might discover through journaling about work interactions that their most effective communication style is through casual pre-meeting conversations. This self-awareness empowers them to adjust their approach, leading to stronger relationships and professional success (Roberts et al., 2021). In essence, journaling can be the map to unlocking your full potential.

Here are some prompts to get you started:

• What are my core values?
• What are my biggest strengths and weaknesses?
• How can my strengths complement my weaknesses?
• What does my ideal day look like?
• Who inspires me and why?
• How would I handle a difficult situation when I’m being my best self?
• What is one habit or behavior that is not serving me? How can I let go of it? 
• Think of any bad habits I might have already overcome—what did I do to get rid of them?
• What can I do to step outside of my comfort zone?
• What steps can I take today to move closer to my best self?

In simple terms, self-discipline is about using your willpower to achieve your goals. It’s about pushing through challenges and distractions to get what you want.

Two experts offer similar definitions:

• Zimmerman and Kitsantas (2014) describe it as consciously controlling yourself to reach your goals, even when things get tough.
• Angela Duckworth, a leading researcher in self-control, says it’s about resisting the urge to do something easy in favor of something more important for your long-term goals. This takes effort; not everyone does it automatically (Duckworth & Seligman, 2005).

Working toward your best self isn’t always easy, especially since we’re surrounded by distractions screaming for our attention. So it’s not hard to see how self-discipline becomes important for keeping us on the right track. 

Consistent self-discipline fosters a growth mindset. You might naturally gravitate towards practices like goal-setting, time management, and perseverance. These habits become the building blocks of success, not just for reaching specific targets, but for a continuous journey of self-improvement.

Challenges are inevitable, but self-discipline equips you to navigate them. It strengthens your resilience, allowing you to stay committed even when faced with setbacks. This can build unshakeable confidence and self-belief, crucial for lasting personal growth.

Perhaps the most profound impact of self-discipline is the sense of life purpose it cultivates. When you consistently pursue your passions, you experience a deeper level of fulfillment. It’s about aligning your actions with your values, leading to a life rich with meaning and direction.

Self-worth is your sense of value as a human being (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, n.d.) It’s essentially believing you deserve love and respect, regardless of achievements. It’s the foundation for a positive self-image and can be a key factor in reaching your full potential. For example, when you have strong self-worth, you believe in your abilities and are more likely to set and achieve goals. You’re also better at handling criticism and setbacks because you know your value isn’t defined by external factors.

On the flip side, striving for your best self can contribute to a healthy sense of self-worth. First, the process of growth itself fosters a sense of accomplishment. As you develop your talents and overcome challenges, you witness your resilience and capability. This builds confidence in your ability to navigate future obstacles. Second, the act of striving confirms your belief in your inherent value. By dedicating time and effort to self-improvement, you show yourself respect and a commitment to becoming the best version of yourself. This self-care translates into a stronger sense of self-worth.

Thank you to everyone who submitted your responses to this activity! We can now share some common themes that emerged among our community.

In the Berkeley Well-Being Institute community, you most often saw your best self as someone who is:

• Kind, supportive, patient, compassionate, and a good listener
• Able to manage negative emotions and difficult situations
• Successful in achieving your goals
• Engaged in life, doing activities that you enjoy
• Kind to yourself, confident, and self-assured
• Authentic and true to yourself

If these were some of things that you identified in your best self, click through on the links above to read more about how to build these skills and become that best version of yourself.

• Bak, W. (2014). Self-standards and self-discrepancies. A structural model of self-knowledge. Current Psychology, 33(2), 155-173.
  
• Boyatzis, R., & Dhar, U. (2021). Dynamics of the ideal self. Journal of Management Development, 41(1), 1-9.
  
• Carrillo, A., Martínez-Sanchis, M., Etchemendy, E., & Baños, R. M. (2019). Qualitative analysis of the Best Possible Self intervention: Underlying mechanisms that influence its efficacy. Plos one, 14(5), e0216896.
  
• Duckworth, A. L., & Seligman, M. E. (2005). Self-discipline outdoes IQ in predicting academic performance of adolescents. Psychological science, 16(12), 939-944.
  
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary. (n.d.). Self-worth definition & meaning. Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/self-worth 
  
• Roberts, L. M., Heaphy, E. D., & Caza, B. B. (2021, August 31). To become your best self, study your successes. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/05/to-become-your-best-self-study-your-successes 
  
• Showers, C. J., Ditzfeld, C. P., & Zeigler‐Hill, V. (2015). Self‐concept structure and the quality of self‐knowledge. Journal of personality, 83(5), 535-551.
  
• Zimmerman, B. J., & Kitsantas, A. (2014). Comparing Students’ Self-Discipline and Self-Regulation Measures and Their Prediction of Academic Achievement. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 39 (2), 145–155.