How to Be a Better Person: 8 Keys

If you want to learn how to be a better person, you must start by changing your interior and reading your surroundings in a more conscious and positive way. We'll tell you more!

Learning how to be a better person may seem like an easy thing to do. Offering someone a plate of food or a bit of loose change seem like simple acts that lead us down that path. But it turns out that there’s something more to it. It’s about wanting to ignite something inside us that remains, that’s not intermittent, and that makes us feel satisfied with our actions at all times.

Although it seems easy, the work that needs to be done to be a better person must be done every day. It’s a process that begins every morning with the desire to get rid of everything that keeps you from it: Rumors, traffic, and grudges, among others, and that must be evaluated every night in order to start taking a better path when waking up.

The 8 keys that teach you how to be a better person

Here, we’ll tell you what are those 8 keys that will teach you how to be a better person are, which you should practice every day of your life. Over time, you’ll realize that you perform these actions innately, because it’s not about forcing yourself to be better, but about working on being better.

1. Be grateful and generous

We live in a world in which the word thank you seems to be on the verge of extinction. Can you remember how many times you were grateful today? If you can count more than 3 times, you’re on the right track.

Gratitude is, according to positive psychology, a human strength that, for many exponents of this current, is manifested as the awareness to recognize the good things that happen to and around us.

That’s right, the first step to being a better person begins with being grateful–grateful for life, for waking up healthy, and for everything you have, which should be accompanied by the externalization of that feeling. For example, thanking your partner for breakfast or a waiter for giving you good service.

Part of being grateful lies in the awareness of the generosity received, which is why it’s also worth being generous with others. Although it’s not about giving in order to receive; the cycle can be completed in a selfless way and includes being grateful that you have things that you can share with others.

2. Take care of your friends

Friends play a very important role in people’s lives. In fact, studies have reviewed their impact on school life and in aspects as important as academic performance.

When you have a real friend, there are many values, qualities, and soft skills that awaken in you. You learn to listen to others, trust them, express your feelings, and develop a concern for others. You develop a special touch because, if the person in question is your true friend, you’ll never want to hurt them, so you’re very careful that this doesn’t happen.

The idea will always be that you can put those skills into practice with people you don’t know because the fact of the matter is that every friend started out as a stranger.

3. Practice empathy

This key has to do with the previous one. Empathy has been described in multiple studies on human behavior as the ability of people to understand others. Although it goes beyond the cliché phrase of “I understand you”. It’s about really understanding what the other person thinks, feels, or does, and the emotions that are immersed in it.

Putting that empathy into practice, even with people we don’t know, undoubtedly makes us better people every day. It helps us to cultivate and strengthen emotional ties with family, friends, and anyone who wants to get closer to our life and allows us to do the same.

4. Live optimistically

Today, it’s difficult to remain optimistic when we see discouraging news on a daily basis: Crime, deaths, environmental damage, war, and heartbreaking catastrophes. If you’ve fulfilled your task of practicing empathy, those things will undoubtedly affect you. However, remember that there’s much to be thankful for and optimistic about.

When you push aside the difficulties (which doesn’t mean you’re indifferent to them) and focus on the good, you’re being optimistic, and it shows. Remember that smiling at the world is like a magnet that leads the world to smile at you because optimism is contagious. So cheer up!

5. Be patient

As the Dalai Lama describes it, “Patience is a real challenge that can only be fully developed in relation to others around us.” Practicing it makes you a better person because it invites you, first of all, not to be disturbed or altered by external factors. Remember that you’re patient when the bus does not arrive on time, for example.

Second, it helps you understand other people better. Imagine that your brother has had a very bad day and takes it out on you. If you don’t have a little empathy and patience to understand his situation, you’ll end up getting upset with him and making his day worse, as well as your own.

6. Don’t base yourself on material aspects

When people base their lives on their material possessions, it’s easy to deviate from the path to being a better person. Not because having material things is a bad thing or because money makes us bad people, but it’s negative when material things become the focus of your life.

Many believe that money brings happiness, but scientific studies have shown that, due to multiple factors, having and managing a lot of money doesn’t generate this feeling. So, when you prioritize other things like human contact or altruism over material goods, you’ll feel like a better person and, without hesitation, you’ll go in that direction.

7. Avoid complaining

Focusing on the negative that’s in our lives, on the bad that happens around us, or on what we lack can make us fall into daily complaining. Avoiding doing this makes us better people for ourselves and others. And in this way, we allow ourselves to focus on the good, as we mentioned in the first key about how to be a better person.

Keep in mind that complaining is contagious. Somehow, when we do it, we lead others to feel guilty for being better off or we lead them to focus on the bad that’s going on in their lives, overshadowing the good.

Sometimes it can create tension and suffering. Therefore, it’s better to recognize when you feel like complaining, stop, meditate a little, and resume a more positive conversation.

8. Do what you like

The last key to describing how to be a better person has to do more with us in essence. When you do something that you like and enjoy, happiness shows and spreads. When you’re unhappy and you try to put into practice the previous keys, you run the risk of falling into hypocrisy. You’re not just fooling yourself and others, and by now, you know that’s not the right way.

So take time, strengthen your spirit, your internal happiness, and everything that makes you feel good to be able to project that to others. If you add this to all the other keys, it translates into feeling like and being a better person.

You rediscover how to be a better person every day!

We’ve selected for you the best keys to discovering how to be a better person, but it doesn’t mean that these are the only ones. On this path that you’ve undertaken, you’ll find other very personal and valid keys that will enrich your transformation. Therefore, you must also learn to read yourself.

Remember that being a better person isn’t about pleasing others or trying to prove to others that you’re better than them. It’s about feeling good about yourself and having the intention of helping others and allowing others to help you.