Better By The Day

Hello and welcome to Tony Cultivates. Tony Cultivates is my website where I share my life's goals, thoughts, insights, and advices. By nature, I love to add value to those around me in whichever way I can. By adding value to others, I like to believe that I am being productive in making others productive in school, in work, in the community, and ultimately in life. With that being said, thank you for being here and reading my first post.

You may be wondering what the deeper meaning to my title may mean, or why I chose that to be my first post. So what does it mean to be "better by the day"? Is it even humanly possible to always be "better"? Is this only a means of setting a standard way too high just to be met with failure? On the contrary, this frame of thinking is what drives success. If you think that may be a bit excessive, then let me explain. "Better by the day" is my daily mantra, the lifestyle I choose to live by, and hopefully the one you might adopt. Better by the day isn't meant to be a grandiose display of what a person can do in a single day and compare it to the previous day. Rather, "Better by the Day" is meant to be sustainable lifestyle of perpetual growth and curiosity. It is meant for you to choose sustainable goals, focus on those goals today, and put in the work to cultivate those areas of your life. Whether it is playing a sport, being a friend, or starting a business, it is all about putting in the time today to grow that part of your life.

I want you to notice, how I did not say "to play a sport better today, be a better friend today, or start a better business today."

It may sound counterintuitive, but it's not always about having the notion of outdoing yourself and being better all the time. Yes, I know earlier I said that this is a lifestyle of perpetual growth. I also did not say to outdo yourself daily. The goal is to be sustainable. It is not sustainable to constantly pick a daily goal of being better than your previous best. For example, "I need to run faster today than I did yesterday". This is not realistic, otherwise we would have millions of Barry Alans in the world (For the DC fans, wish it were true). There is a subtle difference between extrinsically being better and intrinsically being better. The act of being intrinsically better is simply to just do. So rather than just focusing on the extrinsic value such as I need to play better, I need this to be better, I need to be better, start by simply just doing what you set out to do.

Here's food for thought. If you want to be a better runner, start by simply just running. If you want to start a business, start with selling yourself. How can you be a better runner if you don't run? How can you start a business, if you don't have value for yourself? Rather than constantly trying to outdo yourself, be better by doing the things you said you would do today.

"Today I am going to spend 1 hour in the gym. Today I will read for 30 minutes before bed. Today I will text my mom and tell her I love her. Today I will write 5 things I love about myself."

Now that is the right frame of thinking. Just by simply doing the task you said you would do, you are one step further than you were yesterday, and by that definition you are better today than you were yesterday.

So what did you do today?

Tony Nguyen