How to be a better person is a question about small everyday choices far more than personality, mostly how we treat people, whether we own our mistakes and whether we keep our word. Nobody has to become perfect, or carry guilt forever. Our view, which some will find too modest, is that one habit practiced for a week changes more than thirty tips read in one night.
Many of us type this question on a difficult evening, right after we snapped at someone we love, broke a promise or caught ourselves being a person we did not particularly like. Readers on Reddit describe that moment, some of them with a long list of everything they intend to fix by Monday.
We would rather start smaller than that.
Quick pick
Which Area Needs Work First?
Choose the one that sounds most like your week, then jump to the habit for it.
- Do you plan your reply while others talk? Start with listening, and ask one follow-up question
- Do you snap, then regret it? Start with patience, and count to three first
- Do you bluff or say yes when you mean no? Start with honesty, and keep one small promise a day
- Do people find you hard to approach? Start with warmth, and remember one detail about them
- Want an easy first step? Start with kindness, one small act a day
- Did you hurt someone recently? Start with a three-line apology and a repair
Keep reading below The weekly self-review When you slip back The most negative person in your life Questions
Becoming a better person is one part of your own growth, and the reasons kindness matters so much, to the giver as well as the receiver, are explained in our guide on why kindness is important.
What It Means to Be a Better Person
A better person is simply someone who treats people a little better this month than they did last month. It is measured in actions other people can see, and never in how guilty we feel about ourselves.
Why do we make it so complicated, then? Well, most of us want a verdict.
‘Am I a good person?’ feels like the real question, yet it has no useful answer, because none of us is entirely good or entirely bad on every single day of the week. What did we actually do this week? That question has an answer, and the answer can change by next Sunday.
Owning what we did, listening before we defend ourselves, keeping small promises and being fair to people who can do nothing for us cover most of it. None of it is new, and none of it is hard to understand, because the hard part is doing it on a day when we are tired. Everything else on this page is a way of practicing one of those four.
How to Be a Good Person Without Chasing a Label
How to be a good person is a slightly different search with the same honest answer, because goodness is something we keep doing, never a title we earn once. A label also makes us defensive, since any pointed-out mistake then feels like an attack on who we are.
A reader on Reddit’s r/selfimprovement described the feeling plainly, “I want to be a good person. And I am genuinely trying to become one”. Readers in threads like this often say that old mistakes keep coming back to mind and make the effort feel pointless.
That trying is the good part, and it counts.
Dushka Zapata, a Quora writer, offers a practice in her answer to “How do you make yourself a better person?” She wonders what would happen if, “within the confines of healthy boundaries,” she took up a practice of making things easier for others.
We like that test because it fits any ordinary day. Did we make one thing easier for one person today, without turning ourselves into a doormat?
Pick One Area to Start
Trying to fix everything on Monday usually ends with fixing nothing by Thursday. We suggest choosing the one area below that honestly needs the most attention, and giving it a full week before even looking at another one.
If what you need is maturity in general, such as accepting criticism gracefully and owning your moods, our guide on how to be more mature covers those everyday habits.
○ Listening
Most arguments get worse because both people are busy preparing their reply while the other one is still talking. The practice for this week is listening to the end of every sentence before building our own, and asking one follow-up question before sharing a story of our own.
A phone lying face down on the table, or better still in another room, changes a conversation more than most of us expect. It is a small thing, and it is the small things that people notice within a day!
○ Patience
Patience is mostly the gap between what happens to us and what we say next. A count of three before replying to anything that stings, and an angry message left sitting as a draft until the following morning, widen that gap considerably.
One young reader on r/selfimprovement asked how to stop speaking before thinking, after repeatedly hurting the people around them. The pause is the honest answer, and it gets easier every time we use it. It does not have to be a long pause, only long enough for us to choose what we say.
○ Honesty
Honesty starts with one small promise kept every day, even a promise to ourselves, such as replying to a message when we said we would. It also means saying “I don’t know” when we don’t, and giving a clear no instead of a vague yes we secretly plan to wriggle out of later.
The harder version is admitting the less flattering reason behind something we did.
It is uncomfortable, and it is exactly where the real change begins.
○ Warmth
An introvert on r/DecidingToBeBetter once asked whether it was too late to become warm, comforting and easy to talk to. It is not, because warmth is a collection of small habits that any of us can learn, quiet people included.
Using someone’s name, remembering one detail from the previous conversation and asking about it, and thanking people for something specific all count. “Thanks for waiting for me after class” lands far better than “thanks for everything”.
○ Kindness
Kindness is the easiest area to begin with, because there is always someone nearby who could use a hand. Our list of random acts of kindness has small ideas sorted by setting and effort, and one a day is plenty for a first week.
A quieter version is gratitude. NIH News in Health says the first step in any gratitude practice is to reflect on the good things that have happened in your life. The same NIH article admits it seems to work for some people and not for everyone, so we treat it as optional.
The ‘Sunday Three’ Weekly Self-Review
Of everything on this page, this is the habit we would keep if we could keep only one. Once a week, ten quiet minutes with a notebook or the notes app on a phone is enough to answer three questions in writing.
- Who did I treat well this week, and what exactly did I do?
- Where was I defensive, short or unkind?
- What is one thing I will do differently next week?
Full sentences work better than single words. “I was rude to my sister” helps far less than “I interrupted my sister at dinner when she talked about her exams, because I was exhausted and wanted to scroll,” since the second sentence shows exactly when to watch ourselves next time.
However, the second question is the difficult one, and our tone while answering it matters. In 2012 experiments by Breines and Chen, people wrote for three minutes about a weakness or something they had done, from a compassionate and understanding point of view. Kelly McGonigal, writing in Psychology Today, reported that those who took a self-compassionate view showed greater willingness to learn from it and improve.
These were short laboratory tasks, and they measured willingness rather than lasting change, so we read the result as a hint and not a promise. Still, the hint points in one direction, which is to answer question two the way a fair friend would, never the way a judge would.
There is no score and nothing to pass, and nobody else has to read it. After four or five Sundays, reading every answer back in one sitting tends to reveal a pattern we could never notice week by week.
Listen Before You Defend
Some of the most honest lines in these threads are about the distance between intention and impact. One reader on Reddit’s r/DecidingToBeBetter, looking back on how she had hurt people close to her, wrote, “I wanted my intentions to matter more than the impact of my actions”.
Most of us do exactly the same thing. When someone tells us we hurt them, our first instinct is to explain what we meant, and the explanation reaches the other person as ‘so your hurt does not count’.
A better response begins with “tell me more,” then listening to the end, repeating back what we heard, and only afterwards, if it still matters, explaining what we intended.
If conversations keep circling back to you, our honest guide on how to stop being selfish looks at that pattern without calling anyone names.
Owning a Mistake With a Real Apology
A good apology is the most useful skill on this page, since all of us will need one again. In a 2016 study led by Roy Lewicki, Ohio State University reports, an apology has six components, and the more it includes, the better it works. Participants only read written apologies, the Ohio State report adds, so the emotion and voice of a spoken one went untested.
Roy Lewicki told Ohio State that the most important component is an acknowledgment of responsibility, saying it was your fault. Roy Lewicki also stressed offering to fix what is wrong, which turns cheap talk into action. The least effective element was a request for forgiveness, which Ohio State quotes him saying you can leave out.
Here is a short script built on those findings.
- “I was wrong to ___. That was my fault.”
- “I’m sorry it hurt you.”
- “Here is what I’m going to do about it, starting with ___.”
After that, the kindest thing is to stop talking. We think the urge to add a long explanation is where most apologies fall apart, and that is our reading, not the study’s.
“I’m sorry you feel that way” apologizes for their feelings instead of our action, and a “but” in the middle quietly cancels everything said before it, so both are better left out. Asking to be forgiven on the spot is also unfair, since the other person may need time, and that is entirely their right.
Repair is often small. It might mean replacing something we broke, correcting a story we told about someone in the group chat, or turning up on time for the next five practices.
A reader on r/DecidingToBeBetter made the point herself that saying sorry does not undo the damage on its own, which is exactly why that third line exists.
○ Forgiving Yourself, and Others
Old mistakes have a habit of replaying at the worst possible moments, and readers describe them returning at the worst moments, still embarrassing. However, replaying a mistake is not the same as making amends for it.
Mayo Clinic’s page on forgiveness says it does not mean forgetting or excusing harm, and does not necessarily mean making up with the person who caused it. The same Mayo Clinic page calls forgiveness a commitment to change that takes practice.
We find both lines just as useful when the person we are struggling to forgive is ourselves. If we have apologized and repaired what we can, we have done our part, and guilt that replays every night adds nothing further to it.
When the Old You Shows Up Again
Everybody slips. Somewhere around week three, most of us snap at someone or forget the promise we were so proud of keeping, and it feels like proof that nothing has changed at all.
It isn’t proof of anything. One reader on Reddit’s r/DecidingToBeBetter wrote that becoming a better person “doesn’t mean becoming perfect”, and that line deserves a place on every fridge.
We call the day after a lapse a ‘slip day’, and it has a simple routine. We notice it the same day, apologize if someone else was on the receiving end, write it into the Sunday answers, and do the next small thing on our list the following morning.
There is no need to restart the week, and certainly no need to punish ourselves first.
What Readers Say Actually Changed Them
Advice lists are everywhere, yet honest accounts of what worked are much rarer, and readers on Reddit offer a few.
One reader on r/DecidingToBeBetter, looking back over roughly ten years, said he had become far less judgmental, and he named the first thing that helped, “becoming good friends with people from around the world from different cultures”. He also went to events where everyone was welcome, and he says people now come to him for advice.
Another reader in the same Reddit community made a list after realizing she could not keep blaming other people. Listening without getting defensive, not making everything about herself, accepting criticism without hearing an attack, thinking before reacting and respecting other people’s boundaries were all on it.
Not one item on her list is about feeling better about herself, which is probably why it is such a good list.
The pattern in both accounts is plain. Change came from contact with other people and from specific behaviors, and neither of them describes one dramatic moment of resolve.
How to Handle the Most Negative Person in Your Life
Almost all of us have one, whether it is the friend who finds fault with every plan, the coworker who complains through every lunch or the relative whose comments always sting a little. Being a better person does not mean soaking up all of it, and a dramatic speech followed by silence is rarely an improvement.
What is ours to decide is how we reply, how long we stay and what we choose to share. We cannot change their mood, but we can change how much of our evening it takes. It is their mood, and it does not have to become ours.
One limit, said calmly and only once, usually does more than a lecture. “I’d rather not talk about my grades at dinner,” “I can stay for an hour today” or “let’s talk about something else” is generally enough.
Labels are best left out of it, even inside our own heads. A label turns one difficult habit into a whole person, and after that every conversation becomes an argument we have already decided to lose.
Sometimes stepping back is the right call, and stepping back is not the same as being unkind. For loosening a bond that has started to weigh on you, our guide on how to stop getting too attached to people helps with letting go without bitterness.
Kind Without Being a Doormat
Being good is not the same as agreeing to everything. When we never say no, resentment builds quietly, and it leaks out later as exactly the short, cold moments we were trying so hard to avoid.
A kind no is short and clear, something like “I can’t help this weekend, but I can look at it with you on Tuesday.” It respects the other person enough to tell them the truth, and it saves us from promising what we would later resent.
Remember Dushka Zapata’s phrase about healthy boundaries? That is the whole balance in a few words, and we think it matters as much as any generous gesture on this page.
How Do I Truly Become a Better Person?
Truly becoming a better person takes months of the same small things, checked once a week, with plenty of slips along the way. There is no moment when it is finished, which is actually encouraging, since it means none of us is ever too late to start.
How do we train ourselves, then? Well, the same way anyone learns a skill, one area at a time, practiced on ordinary days, with an honest look back every Sunday.
The proof seldom comes from how we feel, and far more often arrives when someone says “you’ve changed” before we have told them anything.
If your aim is wider, our guide to becoming a better version of yourself maps out habits, goals and the other areas of growing up. Men asking this question for themselves will find a guide written specifically for them in how to be a better man.
Nobody becomes a good person once and for all. We simply get another chance to be one tomorrow morning!
Questions About Becoming a Better Person
How do I truly become a better person?
Pick one area, such as listening, patience or honesty, and practice one small habit in it every day for a week. Once a week, write down who you treated well, where you were short or unkind, and one thing you will do differently. Real change takes months of these small repeats, with slips along the way, and it usually shows first in what other people notice.
How do I train myself to be a better person?
Train it like any other skill: one area at a time, practiced on ordinary days. Pause before replying to anything that stings, listen to the end of sentences, keep one small promise a day, and review your week in writing every Sunday. Be fair to yourself while you do it; a 2012 set of experiments reported in Psychology Today reported that people who took a self-compassionate view of a weakness or mistake were more willing to learn from it.
How can I be a better person after doing something wrong?
Own it, repair it and change one habit. Ohio State researchers found that acknowledging responsibility is the most important part of an apology, that committing to fix what is wrong turns words into action, and that asking for forgiveness is the part you can leave out. Say what you did wrong, say you are sorry it hurt them, say what you will do about it, then stop talking and give them time.
What is the first step to being a good person?
Notice how you affect the people around you this week, in actions rather than intentions. Listening to someone fully before defending yourself is often the simplest place to begin, because many of the hurts we cause come from explaining what we meant instead of hearing what happened to them.
How do I handle the most negative person in my life?
Focus on what you control: how you reply, how long you stay and what you share. Pick one calm limit, such as changing the subject or leaving after an hour, and say it once without a lecture. Avoid labelling them, and remember that stepping back from someone is not the same as being unkind.
