Are you using self-improvement wrong? Are we all?
Have we been doing self-improvement wrong? The self-help industry has existed for more than eight decades. By now, you would think that we would all be achieving our best and living extraordinary lives. Instead, the rate of prescriptions for anti-depressants is rising, and people report being more unhappy and anxious.
Does this mean that the concept of self-help is flawed? Or does it mean that we have been misusing self-improvement?
Over the last many years, thousands of books have been written on the topic of self-improvement, living your best life, better managing your time, and finding the love you deserve. The self-help industry is poised to grow to $13.2 billion by 2022. That is a lot of people shelling out a lot of money. They are not doing that because they are happy with where they are in their lives, relationships, and careers.
Is self-help helping?
My question for you is this, is the current approach to self-help actually helping people get what they want? The rising rate of depression, prescriptions for anti-depressant drugs, and suicides tells us something is wrong. Is it possible that the focus on self-help is making the problem worse?
I have read innumerable books in the self-improvement genera and even written articles on the topic. I did learn a lot in the process and believe that the advice I have shared is helpful and valuable because it did help me. But I have also come to see that there are limits to how far self-help can take us and that over-reliance on it may be counterproductive.
An allegory
A wise man once explained that when it comes to knowing God, the scriptures and traditions can only take you so far. He said that the camel can take you to the temple, but you need to dismount from the camel and walk to the altar yourself. I have come to see that all the best advice in the world is the same way; it can only take you so far. Eventually, there comes the point where you need to dismount and go forward on your own.
The Problems with Self-improvement
Reflecting on the issue, I have identified several ways that self-help advice can hold you back and have thoughts on proceeding more productively. Here are the problems as I see them and some ideas on where we should all be going.
It creates the idea there is something wrong with you.
The biggest problem with the idea of self-improvement is that insidious belief baked into it that you are not good enough or that there is something wrong with you. For self-improvement to work, there needs to be something in need of improvement. There needs to be something wrong with you that requires fixing.
The truth is, there is nothing wrong with you. We each have our quirks and idiosyncrasies; that is what makes us interesting. We are all weird in some way, and that is a beautiful thing. The people who make the world a more exciting place do so not by homogenizing themselves to “fit in.” They show us something new and creative by embracing their weirdness, building on it, and finding a tribe of like-minded people.
The truth is, there is nothing wrong with you.
The world would be a lot less interesting if artist like Pablo Picasso felt the need to make their work look like everyone else’s. Science would not have advanced if people like Albert Einstein had accepted the conventions of their day and not pursued their fascination with the details that did not fit. And new products like your ubiquitous cellphone would not have happened if people fascinated by the communicators on the TV series Star Trek had not insisted on playing with the idea.
You need to embrace your weirdness, not cover it up in an attempt to chase success by emulating those who preceded you. Wierd is where you find all the great new ideas and solutions. If you need a tutorial on that subject, I highly recommend The Mitchells vs. The Machines on Netflix. My son insisted I watch it with him, and I’m glad I did. It’s a fast-paced and highly entertaining tale of the eccentric Mitchell family whose weirdness proves to be exactly what the world needs to stave off a robot apocalypse.
There is no there.
You will never reach a point where you are perfect. Self-improvement is an asymptotic process. If you don’t remember asymptotes from high school geometry, an asymptote is a line on a graph that approaches zero but never reaches it. Take any number, divide it in half, then divide the product in half. It turns out you can do this infinitely with increasingly small numbers but never reach zero. The same thing occurs with self-improvement, you can always strive to get a little better, but you will never achieve the ideal.
If your goal is perfection, you have already failed because you have chosen an unachievable goal. There will always be one more book you could read, one more video you could watch, or a seminar you could attend that might get you a little closer. If you have completed the Gold level of the program but still don’t feel ready, there are the Platinum, Titanium, and Diamond levels you can sign up for next.
Self-improvement equals procrastination.
At its worst, this endless quest for improvement becomes a form of productive procrastination. You think that you will begin when you feel ready. But you never will be ready. You never will be perfect. The best thing to do is start where you are today with what you have and figure it out as you go.
A piecemeal approach to improvement.
Much of what people pursue is not a program for self-betterment but a grab bag of miscellaneous tips, tricks, and life-hacks. You see a magazine article where a successful person explains what they did, and you think, “I’m going to do that.” But just because that worked once does not guarantee it will work again. Moreover, successful people like to spin a good yarn about how they got where they are, but those myths overlook many circumstances and chance events that you can’t duplicate. So when you inevitably fail, you blame yourself for not trying hard enough or being good enough, and then you go looking for the next tip that will change your life.
So much advice today is life-hacks.
Much of the advice given today is just life-hacks, little changes you can make in your life that promise to generate outsized results. It’s not that these hacks are wrong or don’t work; it is that people often mix and match them in a random pattern. Rather than having a clear vision of where they want to go and what they want to achieve, people pick hacks based on the ease of implementation and disproportionate results promised.
But it does not matter how effective a hack is if it does not serve your larger vision. Sure, an all kale diet may result in tremendous weight loss (probably because no one can stand to eat that much kale), but if it is not part of a global change in your lifestyle, you will put the weight back on as soon as you achieve your goal weight and go off the diet.
Life hacks, time management tips, miracle diets, and get ripped quick workouts are only good if they fit into a larger strategy for the life you want to create for yourself. It does not matter how effective any tactic is; if it doesn’t fit into your larger plan, it will fail. And when it does, you will blame yourself, feel guilty, and think that you are not good enough.
Rather than search out the best life hacks on the internet, think about the life you want to live. Focus on the big picture and it will become apparent to you what serves your interest and what does not. Drop whatever does not fit, no matter how great the results others may have gotten. It does not matter how fast you are going if you are on the wrong road. It does not matter how great the results are from a life hack if that hack does not take you where you want to go.
Are you cheating the world?
I wonder how many of the world’s problems could be solved by brilliant and creative people who are busy fixing themselves rather than investing that effort into improving the world? How many original ideas and unique perspectives are being lost to the misperception that you must think like everyone else to succeed?
We are missing out on unique contributions to the world from people trying to improve themselves rather than just getting to work where they are.
Conclusion
Stop working on yourself and start working. The world doesn’t need you to be perfect; the world needs you to be unique. We all need you to embrace your weirdness rather than subdue it. The only thing that is wrong with you is your belief that there is something wrong with you. That belief holds you back. It keeps you from starting. It convinces you to hide what you have to offer the world. But nothing needs to be different. You don’t need to improve before you can start; you just need to start.
