I Self-Improved Until I Was Miserable

It’s not drugs, laziness, or alcohol that keeps millions of people from becoming happy and successful.

No. It’s something that promises to lead to happiness & meaning & success. That’s why so many people fall for it. And those aren’t average people. Those are folks who are eager to live a life of meaning. People who are motivated to achieve greatness. People who put in the work.

Still, if you look at that group of people, you’ll find most of them are stressed out, unhappy, and lost. So what is it that they’re doing wrong?

Their mistake is that they’re trying to self-improve.

“Self-improvement is the name of the game”

— Maxwell Maltz

Ever since How To Win Friends and Influence People was written, people have been following the cult of self-improvement. They want to be more successful, more productive, more outgoing, richer, more attractive, smarter, and happier.

Yet, most of them are miserable and never happy or fulfilled. I fell for it myself:

I started waking up early, daily planning, goal-setting, and exercising. Even though I achieved my biggest goals, I never felt done. Whenever I had some free time, I felt guilty for not using it efficiently enough.

There was always some other aspect to improve. No matter how far I came, there was no reason to be proud or take a step back. Why would I celebrate aceing an exam if I haven’t yet achieved my other goals?

You’re not good enough

I work part-time in a psychiatry. I meet people suffering from this toxic self-improvement mindset every day. They work themselves to death, achieve amazing things, and still feel inadequate.

I once talked to a patient that ran a multi-million dollar tech start-up. All his peers envied him and asked him for advice: how did you do it? I wish I was as successful as you, etc. Still, he felt like a failure, because there were others far more efficient, visionary, and successful than him.

And I was the same. Only after I almost burned myself out, I realized the flaws of self-improvement culture. The mindset of self-improvement was no longer making my life better, but worse. Considering that self-improvement promises to achieve the opposite, that was odd.

I realized the cause of this. There is an underlying premise behind self-improvement culture:

To be happy and successful, you have to become a different person.

The premise could also be worded differently:

You’re not good enough the way you are right now.

But here’s why that assumption is so dangerous and makes so many of us unhappy: to be happy, you need to be content with who you are and what you have. Only then you will be able to understand you already have all you need to be happy.

Self-improvement culture keeps screaming a different message at you: you are flawed! Work on yourself or you'll never be worthy!

A change of perspective

This is not a call to laziness. No! If you want to become better at something, or healthier, or be more productive, go for it!

All I ask you to do is not do it from a perspective of deficit. Instead, do it from a perspective of growth. See it as an opportunity to grow.

Since a seed will only grow in fertile earth, you have to realize you are fertile earth already. Appreciate what you have. Appreciate that you’ve made it this far, through all kinds of hardships and struggles.

You did it. You’re amazing. You’re tough. You’re alright the way you are. Don’t do it because you hate yourself.

Do it because you love yourself.