I got an email last week from an Aliventures reader, titled “Struggling with self improvement”. The reader listed some great changes that he’d made in his life since getting interested in self improvement a year ago, but went on to write about feelings of pressure and ultimate emptiness. I won’t reproduce the whole email here, but I asked permission from the reader to quote from it:
But my problem is that I’m struggling with self-improvement, it became an obsession. I want to improve everything in my life, let’s say when I want to just eat healthy food and can’t accomplish this goal, I become nervous and feel that I can’t accomplish anything at all, forgetting my achievements which I should be proud of…
…. I think there is something missing there, but what it is?
This email struck a chord with me, and I wonder if it’s resonating with you too. If you’re keen on improving yourself, there’s a good chance you’re someone who could be described as “driven”, “perfectionistic”, “obsessive” or “Type A”. Achieving your goals, pushing on when things are tough and improving your health or financial situation are all great … but not when they come at the expense of enjoying your life.
A lot of us are “struggling with self improvement”. Not because we’re shrugging our shoulders and giving up at the first hurdle … but because we feel like we’re on a treadmill, driven desperately forwards in the hopes of achieving something that we can be proud of, only to find that it all seems empty.
What’s Self Improvement For, Exactly?
I’m no stranger to the self-improvement guilt trip. It goes something like this. Eesh, look at all these people getting up at five am, ditching caffeine, ditching sugar, eating only raw food, launching products, offering consulting, getting guest posts on Zen Habits, hacking their productivity ….
It’s easy to give ourselves a “must do better”. We should get up early, we should get that business going, we should declutter our house, we should reply to every email, we should write to distant friends regularly, we should cook from scratch every night.
Actually, no. We don’t have to do anything of the sort. Tim Brownson, life coach extraordinare, is an enemy of the word should … and I think he’s right about that. Telling yourself that you should do something is just a form of guilt-tripping. And believing that you should do it because a friend/mentor/blogger/guru does it that way? They aren’t you, and you don’t need to be them.
Self-improvement isn’t a way to tick twenty boxes, or to grin smugly at the world while touting the virtues of 5am wakeup calls, raw food and frugal living. (All good if they make you happier, if not, what’s the point?)
Self-improvement is about finding and becoming the real you. The potential you that gets squashed down inside. The you who you aren’t yet free enough or brave enough or strong enough or experienced enough to be.
Self-improvement means enjoying your life more. Yes, of course there’ll be tough patches along the way – where you work on developing self-discipline, or where you learn the hard way that being busy destroys your creativity. But, on the whole, it’s supposed to be an adventure. It’s not supposed to be a life-sapping neverending list of things to do.
Where’s Your Passion?
If you feel that the balance has tipped way too far for you – if you’re stuck in a joyless list of resolutions and improvements – then a good place to draw back to is your passions.
What do you love to do? If you had a free day (and no worries about what you “should” be doing), what would you spend your time on?
(If this whole idea makes you shrug your shoulders and go “dunno”, think about what you loved as a kid or a teenager.)
As you’ll know if you’ve read a few posts here on Aliventures, I love to write fiction. This is not some big self-improvement goal (“I’ll write a novel this year”) but a passion … I do it because I love it.
Often, I have to remind myself that it is good to do things that I enjoy. Play, creativity and fun are ultimately far more rewarding than productivity for productivity’s sake … not just for us, but for the wider world.
You’re Part of a Mosaic
So what about all those people who just don’t “get” your passion? What do you do when the doubts start creeping in: is this worthwhile? Should I be doing this? No-one else cares about it.
I have a foot firmly in two different writing camps, and this can cause some tension. I’ll talk here and on Twitter about writing my novel, and I feel awkward about it. Part of my mind tells me that bloggers are not supposed to write novels. Bloggers are supposed to spend their weekends creating cool products for sale – not spend them deep in an imaginary world watching invented people talk and act.
And when I’m in my fiction writing world – with other writers on Wednesdays in college, or reading novelists’ views on writing – then I feel awkward about blogging. Someone will make a remark about not having time for email, not seeing the point of Twitter … and I’ll feel bad about enjoying and valuing these things. I’ll end up feeling that my novel is the real, pure writing work (mostly because it’s a lot harder than blogging!) and that the blogging is some sort of hackery.
I should make it clear that almost all this is in my head. No-one ever comments here or on Twitter to say “Why the hell are you writing a novel? That’ll never pay.” No-one at college ever says “So why don’t you give up blogging and just write the novel?” I just project my own insecurities and uncertainties and doubts onto the watching world.
For me, just as for you, there’s no one role model to follow. There is no person for us to pick as a standard of excellence and say “That’s how I should live – following their schedule, adopting their habits.” We’re all unique.
You’re one person in six billion. You’re part of a very large, very rich mosaic. Your interests, talents and passions are entirely your own – and it doesn’t matter if those are very different from the people around you.
You get to say “this matters to me”. You can relax. You can do what you love. You can let loose ends slide. You can be a few pounds overweight. You can ditch the gym. You can sleep in. You can spend an evening watching television. You will not be a crap person because of it.
The mosaic would be very boring if we all tried to force ourselves to look and behave and think exactly the same. You don’t need to mimic someone else, and you don’t need to hold yourself up to “perfect” standards. Self-improvement is simply about being you.
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Wow. Great post, Ali! It reminds me of the post you wrote recently (Do You Need to “Better Yourself”?). Becoming the “real you” is indeed what self improvement is all about. Self improvement isn’t always an easy choice, but it certainly shouldn’t become a frustration, taking away the joy of improving yourself. Most importantly, improve yourself for yourself, not because of others. Really enjoyed this post!
Hello Ali.
I enjoyed your post. I admit I struggle with self improvement. I think, for me at least ( I cannot speak for any of your readers), that we all have certain habits, beliefs, and behaviors we are born with or are rooted in our upbringing that “Get in the way”, for lack of a better phrase with who we think we want to be. Finding out who we are, I am learning with age, is less about the end result, but more about looking back over a life well lived. Along the way we can make corections. But, I feel, life should be a creative process rather than an identity to which one must aspire. Brava on the post. I love these types of dialogue.
Jason Edleman
I had a lot of clients with this problem. They come into self improvement from a place of not accepting themselves and they feel the need to change everything about themselves, as soon as possible, before they can accept themselves. I think this is a very bad motivation for self improvement. I wrote a post about it myself about 4 month ago, called Self-improvement is masturbation
Eduard
Eduard @ Ideas With A Kick´s last blog ..The Law of Attraction vs. Science
Thanks, Ali… I needed to hear this today.
Thanks Bart, and yep, in many ways it was an extension of ideas from the “Do You Need to Better Yourself?” post. I think self-improvement should never be a stick to beat ourselves with..! Glad you enjoyed it.
Jason, cheers! I like your description of life as a creative process … I don’t see “identity” as a fixed thing which you’re stuck with from birth.
Eduard, thanks for bringing in your expertise here. (And what a great post title… I think …!) Yes, I agree a lot of it is about acceptance, and we’re doomed to never be satisfied if we keep on and on waiting to “improve” until we’re happy with ourselves.
Cal, thanks, glad I wrote it in that case! (Struggling through a cold, gah.)
Well said, Ali. I think I ditched the word “should” a few years ago from most areas of my life, but it still comes back to me from time to time. And it’s not only the relatively small things like getting up early in the morning, or getting the business going, or loosing 10 pounds. It’s also true for live generally and the relationships. Every time I think I should do something (despite feeling the opposite) it just doesn’t work out in the end.
Ali, really great topic, as always. I really appreciated your point of:
For me, just as for you, there’s no one role model to follow. There is no person for us to pick as a standard of excellence and say “That’s how I should live – following their schedule, adopting their habits.” We’re all unique.
I think this point is really the key to your emailer’s unhappiness. When it comes down to it, it doesn’t help us whatsoever to compare ourselves, our ‘production’, etc to anyone else. We should set our own benchmarks and then have joy or feel guilt if we don’t achieve them. But again, just like you said above, in ain’t about the other ’super-motivated’ bloggers, writers, etc. It should only be about us, the individual, plain and simple.
Just my thoughts. Thanks so much for your great ‘mental additions’ to my week Ali.
Marcus Sheridan´s last blog ..8 Easy Ways to Enhance Your Business’ Boring Website
Ali,–
I have a gentle suggestion and I hope you and your readers appreciate it as much as I do.
Why not ditch “self-improvement” in favor of “conscious evolution?” Personally, I am really not at all interested in self-improvement: it sounds too much like management jargon peddled by pushy salespeople. What’s personally meaningful to me is to broaden our horizons and expand our awareness. So what if we fall short of our ideals? Hey, you know what: tomorrow is another day!
Another idea strikes me: it is important to read about the biographies and auto-biographies of people you admire. Try to learn from their experiences. Do you want to incorporate a few of their ideas into your life? Only you can answer that question, but be sure to honor your eccentricities. That’s what makes us human beings: our eccentric behavior. That’s what keeps the lid on standardization and the uniformity of mass culture that we sometimes fall prey to. For example, I know I learned a lot by reading Mahatma Gandhi’s, “Stories of my experiments with truth.” (What floats your boat?).
Gandhi, an apostle of peace, made me believe in myself: I am not alone, I thought. Why? Well, I have always enjoyed walking in the outdoors and scenic, natural beauty. By contrast, I would watch (with a sly grin on my face) how people I knew would rush around in private vehicles. Gandhi rejected all that in favor of walking for philosophical and practical reasons. Learning that lesson has inspired me.
And since we are on this topic: I am going to find it hard to forgive all of you unless…kindly watch the movie, “Dead Poet’s Society” starring the inimitable Robbin Williams. This movie teaches us about taking risks and following your heart. You can choose to evolve mindfully if you want to. Carpe Diem!
Antonina, great point… I think we often feel one thing (and deny it) only to follow a “should”, and we end up regretting it. I know I do that! Sometimes it gets difficult to even figure out what I really WANT, amongst all the “should do” … “shouldn’t do”s.
Marcus, glad I could be a good spot in your week
and thanks for your comments. I suspect that none of us will ever completely break the habit of comparing ourselves to others … but you’re totally right, it’s not about whether we’re “better” or “worse” than someone else, it’s about meeting our own goals and celebrating that.
Archie, that’s an interesting name suggestion! I’m not too sure about the term “self-improvement” either (I rather like “getting more from life” myself
) but it’s tricky to find phrases which everyone will undrestand. “Conscious evolution” sounds like it could get a tad mixed up with biology theories…
Good tip about biographies. I’ve heard people advise looking at a writer’s career (say) and trying to model yours on it … I don’t think such a step-by-step approach is necessarily going to work, but I agree with you that incorporating a few ideas is a great way to learn.
There should exist, like with everything in life, a balance. Yes, we must work towards passion, and doing what we love. We also need to have “should” in our lives. Love and passion is great, but it doesn’t always pay the bills. I’d love to sit around watching tv, eating chips and salsa. It’s uber relaxing. It also makes me completely feel like shit. So I “should” take care of myself–eat right, exercise, etc., but at the same time not deny myself the occasional indulgence.
Balance is where it’s all at.
Todd´s last blog ..10 reasons why you need a Personal Trainer
Self improvement to me means simply allowing my true self to shine through. But oh, how complicated I make that! Thanks for a thought provoking post.
Charlotte Rains Dixon´s last blog ..Taking a Break
This post is utterly brilliant and something that urgently needs to be said when our feed readers are bursting with life hacks and self-help tips. It’s good that there’s so much information out there about ways to improve your life, but taking too much of it on board can become a serious source of anxiety. Jennifer Niesslein wrote a great book about this called ‘Practically Perfect in Every Way’ (http://www.practicallyperfectbook.com) in which she tried to apply the advice of major self-help gurus to different areas of her life – money, relationships, her house – to see if she felt her life was ‘improved’ by it. At the start of the book Jennifer is a confident, accomplished and creative woman who is happy with her life and has never really felt a need for self-help theories. By the end of the experiment she has developed an anxiety disorder that prevents her from driving her car. I’m a long-time self-help junkie but reading this book was a real wake up call about how much psychological damage and emotional paralysis the constant search for ‘improvement’ can cause.
I think it’s about striking a balance between the ’should-dos’ and the ‘want-tos’. I’m all for foregoing ’should-dos’ as well but the problem for me is that (if I’m not careful) I can get swept up in spontaneous want-tos that are actually somewhat self-destructive. I’ve had issues in the past with binge eating or just general days-on-end laziness, and so for me the structure of a list, of striving for some sort of achievement or development each day works really well.
Having said that, it can definitely become a trap and can often end in internal turmoil when you feel as though you’re not improving. And then you can end up so structured that you no longer have any idea what really matters to you or – as you mentioned – what you’d ideally do if you had a whole day just to go with what takes your fancy. Aughhh. It’s so hard sometimes!
I think one key has to be to acknowledge the benefit of structure and lists for much of the time but to also recognize that it’s fine to follow your heart – and in fact that this is probably the only way to stay in tune with your true passion(s) – the rest of the time. If only somebody could just tell me when to do what then life truly would be a breeze! Or not – who knows?
Kat Eden´s last blog ..How To Boost Your Metabolism In 3 Minutes 29 Seconds
Very well put, Ali!
Your line on self-improvement being “about finding and becoming the real you” is so true. Too often, however, we take the easy way out of self-improvement and look for a finished model to copy; an already-traveled-path that we can simply follow.
To discover who we really are, we need to be honest with ourselves and look inward. The answer to who we are doesn’t lie someplace external to ourselves, but rather inside. Taking an honest look at ourselves and really learning to accept who we are takes courage, especially when so many others are encouraging us to follow the common path, the easier path.
Raam Dev´s last blog ..Find the Courage to Be Yourself
I really love your writing Ali. Not sure what the issue is with your having problems being a novelist and a blogger but I am glad you are doing what it appears you love. I am not big on the whole “find your passion” thing but clearly this is yours. It is possible for people to not have a passion which the person who contacted you must be struggling with. That makes life a little harder to contend with some would say. But it doesn’t necessarily mean your life can’t have meaning. Until about 10 years ago no one used the word passion in the context we do today. People still had fulfilling lives. In my mind the term is now badly overused. One way the person who wrote you might find re-focus is to go help or serve someone else or something else. Sometimes there is no better way to re-focus your self than to help someone else. And that help can be nominal I am not talking about being an expert in something. Just doing some good for others – working in soup kitchen, volunteering to help an organization raise money, etc…//Marc
Todd, good point about balance — a topic that’s often on my mind! I suppose for me, it’s not so much that we “should” eat healthily, etc, but that we “want” to — it’s just a longer-term “want” than the urge to eat junk! The “shoulds” come in when we feel under pressure from society/friends/parents/etc to do something contrary to our own interests (eg. go to medical school instead of studying fine art).
Chloe, wow, thank you! Come and comment any time!
I’ve never come across Jennifer’s book before (poor woman!) but I definitely do find a lot of self-help/productivity/life-hacking advice very prescriptive and rather soulless. I also suspect that for many of us interested in self-improvement, we’re actually not the audience in mind … we’re already doing pretty well!
Kat, I’m with you on having a sense of achievement at the end of a day. As a student, I spent (literally) whole weeks of the holidays just playing computer games etc. (THAT was when I needed all the life-hackery, self-improvement advice!)
I think a theme of “balance” is emerging here — having the structure, motivation and ability to stick with things to see them through … but also having time to create, explore, play and life without carrying a ton of guilt around with you.
Raam, thanks; I agree that it’s tempting to look for a path which we can just follow, step-by-step, without having to think. (And I also reckon this is what a lot of “gurus” are selling — an easy method that’s supposed to be foolproof.) Acceptance takes a heck of a lot of courage, and I admire people who’re able to be comfortable in their own skin … I’ve definitely got some way to go myself.
Marc, I’m always a bit uneasy on the word “passion” — it seems to imply one all-consuming *thing* which is all you want to do. I like doing lots of different things (which is probably why I feel a bit of novel/blog tension — novelists in particular tend to see one form of writing as their real “passion”). Great point about helping others: I think this is a really powerful way to put life into a clearer perspective, and to do some good in the world.
(As a side note, the reader who contacted me explained that he did have a passion, but one which it was very hard to take far due to the level of skill necessary and the lack of likely monetary reward. So I actually wonder if getting too caught up in finding a “passion” is part of the problem for some of us.)
Ali, I totally agree with that. It should be a want, and not a desire to measure up. True happiness is not to live to another persons/societies standards.
“Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” Kurt Cobain
Todd´s last blog ..10 reasons why you need a Personal Trainer
Hey, this is great, how’d I miss this one? Great post and good discussion, too.
I know that treadmill feeling well. There are so many different areas I could “improve” and perfection is unattainable, so it’s easy to push hard for the rest of my life and never feel like I’m getting anywhere. I think I am getting better at recognising when that’s what I’m doing. It’s also hard/important for me to accept that if I’m pushing hard in one area, that may mean something else may slide, and that’s OK.
Chloe, thanks for that book tip, that sounds really interesting!
Willie Hewes´s last blog ..Mascots for Life
Thanks for the words of wisdom, as always, Ali. I am certainly “guilty” of guilt-tripping myself into thinking I should be doing more to “improve” myself. I have always prided myself on being a well-rounded person – on knowing a little about a lot, on finding a balance between work and play, between health and indulgence, etc.
One comment I’d like to add is that when we begin to obsess over improving ourselves, we are actually taking away some of the traits that make us so great, whether it be our abilities to “turn off” at the end of the work day, to be a good friend, or the like. As we try to improve, we lose other characteristics that make us happy and, really, that make us enjoyable.
Ultimately, finding balance in our lives and being OK with what we can do to improve ourselves is key. Be happy that you are so lucky to be as intelligent, wise, well-spoken, and well-traveled as you are.
Cheers Willie! Yeah, for me it’s realising that I’m ON the treadmill which is half the battle. I can get prone to quite black-and-white thinking, and the “musts” and “shoulds” start creeping in. I’ve decided that everything except my novel can slide this month (hence only one Aliventures post this week …)
Sam, that’s a really interesting comment about how we can lose some of our good traits. I remember hearing a sermon a few years back about how even the things which might annoy us a bit about someone are a reflection of something good in them … eg. someone might seem a bit wasteful with money, but perhaps they’re really generous to people in need.
And thank you for your kind words! I should confess that I’m not actually very well-travelled (I live in England; sorry, that probably wasn’t clear in the post!) but I’m working on it…
You don’t need to mimic someone else, and you don’t need to hold yourself up to “perfect” standards.
What a great quote. So much of the self improvement movement is simply hogwash. How about common sense and a good ethics system?
This reminds me of the losing weight scams. It all comes down to, move more eat less.
Great writing, great post.
nice post Ali, i was just reading another one about people who struggle and forget to celebrate their achievements then feel bad!!
Hal, cheers (I love it when people want to quote me). Interesting point about weight loss scams and the self improvement movement… I might have to do some thinking on that one, I think there’s some stuff to be said there!
Farouk, cheers! Was the one you read over on PluginID? I saw they had a great piece on a similar topic this week, seems to be February’s theme…!
I see the crux of the problem, I think. It’s not that bloggers should create content to sell…that’s internet marketing, and that’s fine. But bloggers write and novelists write and therefore I believe blogging bears a closer relationship to writing than internet marketing, although any borders there are self-imposed. I say, why limit yourself by arbitrary labels of what you’re doing. Do the literary deed, and let the labels find themselves a home, rather than you giving it to them.
p.s. Thanks for the comment on my Pavlina post. Also, Although I haven’t yet started, I would like to write a novel too.
Ray´s last blog ..A Criticism of Steve Pavlina
I like the idea of unlabelled writing, Ray!
I think part of the tension is that some bloggers (not the ones I know, though) prize money way above good writing, whereas the novelists tend to be other way round…
Hope your novel goes well once you do make a start! I usually find that it’s hard going till a few chapters in, then I get on a roll…
Should do is a little like need to. Quite often I fund myself doing things because I need to rather than because I want to. At the moment it’s because the need is greater than the want for some things, but as crisis’ disappear hopefully I will be able to focus on what I want – to spend 2 months off with my son when he’s born in June.
Good point, Matthew. There are some things we just *need* to get done — whether it’s responding to a sudden crisis or simply making enough money to pay the rent. I usually find that my genuine “need to” category is pretty small, though I imagine as I go on through the next few years (especially if kids appear on the agenda!) then it’s gonna get a fair bit bigger…!
This blog spoke to me. I have always strongly believed that conforming to your insecurities and what you THINK should be done is a form of damaging and inhibiting yourself. We should take all of those fears and ask ourselves why we make such a big deal out of them. Do people really care that we play video games at such a ripe age (according to societal standards)? It comes down to being you and feeling content with who you are. That is what makes life worth living. It’s what produces happiness. Thank you Ali!
Thanks Melissa! I completely agree with you. There seems to be a sense that fun and play are for children, and that we should “grow out” of these. I’m not convinced that doing so makes us happier!
We’re going to be moving from a flat to a house (with considerably more space) in a few months time, and we’re planning on using one of the reception rooms as a “playroom” that’s set up for hanging out with friends and sitting around eating/drinking without worrying about spilling red wine on the carpet. And maybe we’ll get Guitar Hero too, for some communal video-gaming.
I’m so happy for you. Having your own house is a beautiful experience and having a playroom is sure to allow for many joyous occasions. I hope you enjoy it to the fullest.
Thanks!
Yes, we’re really looking forward to moving out of our flat (which is nice, but a bit noisy with neighbours, and the general area).