The Correct Way To Approach Self-Improvement

I’ve been in self-improvement for years, and it goes back in time that I can’t even remember when it started; But as far as it goes, all I remember is that I’ve always been in a constant race of having to improve myself, not because it helps me, but mainly because I believed that I lack too much in myself and I will fall behind if I don’t improve.

It may seem like good progress, feels great to sugarcoat it, and boosts self-esteem. I’m, personally, being in this rabbit hole for years, just always chasing that one next improvement but never settling for it; I might as well start to question my own progress or the purpose of doing it; Cause it seems years been into it, and I still find myself standing where I started: “I lack a lot of things, so I need to improve myself more”

For some reason, this feeling of lacking just never ends, and you never feel the need to stop improving yourself. This big ambition of self-improvement becomes a trap you’ve gotten yourself into, and now there’s no end to it. The more you try to improve yourself, the more you see how much you’re lacking, and the more you do it to the point where it starts to feel like a curse.

Is being too self-aware a blessing? Or a curse? One might as well ask this question to themselves.

Oftentimes, it boosted my self-esteem and may have also given me the illusion of healing myself. There’s a reward after each achievement of improvement; there’s a good feeling about oneself, which also makes it addictive and thus makes me want to have it more. But it also gives me moments where I can’t help but feel shitty about everything I’ve done. When I struggle with anxiety and question my feelings, cause I wasn’t supposed to be struggling considering how much work I’ve put on myself to improve and grow.

What was the point of doing so much self-improvement if I have to struggle more than ordinary people out there? I must be lacking a lot of things; all the other boys my age aren’t struggling at work as I’m doing, so the problem is me. Hence, I must improve myself more! I feel bad for not doing well enough, so I must do more self-improvement.

This has been the biggest rat race of my life, always chasing the next achievement, racing for the next improvement, just never being allowed to pause, rest, and notice how far I’ve come.

This process of healing myself just never seems to be complete,

This race of fixing my flaws just never ends,

This remaining room for improvement never gets filled,

This existence of mine just never seems to rest in peace.

Maybe I’ve been just approaching it the wrong way. This pill called ‘self-improvement,’ that I’ve been taking for my treatment, was never prescribed to me. In fact, I had no disease that needed a treatment for.

My mind is probably having thousands of thoughts as I now begin to notice my pattern, and I can reason my behavior from hundreds of different sources and books that I’ve consumed on this journey.

Maybe I needed a reason to feel better about myself, so I became my own doctor, and I started prescribing pills of self-improvement to myself, for the treatment of diseases that never existed in the first place.

That takes me back to the meaning of self improvement, that it was never meant to fill the lacking space; it was meant to improve what’s already complete, not to fill the void. The way I was approaching it was wrong because I wanted it to fix what’s lacking in me.

Whether I’m truly lacking something or not is a story for some other day, because being secure isn’t about having no flaws. You become secure when you know you have flaws, when you know that you lack in a lot of things, and you’re okay with that. You’re comfortable with having flaws, and you don’t feel the need to hide them or disguise them under self-improvement; That’s where you start to become the truly secure person.

So after all, the whole point of self-improvement is not to fix flaws or insecurities. It only starts when you’re already secure, complete, and enough. When you approach it from that perspective, you don’t need it to fix your flaws, and you’re already good enough. That’s when self-improvement will do its job and improve you.

A lot of people, including my old self, have a tendency to drive from a lack and need to do harder to self-improve when we realize we are doing something wrong. If I were told that I’m doing self-improvement the wrong way or had realized it any other way, my first intuitive thought would be: “I’m doing it all wrong, I need to try harder to get it right cause I wasted all this time and didn’t make any progress, and I’m falling behind blah blah.”

I might have been through that point a lot of times already, and kept circling back into this trap, driven from the place of lack and insecurities. That’s why bringing constant awareness and not letting yourself live on autopilot is important.

The correct way is not needing to improve cause you’re lacking; the correct way is being fulfilled with the current version of yourself and then adding more.

The correct way is not fearing falling behind without self-improvement; the correct way is getting secure and being comfortable with all your flaws, and then improving yourself.

The correct way is not waiting for a higher version of yourself to finally feel happy; the correct way is knowing what you’re capable of, and what you’re lacking, and allowing yourself to exist as a flawed human being and be happy.

The correct way is not fearing mistakes or never making them; the correct way is letting them happen, owning them, apologizing, and learning from them.

There’s no wrong in making mistakes, then accepting them and apologizing, but it is wrong to be so rigid that you never allow yourself to accept your mistakes.

You don’t need to build a higher version of yourself to be happy,

You don’t need to improve yourself more than everyone else to matter,

You don’t need to try harder to hide your flaws to feel accepted,

You don’t need to always run towards improvement to not fall behind,

You don’t need to hide or cover your mistakes to exist.

No human is perfect, and everyone has anxiety and fears of their own. Despite how perfect their life looks on the outside, they are dealing with all sorts of problems of their own that no one knows about. What they show on social media doesn’t reflect the reality of their life behind the screens. When information is overloaded, being average becomes a failure.

Let yourself be flawed, and accept that you’re a human who can make mistakes and be happy. Being average is not a failure, and you don’t need to be part of the rat race; just allow yourself to exist and be okay with it. There’s peace in being fulfilled and accepting what you are right now, and then letting yourself improve is a choice you can make freely without needing to race it.

Desperation is a negative emotion, and you don’t attract what you want by being desperate. You’re already doing it wrong if you desperately want to improve yourself; take a pause and relax a little bit. You never needed self-improvement desperately; stop telling yourself you do.

Allow yourself to exist with flaws and shortcomings,

Allow yourself to be happy even if you feel like you suck,

Allow yourself to own your mistakes and learn from them,

Allow this version of yourself to breathe and live a life without the need of improving itself.

When you start appreciating the beauty of each moment and live, you stop feeling the need to improve yourself. Pause for a moment; take more time to notice.

All negative emotions are created by our thoughts, cause nature only has love, growth, and happiness in it. When you have peace with yourself, you’ll naturally attract improvement and embrace it.