Self-improvement is discipline—you need to be up early, there’s no improvement without grit, grind, suffering. Sorry, no; self-improvement is protecting your peace, living your life softly, don’t burn yourself out. Healing is the goal; heal your inner child, it’s therapy. But success is also the goal, right? It’s status, it’s building routine.
People are becoming far too obsessed with the idea of “self-improvement”, and I say that in quotes because people aren’t really improving themselves—it’s whatever the internet tells you is self-improvement today. It’s a cycle that’s impossible to comprehend. Self-improvement today has become a one-size-fits-all narrative, or rather, a force-fit one. If you don’t exactly check each box of that “self-improvement” plan, you’re made to feel like you’re doing it all wrong, and the only one who’s doing it all wrong. It worked for them, right? You aren’t doing anything differently, so why is it not working? It leads to one switching their approach every week. It also leads to a self-improvement feeling, identity-based, a “choose your own character” of who you want to be. Instead of being nuanced and specific to each individual, it becomes a cookie-cutter lifestyle that one follows.
Social media misses what I believe is the most fundamental aspect of self improvement—self understanding, which is exactly why force fitting doesn’t work. Most of the concepts marketed on platforms start with a solution without ever getting to the root of what you need to address. You’re made to “upgrade” or “optimize” before understanding exactly what you’re upgrading or optimizing. Social media accelerates this process by offering specific frameworks. New routines, mindsets, habits, and a promise of change without ever knowing what you’re doing and why. Improvement then just becomes imitation.
What has been pushed onto you makes you feel like you’re constantly doing something wrong, which is the adverse effect of what growth tries to achieve. Or at least, the marketed growth tries to achieve. You start to question what started this journey in the first place. The problem has never been people wanting to grow, but growth becoming something so universally measurable that you don’t know where to start. I hope this doesn’t turn into exactly what I’m disagreeing with, but this is what I believe self-improvement is. It begins with letting go of certainty. It doesn’t have to belong to a single ideology or identity, and it doesn’t require constant discipline. It can shift over time, in context, and with your capacity. Growth isn’t linear and doesn’t always have to be measurable. It begins with understanding your needs and what you want to align with. It begins with an understanding of growth. That it can be inconsistent. Moving on your own time doesn’t mean you’re falling behind.