Interesting question.
I don’t find it beneficial to think about what is the “best” option for us, because we have many options. The question is what will we choose to do and which path will we select to go forward.
The second thing I am putting under the magnifying glass is this concept of “self-improvement.” In previous decades, the popular term for this was “self-help” and now we’ve moved on to a slightly different term. Still, it’s a very general phrase that’s used by different people to mean different things.
So the real question is, what does self-improvement mean to YOU?
If it means changing everything about yourself every year, searching for the “true meaning of life” or looking for a passion, or maybe even looking around you to see what others are doing and then emulating their behavior and pursuing their goals, then you are setting yourself up for a future of many, many disappointments. And believe me, I have seen people do this to themselves. Many are perpetually running away — from a job, partner, city, circle of friends, sometimes everything and everyone they know — in the pursuit of happiness or an abstract dream of an ideal life where they will be “fulfilled” and “self-improved” and “living their best life.” You may know these types of people in your circle of friends or on social media like Instagram. Yet, if you know or follow them long enough, you’ll see there’s a cycle they repeat over and over. When they get bored, they will try to reinvent themselves and start over. They’ll continue on their “self-improvement” journey, farther away and maybe on a different continent. But there’s something they don’t do.
And this is KEY.
They don’t do the homework.
The homework is this: focusing less on who or what bothers them and knowing more or discovering more about themselves.
Finding out what patterns of behavior they repeat.
Getting to the source of a problem, bad habit, or trauma.
Getting help for the problem or trauma from someone who is skilled at this, like a therapist.
Becoming self-aware.
Understanding more of themselves. What they need and what is useful, versus what they don’t need and can be self-destructive.
Identifying where they picked up a negative habit, a fear, a self-critical way of thinking.
Understanding what they are thinking right now and how these thoughts are impacting their feelings — especially if they make decisions based on feelings.
Asking themselves,
Why do I do the things I do?
What do I like about me that I want to do more of?
Conversely, what type of behavior is no longer useful to me that I want to change?
How can I learn more about something that will be beneficial to my future?
How do I learn to embrace fear and work through it, instead of avoiding it at all costs?
What types of realistic goals do I want to set for myself and how do I make a plan to work on them?
In other words, doing the homework on ourselves will enable us to grow into a more mature human being, a person who learns about themselves and the world and who is curious about how things work and how they can improve. And in this way, we will do much more than choose the general term of “self-improvement” — we will have awareness of who we are, why we are like that, what we want (and have strong reasons for why we want it), what we don’t, and how we wish to grow.
And maybe this question and the conversation we have about it becomes more about growth and self-acceptance and the continuous process of learning about our true ourselves.
That’s what I believe is more helpful.
What do you think?
Nela's Blog 