The culture of nonstop self-improvement
Obsessing over health, healing, & self-growth may prevent us from going deeper. Pursuing a state of pure wellness is not our real work. Here’s why I’m leaving the culture of nonstop self-improvement.
I have to be honest about something: I am exhausted by the current culture of wellness. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for having a more nuanced discussion about mental health and I’m rooting for all of us to make the changes we wish to make in our lives.
But something about the cultural conversation isn’t sitting right for me. Amid rising rates of adolescent mental health issues, rising rates of adult disconnection and loneliness, rising rates of relational stress, and therapy language being misused and overused in our relationships (ahem! gaslighting, projecting, boundaries, what!?), I have to wonder why these trends are occurring.
As a therapist, I see the impact of these societal trends on individuals, couples, and families. In addition to the ways this changes and creates culture, I wonder about the added stressors and pressures this puts on us to be healthy, perfect, moral, and good. The culture of wellness seems to have shifted from one of self-improvement to one focused on self-optimization.
We don’t always need to be working on ourselves. Sure, a deeper investigation will reveal areas of your life that may be worth changing. But self-optimization is not our life’s work. We do not always need to be optimizing, fixing, and reinventing ourselves with the latest tips, tricks, and wellness hacks.
I am unsubscribing from the culture of nonstop self-improvement.
Confusing self-work with self-optimization
We must be cautious not to confuse our self-work with self-optimization. Self-optimization is built on the assumption that "more is better" and "better is best." Self-optimization prioritizes hacking our healing, preaching mindset, and believing we should always be working on ourselves.
It is easy to lose ourselves in our healing journey. Especially if we’re not clear on why we’re doing it or what we’re doing. Self-work is about self-care, self-reflection, self-investigation, self-compassion, and self-responsibility. When we are deepening our self-work, we do not have to keep proving and improving. Deeper self-work is about knowing our needs rather than needing to know everything. Deeper self-work is about focusing on how we actually feel rather than just focusing on feeling good.
Perfectionism, reinvented
When we dive into our healing journeys or hop on a path to self-betterment, it can be easy to fall prey to the marketing of healing culture. The culture of nonstop self-improvement promises a life without struggle and without hard moments. This life does not exist, no matter how we spin it. Some of us end up reinventing our perfectionism or spinning our shame into something that feels better to look at and easier to face. Calling this behaviour self-improvement sounds healthier and more appealing than naming what lies underneath; shame, guilt, fear, and a perfectionist’s pursuit.
Under self-optimization, we may find ourselves striving for perfection as if it is real and attainable. We may find ourselves preoccupied with feeling better, thinking better, looking better, eating better, and moving better. When we aren’t doing these things, we feel like we’re not good enough or as if we should be doing more. In theory, optimization sounds nice but it often creates a false sense of safety within us; it is fragile and fleeting because it is incomplete.
Consuming wellness
Optimization feeds into the culture of consumption which keeps us buying and consuming wellness rather than embodying it and experiencing it. Consuming self-help content is not the same as integrating it. Collecting self-help books isn’t the same as applying what’s inside. Binging podcasts and reading healing reminders online doesn’t always help us find the progress we truly need. Learning and knowing more does not always translate into effective action.
In short, thinking about the work does not always prepare us to do the work. We might be missing opportunities to integrate and apply what we know when we spend most of our time thinking or consuming facts and information. Consuming health and healing content equips us with more information, but when that is the only step we take, it might be distracting us from going deeper. Maybe optimization and nonstop self-improvement are not what we need.
I know that our well-being is not meant to be optimized because it does not respond well to persistent requests for self-improvement. It is meant to be embraced, embodied, accepted, and allowed. Striving for better does not always make things better. Pursuing more does not always give us what we need more of. The persistent pursuit of self-optimization will not get us to the place of health and wholeness. It is time for us to transform the culture of care that has us prioritizing self-optimization over true self-work, deeper relationships, and collective care.
What to do instead
One way I'm practicing self-care at the moment is to let things be what they are. I am no longer trying to fix, solve, and change everything. I am resisting the urge to pursue a level of perfection I would never expect out of those I love most. I am resisting moreness to make room for more wholeness. I am leaving the culture of nonstop self-improvement. It just isn’t for me.
I think learning is a great entry point. Sometimes we stay stuck in this phase of our journey for fear that we won’t be able to apply it. Sometimes we’ve also grown comfortable with our situation and the incentive to change isn’t there. For those who are feeling stuck: You are more than what you’re healing from. You are more than an obsession with self-growth. There is more to life than healing. Be sure to make room for being and living and slowing down.
Don’t be so consumed by your healing and growth that you forget to live, be present, and let things be what they are. You can take a break from buying books and binging podcasts and work on applying what you already know. You are not in constant need of a makeover. You are not a nonstop self-improvement project. You likely have a lot of knowledge about yourself, your situation, and what you need. What’s keeping you from applying it?
When wellness is a distraction
Sometimes healing disconnects us from the present moment such that it distracts us from what we really need. To exist, to connect, to experience, to laugh, to play, to enjoy small moments. Part of healing is giving ourselves the permission to not be perfecting, progressing, or pursuing.
I don’t want purified wellness. I am interested in a wellbeing that is messy and complicated. I’m interested in living in the grey, where layers of nuance continue to unfold as I make mistakes, get things wrong, and live my life. I’m interested in living my life as me— not a “me” that’s been watered down and not a “me” that has to be perfect and pristine.
No one needs us to be perfect more than they need us to be present. Doing our deep work helps us be more present. We should give ourselves permission to hop off the conveyor belt of healing and self-improvement. Your wellness will wait for you.
There might be growth in that too.
Jake
So true. Even the term “self-improvement” can be problematic. The implication is that our current self isn’t good enough, and we have to keep working to make it better, fix its flaws, etc.
What we really need to do is rediscover and love the authentic self buried under layers of familial and societal conditioning.
We are taught, starting at a very young age, that expressing certain emotions and questioning what we are told is unacceptable. Love is conditional, and our worth is determined by what we do, not who we are. So our efforts to recover and love ourselves become more things we must do properly in order to win others’ approval and be worthy of respect. They become one more way we don’t measure up and we feel worse instead of better.
Absolutely agree. Thanks for sharing your words and insights Jake.
I like what you said about purity wellness. The dominant narrative has somehow arrived at this idea that once “healed”, life wont continue to touch us in ways that feel painful or challenging. That denies our innate humanity of what it means to be alive.