← The Psychology of your 20s
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- [00:00]
Host
Foreign and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life.
- [00:13]
Co-Host
Changes and transitions of our 20s and.
- [00:16]
Host
What they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course break down the psychology of our twenties. If you have read the title of today's episode, you will know exactly what we're talking about. And what we are talking about is the tricky trap of self improvement when it goes too far. Whether there is such a thing as too much self help content and whether it is beneficial to constantly be chasing something better for ourselves or improving our lives. Let me firstly begin by addressing this. The irony is not lost on me that you are tuning into what is in essence a self help podcast and yet we are talking about the downfalls of self help. Right? You know, I have literally written a self help book. It is titled Person in Progress. Like there is. There is probably not a more self helpy title for a book out there than that. And a lot of what I speak about on this podcast is really geared towards knowing yourself better, knowing your brain better, knowing your psychology, elevating ourselves, and yet in the background, personally, I have become a little bit disenfranchised with this kind of approach to our lives, with this feeling that there is constantly something that we need to improve, we need to fix, we need to work on. Personally, you know, I think I have taken self improvement way too far in the past and I have fallen into trap of thinking that if I just wake up at 5am, if I just quit caffeine, if I just do as many meditation retreats as possible, if I read that book, if I only listen to motivational podcasts, my life will be better and I will finally uncover the secret to happiness. Guess what? None of those things have ever made me happier. And, and none of those things have ever made me more successful because none of those activities were actually a problem to begin with. All of those efforts were really just a distraction for something deeper. And yeah, it has made me a little bit disillusioned with this space and in a more broader sense, this industry that has been built around this space. I read this quote the other day that really summarizes it for me. You can't self help your way out of a life that isn't aligned with you to begin with. And I for one have really been discovering how that is true. And so today I want to bring my thoughts to you guys to consider. I want to talk about the nuances of self improvement from the perspective of someone who has loosely and by accident kind of based their career in this space. And as someone who can also openly really point to the downsides and point to the fact that there is a lot of information out there that is suffocating and unhelpful and not very useful, this is obviously not going to be a strictly anti self improvement episode per se. Far from it. I think I would be shooting myself in the foot and I would literally be burning my career to the ground if I just sat here and hated on self improvement because I do think that there are parts of it that are incredibly important and healthy. What I really want it to be is a bit of an investigation into when it can go too far and who benefits from us not being happy with what we have. I also want us to kind of redefine self improvement and recognize that it's not just about external actions. It's definitely not just about consumption. It's not about perfection. Self improvement should really be based on self discovery and living a good balanced life and beyond that, a really happy and fun life. And I think that that is something that has kind of been lost in the flurry of self improvement information and books and speeches that we have exposed to recently. So I am very excited for this episode. I am very excited to kind of give you guys a peek behind the curtain as someone who operates in this space and operates in this industry and kind of reveal what authentic self improvement content looks like when it's just trying to sell you something and so much more. I just hope that today's episode kind of challenges your assumptions and gets you to really think about what real personal growth means to you. And also maybe think about whether the amount of self improvement content you are consuming has become harmful. You know, that's a question that you guys have to answer for yourselves, but I hope I give you the tools to at least think about it. Without further ado. Hopefully you can sense my excitement and maybe my fear in doing this episode. But let's get into it. This is an I Heart podcast.
- [05:25]
Advertiser
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- [05:26]
Host
By now you know, the more knowledge.
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- [06:05]
Co-Host
Think I've ever had as many events as I do right now and Nair's Shower Cream has been not just a lifesaver but a time saver as well.
- [06:12]
Host
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- [06:15]
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Host
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- [06:28]
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- [07:44]
Host
To begin, let's really dig into a fundamental question here. What is so powerful about self help? Content? What is so powerful about self improvement? Content that compels us to buy, listen, engage in it as often as we do. To understand this to understand this innate drive many of us have towards self improvement, we have to dig deep into an area called humanistic psychology which essentially focuses on human potential and the mechanisms behind personal growth. Specifically, we have to understand this concept of our actualizing tendency. So our actualizing tendency was first identified by an American psychologist called Carl Rogers and he basically revealed, discovered, believed that humans, every single one of us, have an innate drive to fulfill our unique potential. We Each have a drive to grow, to become fully functioning, to be successful in one form or another. Within every single one of us, there is a seed. Seed that wants to become a tree. This process is so natural, inherent, instinctual to us. Since the time we are born, you know, our body wants to grow bigger and stronger, our limbs want to elongate, our bones want to gain mass. And the same for our minds and our emotional realm as well. We want to learn more. We want to strive, we want to thrive, we want to be successful. We want to find our purpose. Now this looks different obviously across different cultures, people, personalities. Some people strive for gold medals. Some people strive to push themselves physically. Other people strive to be a better member in their community or to be inventive, creative, to understand themselves more. But basically at the end of the day, what this theory really says is that we need something to work towards, otherwise we feel incomplete. So this idea is actually beautifully complemented by another theory that you probably know of called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It's that famous pyramid that I'm sure you've seen many times. But the theory behind it is that human motivation isn't random. It actually follows a pattern that extends from a very baseline level of simple needs to a high level need to self actualize. So to really just break down this pyramid that I'm sure you've seen many, many times at the very bottom of this pyramid that we need to achieve before we achieve anything else is our physiological needs. Food, water, sleep, shelter. These are things that allow us to survive. Once those needs are reasonably met, we then want to achieve safety needs, feeling secure, having stability, personal security. Once we have that, comes loving and belonging. We want connection, we want friends, we want family, we want a sense of community. And then we can seek out esteem, needs. So self respect, achievement, recognition from others. Those things can only be pursued if we have all of those things that have come before. That is not the top of the pyramid though. The top of the pyramid, the thing at the very top, the pinnacle of this pyramid is self actualization. This is the ultimate human desire. What Maslow says, every single one of us is working towards it, is the drive to become everything that we are essentially capable of becoming. It really centers on our drive to find something that we're good at, to find purpose, to live a life that feels really meaningful. And so our ardent, often obsessive pursuit of self improvement can actually be seen as a direct manifestation of this inherent human need to climb Maslow's ladder, to aim for that profound internal Sense of fulfillment and personal congruence. So from the humanistic perspective, we're really drawn to growth and self improvement because it satisfies this inner longing for meaning. If we are improving, it means that our life has purpose. It means that there is something bigger than us that we can achieve and feel satisfied with. There's also the secondary element of this, which is that simply accomplishing something, working hard, being rewarded for that, naturally just feels really, really nice. That delayed gratification and sense of pride, It's a really good feeling to say, I wanted this thing, I went after it and I got it. When we learn a new skill, when we run a marathon, when we overcome a challenge like, there is an inherent reward to that that really fuels growth and fuels further efforts to improve. And it's this drive to engage in things from the inherent satisfaction that they bring that researchers call intrinsic motivation. Now this is the third concept you really have to understand if you want to understand why you love self improvement. Intrinsic motivation is basically the purest form of motivation because it doesn't rely on others, it doesn't rely on external things. It is the joy and the satisfaction that we derive purely from what we get out of something and from enjoying the process. When this is our reason for pursuing self improvement goals. When we benefit mainly because of how something makes us feel competent, makes us feel successful, makes us feel like we have control, Self improvement is primarily a beneficial thing. This is the space in which self improvement is really beneficial and in which I think all of us can benefit from having something that we want to achieve and having something that we do feel compelled to work hard for for our own satisfaction. And so what happens when this natural striving for improvement becomes unhealthy? How does it become unhealthy is maybe a better question. It becomes unhealthy mainly because of external factors. This inherent drive for growth is a very pure, positive thing. But when becomes competitive, when it becomes a way that we want to prove our self worth to others, it turns very nasty and toxic. So people who really criticize self improvement and the self improvement industry, their main argument is that this approach to life is too simplistic and would have us derive our entire worth entirely from what we can achieve from our ability to push ourselves, from our ability just to meet our goals, rather than the fact that we have worth purely for existing. Basically what they're saying is that self improvement has become twisted and toxic because in this current day and age, it isn't about what you can do for yourself and it isn't about how you can improve how you feel about yourself. It's basically how you can improve how other people see you. Often the push for self improvement stems from societal conditioning rather than a purely innate drive. In today's very hyper connected, achievement focused world, there is an unspoken pressure to constantly be optimizing because of how that will make you appear to others, because it will allow you to get ahead, because it will allow you to kind of beat the competition. Just before, we talked about how the purest form of motivation is intrinsic motivation. On the flip side to intrinsic motivation, we have extrinsic motivation. And this is really what we're talking about here, extrinsic motivation. When that takes over, it means that we only do an activity so for an external reward or to basically avoid punishment. So we lose weight to impress or attract someone. We run a marathon to post it on social media. We pursue our artistic passion purely because we think it's going to make us famous. We want a promotion simply because we want to prove that people who doubted us were wrong. The difficulty with relying purely on extrinsic motivation is that we actually fall out of love and we forget the reason why we started something to begin with. Basically, we tell our brain the only reason to improve ourselves is if other people acknowledge that we have improved. If other people acknowledge that this is worthwhile. And so suddenly, what was something that we once genuinely enjoyed doing, felt passionate about doing, wanted to do for ourselves turns into a chore. It turns into a discipline exercise. Sometimes it even turns into an activity that we use to kind of punish ourselves. It also turns into something that can be profited off of. And this is where the self improvement industry really steps in as a major factor and a major motivator that intensifies our drive to improve in a negative direction. Think about it. This industry is worth $42 billion. And the only reason it's worth that much is because it excels at identifying insecurities, identifying our desire for betterment and to impress others and for control, and then offering us a seemingly very perfect solution. This industry is constantly putting forward aspirational figures that have very curated, perfect lives that are then paired with something that you can buy to have that life yourself. And it's very hard to resist that glossy, beautiful, perfect packaging. You know, if you see someone who is in a perfect relationship, who has a perfect body, who has perfect skin, a perfect routine, of course you're going to want that. Because we have that natural aspirational drive. This industry really does thrive because it does Meet a genuine human need for progress. Right? That's not a bad thing. People do want to feel good about themselves. It has become toxic in recent years because it's often completely unrealistic. What it's telling you is possible. It demands complete personal transformation that is actually very hard to achieve and very costly to achieve. The other thing is that there's a powerful kind of feedback loop at play here. Our desire for growth and improvement creates demand and the industry supplies it. And then it intensifies our satisfaction with ourselves, our insecurities to drive even more demand so that we want their supply. So this is why we often feel like the bar keeps moving. This is why we often feel like we are chasing an ideal that's just not reachable. It's because the moment that we perhaps achieve the dream life that is being sold to us, well, they can't make money off of you anymore, you know, you're no longer a customer. And so the bar does have to keep getting higher so that there is still demand for what they're putting out. What I mean by this is that it's not just feeling like nowadays having a good life isn't just feeling full and feeling happy and having a job that brings you purpose. It's also having a skincare routine. And once you have the skincare routine, it's also having a really good nighttime routine that involves taking a certain supplement or that involves a certain eye mask. And once you achieve that, they go, okay, well actually that's not going to make you happy. The next thing is that you have to have the perfect body. And then once you have that, then we actually need to give you this. There is no end goal here. There is always going to be a deficit in your life that a product or a thing that you can buy will seemingly fulfilled and make better for you. The thing that a lot of people in this industry have actually gotten really good at, and I think this has become the tricky thing, is that they mix the perfect lifestyle with occasionally actually talking about failure and with occasionally showing themselves as imperfect so you feel like they're more like you. And by doing that, they also really stoke this sense that, hey, I maybe I can actually be like this person. Have you noticed this? I've noticed this a lot recently is there are a lot of self improvement individuals who will only talk about failure in the context of it making them better. They will only talk about their imperfections in the context of it helping them love themselves more. They will only talk about hard things in the context that they have learned or they have overcome that hard thing. There is never this discussion of like, oh, sometimes this is just hard and this doesn't have a solution and you have to just sit in the suckiness of life. There is always a but, there is always an and there is always some philosophy or some book or something that you can then do that they have done that will fix your problem. The thing is though, you can't buy your way into a more fulfilling life. You can't buy your way into happiness. One of you guys, one of the listeners actually messaged me about this and I thought what you shared was perfect. So I'm going to share it here. They gave the most beautiful summary. If you could buy your way to self improvement and to perfection, rich people would have no problems. And yet they do. And in turn, some of the happiest people have the least. Because this process that we are all aiming for isn't about what we can buy, isn't about a product, isn't about what we can achieve for others. It's about personal introspection. And there is no market price for that. There is no thing that can fast forward that process. You actually just have to do the hard work. There's an important question that really emerges from this as well, which is, is self improvement actually making us more self centered? Because it's subtly becoming more about improving social standing and appearances and the external impression we have rather than how we feel when no one else is around. And I think the answer is yes. I do think that self improvement has made us think about ourselves way too much. Self help is mainly a western idea that makes most of its money in western countries like the us, like the uk, like Australia, like Canada, where we know psychologically that a lot of societies are more individualistic rather than collective. The thing is though, human happiness and joy fundamentally has community at its center. We were built to not care about ourselves as much as we care about others and the collective. And we were built as well to be loved, to belong, to be cared for, to care for others. And when we are entirely focused on self improvement, we obviously have less space to think about how we could be a better neighbor. We have less space to think about how we could give back. We have less space to think about whether we are available to our friends and our families, to think about whether we are a good sibling, we are a good partner, we are a good daughter, whatever it is. One of the most robust studies on human happiness ever done, ever conducted, was a longitudinal study from, from Harvard. And they looked at people across their lifespan. And they found that more than personal achievements, more than appearance, the biggest predictor of whether you were happy was meaningful relationships. Yet when, you know, self improvement becomes hyper individualized, it can erode that for a lot of people. It can mean that we aren't focusing on what really matters. Now, of course, there's a difference between being self focused, being self obsessed, and being selfish. And you guys know, even I'm an advocate for being selfish sometimes and just saying I've got to lock in and focus on myself because I want more for me. I need to do this for me. I need this sense of fulfillment. But how long can that truly last before you look around and realize, you know, in the pursuit of becoming the best version of me, I'm actually no longer a nice person to be around. I'm no longer someone who's fun. I'm no longer someone who actually is joyful and enjoys any part of this. Where does that lead us? Well, I want to introduce you to the concept of self improvement burnout and why it has become way more common than you may think after this short break. So stay with us.
- [24:36]
Advertiser
Hello my lovely listeners.
- [24:38]
Host
By now you know, the more knowledge.
- [24:40]
Advertiser
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- [25:16]
Co-Host
Something that most people in their 20s overlook or just straight up are confused by health insurance. Many people don't realize that health insurance wasn't designed to cover everything, which can leave gaps that you end up having to pay out of pocket. This brings me to Aflac. You know, the company with the very cute duck. We should all know by now that illness and injuries can hit at any time and dealing with them can be stressful enough without the added worry of additional expenses. That's where Aflac comes in. They pay cash to help with the expenses health insurance doesn't cover, like co pays deductibles, even non medical expenses like rent or groceries. Whether it's a sudden illness, an injury, or even an unexpected hospital stay, Aflac can help provide a financial safety net so that you can worry less about how to cover those unexpected expenses, especially if you're having to miss work as a result. It's added peace of mind in a very busy world. To learn more, visit aflac.com My life has been chaotic recently, to say the least. And with so many events going on at the moment, my friends, weddings, my book tour, I'm also moving house. The last thing I have time for is shaving. That is where Nair's shower cream comes in because it saves me so much time. And bonus, it also smells delicious. Nair is the number one hair removal.
- [26:46]
Host
Brand, so you know their stuff works. And their hair removal shower cream uses.
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- [27:26]
Host
And I also feel like I end.
- [27:28]
Co-Host
Up missing spots anyway.
- [27:29]
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- [27:42]
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Shower and they were like, what is this? And they tried it out almost as a joke, but I'm fairly sure all of them left with that on their shopping list because that stuff works.
- [27:52]
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- [28:01]
Host
Okay, ladies.
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- [28:31]
Host
Something that I think is becoming more and more common is that we are becoming burnt out. Not by things we have to do, but by things that we feel we need to do in order to be Successful and impressive in that way. Sometimes self care has kind of turned into a weird form of mental self harm. I have this thing that I do when I'm feeling overwhelmed where I look at my to do list because I realize that a lot of stress obviously comes from my to do list, but it typically comes from things that actually don't deserve to be on there. And I will look at my to do list and I'll break it down into things that I have to do, things that I would like to do, and things that are like complete extras, almost entirely pointless or optional. And anytime I am stressed, I can guarantee you that that extras list, that optionals list that would like to list has become full of things that I feel like I have to do to impress others or that I feel like I have to do to be my very best self, when actually they're kind of robbing me of a lot of joy. Things like, okay, today I need to take an everything shower. Today I need to do at least 20,000 steps. Today I need to do my two workouts. Today I need to meal prep. And yes, those things would be nice, and yes, I'm sure those things would better me as a person. But actually in that moment they're not. They're just creating more stress and there's no self improvement actually happening in those moments. It's all like self flagellation and self sabotage. This is what I call self improvement burnout. It's a specific kind of exhaustion that happens when you're constantly pushing yourself. You're constantly striving for more. You're not taking breaks, you're not reflecting because you are too caught up in this idea of a perfect life and these outside goals that aren't actually really helping you be successful in that moment. Your body and your mind. You aren't a machine. You are not a machine that is designed for endless optimization without periods of recovery and decompression. In fact, a study that I read recently essentially concluded that every single one of us needs at least three and a half hours of downtime a day to maintain optimal brain health and to actually feel well rested and to feel good in ourselves and our body. Some estimates would even tell you that you need more than that. You need four or five hours. This is how much time our very ancient bodies and minds would have been used to in the past. This is what they were designed to experience compared to today in a modern context where every single hour of our day seems accounted for. You know, you have to work for eight to 10 hours, then you have to do exercise and you have to commute and you have to focus on some outside activity that you're invested in and you have to see your friends and you have to do chores. And all of that does actually accumulate, and it means, means that we actually don't function as well as we could. Essentially, I'm making the argument that we need more space to simply just exist rather than do. If chasing self improvement becomes this very rigid, unyielding master, it could completely strip away the joy that you're meant to have about your life in the first place. You know what we need to talk about here? We need to talk about how self improvement can turn. Turn into an obsession with tracking metrics rather than with how we're feeling. You know, there are apps for everything these days. For your steps, for your food, for your sleep, for your productivity. They're helpful for accountability, but they're also a little bit of a trap. If every aspect of your life is quantified, optimized, and measured like you do lose joy, numbers become the goal. If working out only becomes about hitting a certain number of calories burned, do you even enjoy the movement? If writing only becomes about hitting a word count, are you actually making your best work? And are you actually connected with creative flow? And this is where toxic self improvement can often disguise itself as discipline. We might tell ourselves, no pain, no gain. You know, I just need to push through this. Nothing good comes without hard work. Yes, sometimes that's true, but sometimes discipline is actually just creating unhealthy internal pressure. That means that when you finally get to the goal, you don't even enjoy it because you've sacrificed so much that the process of getting there has brought you zero happiness. Discipline is a very important part of life. Discipline is what brings great things into the world and does allow you to meet your goals. But I really like to follow the idea of an 80, 20 split. There are going to be periods of your life where you are working really hard towards something. I thought, I think about, you know, my final year of high school or my final year of uni, or even sometimes when I was writing my book or when I'm working, there are really busy periods. And sometimes you do have to lean into the fact that there is a higher goal that you are really excited about that you want to work hard for. You also need that 20% to ground you, and you need that 20% to be able to look around and remain attached to the life you have right now. It's very easy to get lost in the pursuit of discipline because it's so romanticized. But a lot of people who I see occasionally who are quite disciplined actually don't have very interesting lives. And they actually aren't really interested in anything other than their goals. And perhaps that's what. What they want for their life. And I'm not someone to judge them or tell them not to do that. But personally for me, I don't want to get to the end of my life and look around and realize that I spent my whole life disciplined and trying to improve myself and trying to optimize, and I actually am going to end up in the same place as everyone else. Is life really about how much you can optimize your time or how much you can enjoy your time?
- [34:42]
Advertiser
We also have to be cautious of.
- [34:43]
Host
The fact that sometimes discipline is, is a sneaky way that our brains can rationalize extreme behaviors in the name of a goal. If you are someone who is quite obsessive, if you are someone who finds they really struggle with perfectionism, they have to do things perfectly or they can't do them at all, you should kind of maybe approach discipline with a little bit of caution because it's a slippery slope. I. It's one I found myself on where what starts with wanting to be productive comes, comes with being unable to quit. Even when the thing you're pursuing is no longer making you happy, even when your life is kind of falling apart. External goals that you put 120% of yourself into are actually, at the end of the day, you know, really great distractions for deeper dissatisfaction. It's a great way to never actually look at your life and contemplate what would truly make you happy and what is maybe under the surface that you need to unpack. When you aren't able to hide behind constant goals, when you can't hide behind constant explanations or something bigger than yourself that you need to achieve. Here's another subtle but insidious trap that self improvement content can sometimes trick us into over intellectualizing and consuming without actually making changes. Consuming instead of applying, watching but never learning. Thinking that we're doing something about a problem or an insecurity that we have when we're actually not really engaging. On a deeper level, I think this is especially common when we excessively consume self help content rather than apply it because we think that it's fixing something in our brain. When we bury ourselves in podcasts like this one, or books or seminars or online courses, and we're gathering vast amounts of information and psychological insights, but never actually implementing them into actionable steps. The thing about this is that it can feel productive. It can feel like you're doing something meaningful. But again, it is a form of false discipline or a form of procrastination or perhaps a substitute for real work. You know all the strategies, you know how to improve productivity, you know how to improve your relationships. But having knowledge and doing something about it are completely different things. Sometimes I feel like there's a certain kind of person who, and I used to be this, who consumes a lot of self help content and becomes kind of like a knowledge hoarder rather than a knowledge applier. And I think sometimes the reason that I at least did it and some other people may do it is because it feels like if we just know a little bit more, if we just know a little bit more, we have to know everything, then we can finally act, then we can finally make a decision about what the right thing is to do. But it just ends up being mental clutter. Like you just end up being more confused. That is why, you know, on my podcast I always try to give you guys good tools that you can actually apply to your life that are accessible and realistic so that what you're hearing isn't just information, it's things that you can implement. It's not just, you know, it's not just clutter. This is kind of a nice place to actually shift gears and talk about what is a healthy approach to self improvement. We kind of have already talked about it. I just want to give you a few more steps to identify when it is healthy versus unhealthy. A truly healthy approach to self improvement thrives on, firstly, clarity around what you actually want to do and why you actually want to do it. Is this goal that you've set intrinsically or extrinsically motivated? Is there a genuine problem here? Or are you just searching for something wrong in your life as a proxy for something deeper that you don't actually want to address? A truly healthy approach is one that is quite honest. One that is quite honest about your intentions, your motivations, what you are actually capable of and is honest about the outcome. This big thing that you may want, it probably won't completely change your life. It probably won't make you the most successful best version of you. If you haven't done the deeper internal work in a practical way, through therapy, through really knowing yourself, through experience, through testing yourself first. I think it's also important that you know what your enough point is. You know what you're really working towards before you Start a project before you start a new workout routine, before you start a goal, before you start, you know, a new career trajectory. For example, if you have a lofty goal of wanting to be fitter and healthier, you need some kind of end goal for that, where you're going to allow yourself to sit back and just be happy. This really counteracts the idea that we have to constantly be getting better. You also need to have points where you can reflect and look back and, and see how far you've come. And sometimes having smaller goals or having an enough point for the current phase of your goal is really crucial so that you are constantly, not just on a path that or not just raising the bar on yourself, not just on a ladder that never ends. You're actually able to say, wow, I'm really proud of how far I've come. I'm really proud of where I am at right now. Maybe I don't need to get better. Maybe I, I don't need to improve from here. This is where I always imagine myself. This also requires, you know, setting realistic expectations based on your actual resources, not based on someone else's resources, not based on anyone else's commitment or energy levels or time. What are you actually capable of? Realistically? If you plan three runs and you run three times, that's a success. Don't beat yourself up for not running five times like someone else. If you know, running five times a week was never realistic. Please be careful with not setting parameters that can be achieved by people who don't have full time jobs, don't have the same kind of financial stresses that you may have, have entire teams behind them, have personal assistance, because just because you can't meet that same level of as them doesn't mean you are failing. They wouldn't even be able to meet that same level if they didn't have the resources that they had. When you are comparing yourself to someone online who seemingly has everything together and is the most efficient, productive person out there, take a second and think about what you are not seeing, which is the amount of help that they receive, the amount of people that are on their team, teams on their side, the luxury that is afforded to them by wealth, by significance, by having a platform, all of that does stack up. And just promise me that even if you have big goals, which of course are important and which you are allowed and should have, just take a break every now and again and do something purely for the heck of it, do something that serves no greater purpose, that has no meaning, that has nothing to do with success, Nothing to do with productivity, nothing to do with your current goal. Just do it. Do something just because you want to like take a day off just because you want to go see a movie at 2pm Just because you want to like do something fun. Eat a mango in the shower. Like, I don't know, just go to the dog park and just like lie and get cuddles from the dogs. Just because you want to like I also want to stress again, life is not just about optimization, it's also about about enjoyment. You will lead and you will find yourself constantly miserable if the only thing you ever enjoy or feel proud of doing is something that only comes from pushing yourself really, really hard. There are so many just like simple things that require no work to feel good about that require no effort to enjoy. Make sure you have a good mixture of those things as well okay, we're going to take a short break, but when we return, I have a couple listener questions before we wrap up, so stay with us.
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Host
By now you know the more knowledge.
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Host
Okay, welcome back to our discussion on self improvement. Can it go too far? Has it gone too far? We're going to talk through some more interesting questions that you guys sent me on the topic of self improvement. Starting with this question, which I thought was was just a really nice light hearted one to begin with. What are some actually good and worthwhile self improvement resources that you personally use. I really like this question because you know, obviously working in the space like I do still engage in self help content quite a bit and I still find it really useful to give me a different perspective and interesting A couple of books that I really love. The Alchemist. I think this book is self helpy without being too self helpy and I love it. The Four Agreements Also kind of like another spiritual coded book that I find really interesting. The Untethered Soul is another one. I tend to prefer like more spiritual books for my self help books just because I spend so much time in the science. With this podcast like I genuinely think I would read at least or at least look at 50 plus academic articles every single week. So I get enough from that. When I engage in self help reading I want something that's a bit more introspective and light I guess not light but a bit less scientific. I also really like personal memoirs. I think that personal memoirs are a really great place to start slash go to if you are kind of sick of, you know, reading the same old self help books all the time. The Book of Joy is another one that I really really like. It's about happiness, it's about humanity, it's about gratitude, it's about what it means to live a good life, which I think is is something we could all benefit from. I also really like the DARE app. It's like a meditation anti anxiety app that I find really useful and it's practical and it will get straight to the heart of your problem immediately. Especially if you're someone who's dealing with anxious thoughts or dealing with how to approach fear. Also a podcast that I love. Two podcasts that I love. I love so Gum by Victoria Hodgson, the Daily Victorian on Instagram. She has actually been on the podcast before. I just love how she intersects spirituality, philosophy and psychology. I think that is so powerful. Do you mind? By Alexis Fernandez is also another podcast that I adore. She is also a personal friend of mine and she is a neuroscientist. I love getting content from people who know their and I love getting content from people who are experts but also have a lot of empathy rather than just like a one track mind when approaching topics like this. I like people who are willing to see different sides of something and willing to open the door to a discussion or to different ways of approaching it rather than just being like this is the best way to go about something and there is no other alternative. So those are kind of my favorite resources. This Next question. I really love when is the right time to be disciplined versus when do I know that I need to take a break? I think you need to take a break when you don't even care about the outcome anymore. When you're thinking more about how other people will view you more than how this goal will change your view of yourself. When it's becoming suffocating, when it's overwhelming everything else, when there's nothing about it that you even slightly enjoy, when you just feel like you need a break is when you need a break. You know, discipline, it's incredible. It's a great skill. We need it to follow through. It can't be your whole life. Make sure you have some spontaneity and some fun. There was kind of a second part to this question which is how to know when you've consumed enough self help content. So not just how to know when you've pushed yourself too far in terms of a goal, but how to know when you've overwhelmed yourself with more answers than you need. I think you know that you, you've consumed too much self help content. When you can't trust yourself anymore, when you always need someone else to give you the answer, to provide reassurance or an explanation rather than just being prepared to learn through experience and to try things out and make mistakes. When you're intellectualizing and gathering information rather than doing things, you're missing out on the most crucial part of learning, which is of course, experience. There is only so much someone can tell you. There is only so much guidance someone can tell you before you have to go out there and try it yourself and feel it yourself. It's like someone can describe to you the most beautiful tasting cake, but you're not actually going to enjoy the taste of it until you try it yourself. Someone can tell you the most amazing way to get something out of life, the most amazing mindset shift. You're not going to actually know what that feels like until you commit to trying it. Also, when you feel like you don't know what to think anymore and it's making you more confused rather than bringing you clarity, that's when I think you really need to take a step back and just like read something different, watch something different, enjoy like your, your guilty pleasure TV show, watch some love island like there's no police that's going to come around and be like you're brain rotting and you're consuming things that aren't intellectual. So like we're taking away that, that self improvement badge from you. Like you're not a fully optimized human. Like, shame on you. No one's gonna do that. It's actually good to let your brain be kind of gooey and kind of lizardy every now and again. This is a question that I really, really thought was important to bring up here because we didn't necessarily cover a lot of it in the episode. So hopefully I can give it some air time here. How does the self improvement industry harm or influence our perceptions of chronic illness? I have been thinking a lot about this question since I first came across it in my Instagram dms. I think the biggest issue is that the self improvement industry is so focused on productivity and so focused on personal responsibility that it kind of implies that wellness is always within our control. And it kind of implies that everyone should be capable of doing the same things when that is not the case. And just because your abilities are different doesn't mean you're worthless. Just because you can't wake up at 5am and then, you know, go to bed at 12 and work as many hours as possible and do six workouts a day. Like, just because you can't do that doesn't mean you're a failure, right? It just means that you, that your body is different. And I think the wellness space in particular, particularly like the fitness space, self improvement space, it's really focused on productivity and doing as much with your hours as possible. And often that muchness means a lot of effort and a lot of time and not a lot of rest. And if you are someone who struggles with exhaustion or has a kind of physical impairment, or if you're someone who has a different brain to someone else, like, that's not always going to be possible for you. It doesn't mean that this person and people who are able to do that are better. I think it can also lead to a lot of shame or guilt or a sense of failure that you're not able to work hard enough to heal yourself. You should be able to heal yourself through your mindset. If your mindset is, is strong enough, you can overcome anything, including a chronic condition. And it's like, that's literally ridiculous. Like, no, like, no matter how powerful your mindset is, no matter how productive and efficient and powerful your mental state is, like, so there are just things that aren't possible. And that doesn't mean that you are giving up. It just means that you understand your limits. And that in itself is actually a lot more powerful than just saying yes to everything. And being someone who can stretch themselves so thin that they become exhausted and actually take their health for granted. I think this space just sometimes really dismisses the realities of chronic illness. And it really oversimplifies. It really oversimplifies and focuses more on mindset than it should. And it kind of sidelines the voices of those whose conditions don't fit into the industry's neat, you know, like before and after success stories, or don't fit into this narrative that you can accomplish anything you put your mind to, like you could if you wanted to. But do you want to? And is that actually the best thing for your health? And should you force yourself to make yourself less well, just to prove something to someone else else, just to prove that you have worth because you can meet their standards, the standards that weren't set with you in mind? No. So I think it is actually a really big issue and I think it's one that I really should do a whole episode on. How self improvement and the self help space sidelines the voices of people with chronic illnesses, not just mental health issues, but physical disabilities and so much more. Because it is something that feels largely invisible. So thank you so much for that question. I'm gonna do a whole episode on it, I think. So we'll talk about that more later down the line. I'm gonna answer this final question. And I love this question. I love this question because it's a little bit different to what we've talked about. This person says, I don't get the hate with the self improvement space. Is it really that bad to want better for myself? I don't think it's toxic to work hard and I don't think that discipline is an evil word. I also agree with you, actually. I think that you are totally right. It's not bad to want better for yourself. It's actually amazing. And it's great that you've been able to identify something that or a collection of things that you think will make your life better. But I do think the reason you believe this is because you have the right attitude. Everything that you are saying sounds like you meet all the kind of, all the checklists, all the categories. For someone who approaches self improvement positively, you're doing it for intrinsic reasons. You're self motivated. You're doing it to align with your purpose. And it sounds like you're not falling into a toxic trap with discipline, which means that it's amazing for you and it means that you are really focused on elevating yourself from an authentic position. I think I've laid out all the reasons that it becomes toxic. But just to reiterate the it really becomes toxic when it's not for us, when it's for someone else, when we're not doing it for inherent enjoyment or for or to prove to ourselves something and when it's dominating our entire lives so that there is space for nothing else. Nothing is ever entirely one thing or another. The same can be said about self improvement. There are such beautiful parts of it and I continue to have goals that I want to strive to towards. I continue to have things about my life that I do think could be better, but I also don't let that take away from the appreciation that I have for the things in my life that are already great. And I think that is the healthy space to be in. And it sounds like you're in that healthy space as well. So congratulations. Thank you so much. If you have made it this far, I want to hear your thoughts about self improvement in the comments below. If you agreed, if you didn't agree with something that I said, even better. What are your thoughts? How do you know when it's gone too far in your life? But also I want you to share a piece of content, a self improvement project, book, podcast series, seminar, whatever it is that you think is actually a genuinely positive beacon of light in the space and that you think people should be engaging in. What are the positive examples of self improvement that you consume or that you've seen that you think others could benefit from knowing from as well? So thank you again for listening.
- [58:46]
Advertiser
Make sure that you are following along.
- [58:47]
Host
Wherever you are listening to this podcast, on Apple, on Spotify, on the iHeartRadio app. I don't know where you're listening from, but make sure you hit that follow slash subscribe button. Make sure that you leave a five star review as well if you feel called to do so. And share this episode with a family member, with a friend, with a colleague, with your followers. If you think that this is a discussion that needs to go further than just you and I, I think that it's something we need to talk about more and I hope others agree with me. So I'd love for you to be able to share and bring more people's attention to this. As always, as we wrap up our episode, I want to remind you all to stay safe, be kind, be gentle to yourself, and as always, we will talk very, very soon.
- [59:28]
Advertiser
Thanks for joining me. Hello my lovely listeners.
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Host
By now you know the more knowledge.
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This is an iHeart podcast.