The Self-Improvement Trap
I was in Sophomore year of Highschool when everything started getting locked down due to Covid. Spending so much time stuck inside of course meant that many hours were spent alone with my thoughts, reflecting on how my life was going. And that reflection led me to realizing that there was a lot about how I had lived my life that I was unsatisfied with.
Thankfully, something came along, something that could save me from my own dissatisfaction and propel me to greatness. It was a video, telling me how to defeat procrastination. And then it was another video, telling me to meditate every day. And then it was another video, telling me to exercise consistently. And then it was another video, telling me to journal. And then it was yet another video, telling me to stop watching so many videos.
Clearly I'm being sarcastic here, but I have to admit that when I initially found out about self-help I thought it had the potential to cure most of my problems and even allow me to eventually accomplish any goal that I had. As egotistical as Iām sure it sounds, after years of dealing with insecurity about my talents there was a part of me that wanted to be better than those around me. I wanted to get the best grades, be the best at my hobbies, and just be an overall badass. When you're young and in a vulnerable state and you see these videos telling you how to āget ahead of 99% of peopleā it convinces you that you donāt just want, no, you need to be part of that 1% who seems to have unlocked this hidden door to glory that most are unaware of.
What makes someone ābetterā than everyone else you might ask? According to the self-improvement community it seems to usually come down to things like talent, productivity, looks, and money. We can also throw in how little time you spend āconsumingā and how much time you spend ācreatingā. Self-improvement gives you this almost RPG-like way of viewing your growth, where you can use these superficial but quantifiable metrics to determine what level your character is at. The problem is that we exist in reality, not a video game. Growth isnāt always linear and well defined, you donāt gain XP for taking a cold shower, and you certainly arenāt going to level up by spending all your hard earned cash on a bunch of self-help books. Sure you can take inspiration from games to figure out how to motivate yourself to reach your goals, but true improvement is significantly more messy and uncomfortable in the real world.
Now at least for me personally, online self-improvement content did have a time and place in my life where it was actually beneficial. Over time I was able to build up habits such as exercising most days per week, going for walks every morning instead of checking my phone, doing my homework at the same time each day so that I could stay consistent and motivated, and so on. There was a point in my life when I spent way too much time on video games and YouTube and couldnāt really be bothered with homework or more productive tasks, so building up these positive habits did help me learn a greater sense of self-discipline and in a way increase my overall sense of satisfaction with life.
But there can almost always too much of a good thing, and what Iāve found is that too much self-improvement can cause a kind of hyperfocus on the self that not only can cause you to disregard others but can even cause this overarching anxiety that stems from needing to perfect your physical and mental health as much as possible. Same thing when it comes to productivity. The need to over-optimize everything in your life can essentially rid you of one of the most beautiful things life can offer, which is doing something simply for the sake of it rather than for personal or economic improvement. Could you imagine how empty your life would feel if you only filled it with practical things? Why not learn a bunch of āuselessā facts about history just because? Or learn a language because you think the culture surrounding it is interesting? I suppose in some ways you could loop this back to self-improvement by saying that you're doing these things for personal enrichment, but I think that sometimes you just need to detach from the self-improvement mindset all together and appreciate the world around you instead of just focusing on yourself.
Now I do believe that people should continuously find ways to better themselves throughout their lives, but there comes a certain point when you need to take a step back and figure out how you can better yourself for other people. The self-improvement community seems to have a huge issue with encouraging a self-absorbed mindset. A perfect example of this is the classic hustle culture tomfoolery where people are basically encouraged to ignore everyone in their life in favor of starting some random business purely for the sake of making lots of money rather than because they feel that their business can serve the greater good of society. Iāve also noticed that in general a lot of self-improvement influencers, whether itās the red pill dudes or the confident manifestation girlies, preach improving yourself in ways that mostly satisfy the ego. They make videos on how to look better, be rich, work harder than everyone else, attract the material possessions you want, and so on. And to an extent you might want to spend some time going after these things to achieve some larger goal, however they donāt have nearly the same importance as learning how to improve your moral character, something which will persist even if your looks, money, or status were to be taken away.
So ironically my next step in my self-improvement journey has been to avoid any of these āself-improvementā videos, such as daily routines, dopamine detox videos, or anything titled āhow to change your life in 2 weeks!!!!!!!ā. Of course I still want to research psychology, finances, and fitness because I think that we all need to find ways to take care of our minds, bodies, and unfortunately our bank accounts as well. But if the video doesnāt directly address one of these things and have some kind of expert opinion backed up by solid evidence and reasoning, and is instead just some vague motivation or someone promoting the same 10 habits Iāve seen in every other self-help video, then I simply wonāt bother.
The unfortunate thing about this space on YouTube and social media as a whole is that despite the fact that people preach spending as little time consuming content as possible, the content that they produce can end up being addictive in of itself, because everyone wants to feel as though theyāre making progress. Especially if youāre someone who is lost in terms of what direction you want to take your life in, these types of videos can convince you that you actually are going in a direction by learning all of these productivity hacks even if you have no clue what youāre going to apply them to. And even if you do have things you can apply these self-improvement principles to, you can very easily procrastinate on getting work done or improving your skills by watching self-improvement videos and convincing yourself that they're helping you in some way. Unfortunately, most of them are not.
What initially made me doubt the quality of a lot of these self-improvement influencers is realizing that most of them did not get rich just because they improved themselves and started a successful business. They got rich because they made videos about teaching other people how to improve themselves, and those kinds of videos and books and seminars can make a shit load of money because as Iāve said, this content is addictive. So I would argue that if someoneās only avenue that theyāve gone down and succeeded in is making self-improvement videos, especially if they don't have a wealth of knowledge in psychology or exercise science or business to back up their claims, then to me thatās a red flag that they havenāt improved as much as they would have you think, so their advice might beā¦ mediocre at best.
If I were able to go back in time and give advice to my younger self, Iād say this: take the time to find some actually good role models, follow their advice for a time, build some good habits, and focus on yourself for a little while, but recognize that self-help content can very quickly become a distraction in of itself. The fact that this content has helped you and inspired you at this point in your life does not mean it will continue to do so. Eventually, youāll need to cut it out and figure out whatās actually important, not what some random influencer on YouTube tells you is important.