The downside of self improvement
Self improvement is just the beginning.
For much of my adult life, I’ve been focused on self improvement, a noble cause as I’ve had plenty to work on: awkwardness in social settings, emotional intelligence, communication of needs, and so on.
Self improvement implies you’re working on yourself, which sounds like a worthwhile endeavor. But I now realize that there comes a certain point in which self improvement is no longer the grandiose master strategy it once was. Because, if you’re always focusing on self improvement, then you’re always focusing on what’s wrong with you, while overlooking on the positive aspects that make you who you are.
At some point, if you put in the proper work, self improvement must lead to self acceptance.
We’re all imperfect. We’re all works in progress. And we'll never reach many of the ideals we strive for. We’ll never reach that state of perfectly consistent enlightenment.
Life is a journey, and the roadmap that worked yesterday may not work tomorrow.
If you’re on your own self improvement journey, please be sure not to focus on the goal of perfection or idealism. Instead, make sure to work toward the goal of self acceptance. Make sure you’re improving yourself to a point in which you have no problem being in the same room as yourself. (What other alternative is there?)
At some point, when you see certain faults and shortcomings within yourself, you must accept that you’ve reached the Pareto Principle of self improvement: You’ve fixed 80% of what’s wrong with you, and you’ll tweak the remaining 20% later, because you know you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. And now, you’re at a point where the better strategy is to focus on improving or highlighting your strengths, because therein lies the greater return for your time and efforts.
The last step of any self improvement journey should include accepting and--maybe, just maybe--also loving yourself. Otherwise, what was it all for?