Self-Improvement Is A Personal Journey That Must Be Lived, Not Told By Others

You can only read so much.

I’m sorry to burst your bubble but there is no article or podcast that will change your life. And I say this as someone who writes about productivity, simple living, and personal development. I share my lifestyle and the research behind living with less because I want to show you how to augment your life, not how to live or love it.

We are all different. And the quality of our life is no one’s responsibility but our own. I share how I manage my money, why I chose a career as a legal aid lawyer, and how I found happiness and well-being after I let go of most of my possessions.

But you might be the opposite. You might prefer a fluid approach to your finances, a career that promises a seven-figure salary, or a home that’s abundant with art. There is no wrong or right way to live a good life.

The problem is that when we read another article, listen to another podcast, or read another book that promises to share the secrets to success, we edge out the time we need to truly be alone with our thoughts.

Whether you realize it or not, our minds crave solitude. To be alone with our thoughts allows us to take stock on what’s going well in our life and where there’s still room for improvement. In these moments of practicing self-awareness, it’s counterproductive — even harmful — to consider the priorities and lifestyles of others, no matter how much we respect them.

A few weeks ago, I decided to temporarily stop listening to podcasts. To help me resist temptation, I didn’t just delete the podcasts I downloaded — I removed the entire app. The only options that I had left was to either listen to music or nothing at all.

During my commute to work, I’d listen to hip-hop and plan out my day. When I took my dog out for walks, I’d leave my phone at home and take in the sounds of my neighbourhood. I became slow, calm and patient.

Sometimes we need to stop drinking from the firehose of information and start paying attention to what’s in front of you. Learning from the wisdom of others is great but that will never replace your own first-hand experiences with the world.

I hope you don’t misunderstand me, I love listening to podcasts that interview successful lawyers but that will never replace the act of conducting my own hearings where I’m the one making submissions, cross-examining witnesses, and participating in a volatile exercise of truth-seeking.

We learn from doing, not sitting on the sidelines.

Since I slowed down on consuming lifestyle advice, I’ve felt a much richer sense of gratitude for my imperfectly perfect life. It turns out that when you give less thought to optimizing different parts of your life, you have more time to notice everything that is working well. The point of this article isn’t to say that striving to be more productive is a bad thing, but that it’s important we strike a balance between appreciating all the good already in our life and our insatiable hunger to strive towards better (however you define that for yourself).

So why read articles, listen to podcasts, and ask our mentors out for coffee? So that we receive motivation, reassurance, and validation. Sometimes we need that extra push to start that project, continue our side hustle, or seek answers from someone who has done it before. There’s no harm or shame in that. In fact, when you’re stuck that’s an incredibly effective thing to do.

But there are limits to this. And if you want to extract the wisdom of others to level up your life, you must first identify what success means to you. Without knowing what you are striving towards, advice from others simply becomes unsolicited chatter.

Only when you are first able to picture your most abundant life, can the advice of others elevate the process of your becoming.