The Real End Goal of Self-Improvement — And Why Most People Fail

What is the point of becoming better?

At the age of 16, I became obsessed with self-improvement.

It all started with a gift from my older brother. One day, he gave me a book: The Game by Neil Strauss.

You gotta read this. If you don’t know how to flirt with hot girls, this book will show you how.

Today, “pick-up culture” isn’t as prevalent anymore, but in the mid-2000s, it was all the rage. I read The Game in one go, and it unlocked an almost spiritual desire for self-improvement.

In hindsight, Strauss’ pick-up bible did change my life — but not in the dating context. It didn’t teach me ridiculous lines or flirting games. What it showed me was the following:

Through progressive self-improvement, you can build confidence. And this confidence will improve your life in a holistic manner.

From then on, I consumed a ton of self-help content. I read hundreds of books and took classes. Many years later, I started producing content myself and built an audience.

I still enjoy self-help articles, and I love sharing my experiences as an online entrepreneur and digital nomad.

Over the last few years, however, I repeatedly asked myself a fundamental question:

What is the point of self-improvement?

Why do we want to become fitter, wealthier, and more successful in our dating lives?

To answer, I performed a thorough analysis and came up with two results:

• the end goal of self-improvement is to stop needing it; and
• most people fail because they don’t understand how self-improvement works.

On this basis, here is the real end goal of self-improvement — and why most people fail.

Real self-improvement is about not needing self-improvement

Whenever you read a self-help book, go to the gym, or learn a new skill, you think about goals.

In other words, there is a point you want to reach, and you resort to self-improvement activities to get there.

So, what happens when you reach that goal?

Most people will go straight on to the next goal — and act as if the first one wasn’t important. And in theory, that’s a great mentality.

Life is a never-ending journey, and we cannot stay still because our world evolves.

There is, however, a point where you’ve achieved most of what your initial journey was about.

When you’re comfortable financially, have great relationships, and look better than ever before, you should be at the end of your self-improvement journey. Continuing with self-improvement will have two consequences:

• you become obsessed; and
• you seek perfection, which is impossible to attain.

That’s why the end goal of self-improvement is to stop needing it. The final objective is to be at a point where you’re confident and satisfied — and don’t spend your days thinking about improving anymore.

Real self-improvement cannot go on forever

One of the most successful self-improvement authors of the last decade, Mark Manson, recently announced that he would stop creating self-help content.

Why? Because he came to a straightforward conclusion: self-improvement cannot go on forever.

In a December 2021 blog post, he wrote the following:

“You can’t stay in marathon therapy sessions and fancy seminars forever. At some point, you just have to live your damn life.”

He then explains that “Coach People” who obsess over the process of endless self-improvement struggle to stop because it has become their life’s purpose:

“That’s because Coach People do what everybody does when they obsessively work on something: they adopt it as their identity. And once they begin to identify as the “personal growth” person, not only do they get trapped by it, but they are also incredibly likely to bore you at dinner parties with stories about their ayahuasca retreats.”

As a consequence, self-improvement shouldn’t become our identity.

Self-help — whether it’s building your financial freedom, going to the gym, or learning a new language, is fantastic. It changed my life and allowed me to live on my own terms.

Nevertheless, self-improvement isn’t a goal in itself. Once you reach your goals, you cannot continue. You run the risk of making it the definition of your entire life, and that’s when self-help becomes toxic.

Why most people fail at self-improvement

After explaining the real-life goal of self-improvement, it’s time to analyze it from a different point of view: people’s failures.

Most people take on fancy self-improvement challenges in January and forget about them by mid-February. And the reason for their failure has a direct link with the goals of self-help, in general.

They don’t understand the mechanics of self-improvement

Once you understand the end goal of self-improvement, you also grasp its mechanics.

In simple terms, personal growth works well in projects.

Let’s say you’re building a cabin in the woods. You’ll make a list of the tools you need, the wood, the structural elements, and other materials. You then come up with a timeline.

It might not go 100% according to plan, but a year or so later, you finish your cabin, and your project is complete.

Self-improvement endeavors work similarly. You can take on a one-year gym challenge in January, and you make a plan for each month.

Of course, your gym routine won’t end after a year. Nevertheless, once your initial challenge is over, it will become a natural habit, not a well-defined project.

Most people, however, don’t approach personal growth like this. They set ambitious goals and ignore the process.

Back to our cabin example, you don’t just set a goal of having a cabin magically appear. You create a plan on how to build it. You ask yourself what’s realistic and how much time and money you can spend.

If you want to succeed at self-improvement, you need to apply the same method. When you make realistic plans and stick to them, becoming fitter or launching an online business is just like building a cabin.

They do not want to stop

People fail at reaching their goals because they don’t see self-improvement for what it is: a tool to lead a better life.

Self-improvement isn’t a lifestyle in itself. Because without utilizing its results, it doesn’t make your life any better.

As a simple example, you can read 100 business books, but if you never actually start a business, your self-improvement is pointless.

That’s why it’s crucial to recognize when it’s time to stop with self-improvement and start living the life you wanted through self-help in the first place.

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