When You Realize Constant Improvement Is A Joke, You Become…
Pulling back the veil of self-improvement is a benefit.
What if we lived in a world where we were constantly getting better? It feels like we are living in one these days for a wide variety of reasons.
Technology is booming and creating new and innovative technology. Medicine is constantly being researched and new treatments for diseases are being found.
The list goes on for things that seem to be improving and getting better day after day and year after year.
Out of the many industries that are finding new things, one industry that would like to be in that position is the self-help industry. Valued in the billions, there are always more books, courses, and projects being made that promise to be better than the last or the alternative.
Self-help gurus will piggyback on latest trends as well to offer various tips and “crack the code”.
Just as the various industries continue to improve, the self-help industry wants you to improve. After all, you are the product.
But unlike the many industries out there, human betterment isn’t exactly something to be constantly improved upon. If you meet all of your goals and have a satisfying life, where do you go from there?
If you life is the best and most perfect thing out there you can imagine for yourself, how is it that you would need more? What else would there be to improve?
It doesn’t really make sense.
You know deep down that an industry designed to help you improve while its advocates push for never being truly satisfied with life is too much. It’s a loop that never ends while also contradicting itself at times.
And if you realize that, then there are a lot of powerful traits that you’ll get. Traits that would serve you much better and more effectively than what you’d gain from “constantly improving”.
You would become….
Modest
From knowing your own talents and skills to not trying to show off, modesty can get you far in many ways. Modesty allows you to lay out who you are and what you offer without trying to sell yourself too hard or pretend you’re an amazing person.
You likely are, but you convey that by not having a massive ego. Something as simple as saying you’ve been developing these skills for years or you worked in a certain place.
Instead of trying to embellish yourself at every opportunity, you’d rather work on the next thing and live your life.
Skeptical
It pays to be skeptical especially in the self-help industry. You raise your eye brows at over-the-top promises, blanket judgement calls, and grandiose claims.
You’re one of those people who is smart enough to know if someone has been going to several Tony Robbins seminars that the person is just wasting money.
You know that you’re flawed and people promising to remove all negativity or conquer all fears isn’t sustainable, realistic, and even regressive.
You don’t buy into the bullshit and that skepticism can help you to be critical about matters beyond self-help too.
Blunt
Going hand in hand with skepticism, being blunt with someone can often allow progress to move forward or to provide more clarity to a situation.
Being blunt with yourself can also help you in understanding your goals and not being easily swayed as well.
Being blunt isn’t exactly being rude, but it is calling things the way that you see them and setting aside the niceties. You can reserve those for people who have earned your trust and respect.
Funner To Be Around
Getting better and improving yourself is something that we all desire. But there is a difference between those working through the process and others who are always trying to aim for the best.
A good way to compare this is the student who studies for good grades versus the student who studies because they must have good grades. The one who must have good grades will spend more time focusing on their studies and improving themselves, but they would be doing so on their own.
This is on top of having behaviour that makes them more like a drama queen.
It’s the type who would have a meltdown if they get an A rather than an A+ on a test. They’re the type who would be all nervous about tests even when they studied for several days prior to it.
It’s a feeling that people can’t really relate to. Beyond that, these try hards love isolation rather than being in a big group of people.
What so many of these try hard types fall into is a common trap that the self-help industry places. It’s the idea that improvement is a solo job.
Yes, the improvement itself and the benefits are your own, but it doesn’t mean that you have to fly solo for everything you’re looking to improve upon. When you realize constantly improving yourself is a joke, you become more like the student who just studies as they go along.
They have a vision and do want to grow, but they understand their limit. Instead of spending days on end studying, they will allow themselves to mix things up.
They’ll go outside, talk with other people, attend events, get involved in other things.
In other words, they are actually enjoyable to be around.
Patient
If growth isn’t something to be constantly achieved, you begin to understand what growth actually is like. Similar to achieving a goal, you’re path forward isn’t a steady incline upwards.
Rather growth and the path to progress is a convoluted mess. Sometimes you’ll go down, other times you’ll go up. Sometimes you’ll feel lost. Other times you’ll feel certain about the path you’re on.
But one thing that is constant is that you are patient with yourself.
Maybe it’s not quite your time right now. Maybe you’re missing a piece. Or something else is going on that needs your attention.
Whatever the case may be, you recognize that if you’re not constantly growing you’re growing at your own pace. And you have control over the speed of it.
Emotionally Intelligent
Understanding of yourself and those around you, emotional intelligence ties everything together because you have a general understanding of people and yourself.
Honing this technique helps you to realize that just like constant improvement isn’t realistic, labelling emotions as “positive” or “negative” isn’t realistic either. You of all people know that emotions regardless of what societies labelling is, can be useful in their own situations.
There are some things that are pretty clear and that you can define, but you know there is always more to it. Aside from that, things can be pretty vague too which you know exactly how you can clarify.
More Relaxed
Along the same lines as patience, the last trait I consider pretty important when you’re faced with obstacles or failure.
A more relaxed position to me is one where you don’t sweat the details too much. You’re not trying to maximize the most out of a situation or achievement. And you realize it’s not that necessary to do so.
What this helps you to realize is to take failures you’ve never experienced before with more stride. To laugh at yourself or to extract a lesson from it and remind yourself of it on occasion.
I consider my laid back way of dealing with things as a sort of check for myself in all kinds of endeavours.
Thinking of constant improvement as a joke doesn’t mean you don’t believe in growing or improving yourself in general. It’s a middle of the road approach to growth that is more realistic and sustainable.
It’s a position where you won’t sweat about a number of things that others would if they get sucked into the trap that everything in their lives needs fixing.
And it’s this balanced approach that can truly take you to places.
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