Is Self-Improvement Making You Feel Worse? 5 Critical Truths to Know

When I read my first self-help book in 2009, it opened a new world to me. 

I didn’t have to live life with little self-esteem and a lot of resentment. I didn’t have to become exactly like my parents or live the life everyone expected. I actuallycould carve my own path and transform the personality traits that were holding me back. 

After a few years of personal development, however, I reached the other end: I felt worse. I felt “behind” more successful people, and I felt exhausted as I pushed myself harder and harder just to end up right back where I started. 

But it wasn’t until I changed how I used self-improvement that I finally stopped feeling worse and actually started making my life better. 

In this article, I’ll break down the biggest myths that come from a lot of (but not all) self-help advice. Then, I’ll share the truths you need to understand before you read more advice so that it actually improves your life and doesn’t make you feel worse. 

You just might discover your “self” doesn’t need to be improved.

Myth: You Aren’t Good Enough

You should have a 7-figure passive-income business. You should exercise 6 times a week. You should drop everything in life to chase your dreams. 

If you’re not, you’re lazy and wasting your life. If you just want to work a corporate job and retire at 65, you’re “mediocre.” Oh, and you aren’t trying hard enough either—after all, so-and-so has 20 kids and 7 companies, and they still wake up at 2 AM to accomplish everything before sunrise.

Sounds familiar? 

Because of these lofty (implied) standards, plenty of self-help readers feel unhappy. Even if they’re living a solid life—one that billions of people in the world would envy—they’re miserable because they think they should be doing amazing things like [insert your favorite self-help author here].

Not everyone wants to be the CEO of a 5,000 person company, write bestsellers, or bench press 500lbs. Some people just like simpler things and that’s fine too. 

But thinking that you must have X, Y, and Z—and that you’re “settling” if you don’t want them—will only make your life worse and create problems where no problem actually exists.

If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you’re setting yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time.

— Col. Chris Hadfield

Myth: You Need to Dwell on Your Problems

The more you do personal development, the more you uncover your flaws and weaknesses. Sure, it’s valuable to be honest about the issues holding you back so you can fix them, but I know self-help fans who are fixated on their problems. They’re constantly dwelling on their flaws so they see themselves as “flawed”—and feel more miserable because of it. 

Attention to health is life’s greatest hindrance.

— Plato

Look, we all have shortcomings and, if you’re uncovering your problems for the first time, great. But you should only do this kind of introspection occasionally and only to help yourself, not to beat yourself up; otherwise, you’ll always feel like you’re falling short, never good enough, and never improving.

Myth: Self-Improvement Is Straightforward

Some authors make it seem easy. Follow these 5 steps to be a millionaire. Follow this case study on how to make $10,000/month on Medium.

But we often overlook the unique factors that contributed to their success and everyone else who did the same things and failed. (This is called “survivorship bias” and the self-help industry is rife with it.) For example, if you look at a few of the biggest names on Medium, they were doing things three years ago that would’ve gotten banned today.

Self-improvement isn’t a “recipe” where you follow the steps and always get the same results—there are too many variables and what works for one person might not work for you. That doesn’t mean their advice is “wrong,” but it does mean you need to understand it isn’t as simple as they make it look. 

Truth: Self-Help Coaches Are Flawed Too

Some of the most famous self-help personalities are not-nice-people. (Sadly, I’ve met a few myself.) And in the self-help industry, flaws might be more common than we think, even for the biggest names:

I met a lot of other self-help authors along the way. And I discovered there were two types of us: people who lived to write, and self-appointed experts hoping to get rich and famous… The dirty little secret of those in the advice business is that we wind up teaching others the lessons we most need to learn ourselves. [emphasis added]

— Michelle Goodman

Also, even if you see self-help personalities living “amazing” lives, some of them lie—in reality, they might be broke and miserable, despite what their high-quality DSLR pictures show (which I’ll explain later). 

Truth: Self-Improvement Is NOT a Competition

Some “influencers” perpetuate a mindset that life is a competition, especially on social media. They try extra hard to prove how much better their life is than everyone else’s. They always show themselves doing great things to have everyone praise them. (Reading their articles or posts, you’ll see a “Look at how cool I am!” vibe lurking underneath.)

As a result, you might feel jealous or that you’re “behind” in life because you’re not doing the cool shit they’re doing at, say, age 23. 

But… has it ever occurred to you that maybe they want you to be jealous of them? Has it occurred to you that they themselves are not grounded? That they themselves feel life is a competition so they have to outdo everyone else (and make you feel like you’ve been outdone)?

The people posting the most are often the people feeling the worst. 

The fact is that approval-seeking behavior is a self-defeating cycle that will make you unhappy and anxious. Because if constantly trying to prove yourself, you’ll always fall short because nothing will ever validate you. No amount of praise will ever make you happier or more worthy. 

And using self-improvement as fuel in that never-ending chase for self-worth will only lead to nowhere. 

Truth: There Is No Finish Line

Self-improvement often turns into a never-ending chase for perfection, which you’ll never achieve—no matter how hard you work on yourself, there will never be a moment where you’re finally free of all problems and issues.

You will never get “there.”

Instead, accept that fact and enjoy the process. Think about how far you’ve come, what you’ve learned, and the pleasures you have in your life today.

Life, as my friend Jack Calhoun says, is like climbing a mountain that doesn’t have a summit. Even if I achieve all the things I currently want or become the person I want to be, I probably won’t feel the positive emotions I thought I would after it happens.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to improve yourself or fix problems. (Don’t get that twisted.) But it does mean you need to know that reaching an imaginary level of perfection is impossible and it’s a cycle that will only make you miserable.

Truth: Success (Probably) Won’t Make You Happier

Take a few seconds to visualize you have everything you want in life—a massive mansion, a private jet, a sexy life partner, etc. 

Then, tell yourself:

None of this will make me any happier.

(As you would imagine, this exercise makes me the hit of any party.)

The overwhelming odds are that achievements and successes won’t make you any happier. That’s not to say, “Why try?” (There are plenty of reasons to achieve things in life.) 

But the reason I created this exercise is to force myself to end the “chase for happiness.” Because if I know they won’t make me happier, maybe I’ll realize that, deep down inside, I don’t really want them. And it’s a helluva lot better to know this before I go on the long journey to achieve those things than after.

Also, if you can’t be happy now — even with all of life’s imperfections — chances are you won’t be happy even if after you get what you want. Instead, learn to be happy now because happiness is a state of mind, not something to be attained.

There are two things to aim for in life: first to get what you want, and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.

— Logan Pearsall Smith

Truth: You Are Always Good Enough (No Matter What You Achieve — Or Don’t)

Who you are is always good enough, even now. Sure, we can learn more skills, be more patient, or get in better shape, but who were are as a fundamental human being is fine the way it is. 

But the more we try to be “good enough” to compensate for believing that we aren’t, the more we’re going to drive ourselves nuts to live up to (or surpass) those imaginary expectations. 

Yes, our backhands can improve, and I’m sure my writing can get better; certainly our skills in relating to each other on the planet can improve. But the cornerstone of stability is to know that there is nothing wrong with the essential human being.

—W. Timothy Gallwey, “The Inner Game of Tennis”

Self-improvement stopped making me feel worse when I realized it shouldn’t be about becoming a “better person.” To me, it’s about learning new skills—that’s it. Managing emotions, improving communication and relationships, eliminating sabotaging habits, etc. 

Studying personal development helps me live a more “optimal” life and enjoy extra benefits. But that doesn’t make me “better” than I was previously nor “better” than someone who never touched a self-help book in their life.

How to Think About Self-Improvement

Again, life isn’t a competition and it isn’t a race to get a bunch of “nice things” that won’t make me any happier. 

Bottom line: I want to live my life and know that I did everything I could possibly do. Rather than going through the motions, I actually lived my life and pushed past my inner limits. And even if I don’t achieve everything I set out to accomplish, that’s okay—because life isn’t about the achievements themselves; it’s about the journey toward them. 

The definition of Hell: At the end of your life, the person you become meets the person you could have become.

— Anonymous

And that’s what motivates me to seek self-improvement, learn new skills and abilities, and maximize my potential. 

Because I only get one life to live.

So I might as well make the most of it.