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buildingthemeshere · 4 years ago

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THE DARK SIDE OF SELF-IMPROVMENT

While it’s beneficial to quit smoking and start eating overnight oats, it’s detrimental to ones mental health to be constantly focused on changing themselves. This constant focus on glowing up is rooted in the unacceptance of self.

Change implies dissatisfaction. And while this feeling is beneficial for quitting smoking, it’s not so much for things more integrated in you, such as anxiety. Sure, there are guides on how to ease anxiety and learn coping methods, but you can’t eliminate it completely (in the sense that there will always be things that come up and make you deal with this emotion).

Becoming obsessed with changing yourself can make you view things that are deeply integrated in you as flaws rather than what they are. Seeing someone post about how they overcame social anxiety can make you want to implement tips from their video into your life. It can also easily discourage you when their tips don’t work because you have a more severe form of social anxiety.

Sure, implementing new habits can help people build confidence and new pathways, but there is an underlying sense that one has to change to be accepted.

Like tattoo’s and plastic surgery, after you do it once, an addiction or obsession can easily begin. You change your sleeping habits, become one of those annoying 5AMer’s. Start taking cold showers in the morning. Posting about your kale smoothies. Your Instagram becomes a clone of “that girl” aesthetic.

You subscribe to the idea that you can change anything about yourself and begin to do so. As this new self is emerging the old self is diminishing but still alive and deeply in your subconscious. The old you will always be a part of you, as it paved the way for a new you to be reborn. And, activates in times of stress.

When we are dealing with severe stress, we revert back to our old ways. Sure, we successfully implemented waking up at the crack of dawn. But when we start waking up at 8AM it is looked at negatively, most of the time, perceiving that we are taking a step back, not that our body needs something else than it previously did.

Self-improvement has become a competition. Who is the most disciplined? Who can monetize the most skills? Who is the most consistent? And can easily be embellished on social media. Someone could spend a day taking hundreds of photos and videos and slowly release them throughout the year to appear they are consistent (a common bodybuilder influencer tactic).

And, sure it takes like 21 days to make a habit stick… but how many of them actually do? We live in an impatient society. Fast things sell. It’s all about the speedy system to get those multi-billion dollar results. Can you actually get abs in two weeks? Did your eyes turn purple after listening to those subliminal frequencies for a month? Are you keeping up with meal planning after a week?

They are selling you the dream. Sure you may be able to read 50 books in a year like Bill Gates does, but can you retain all the information like he can? Would it be more enjoyable for you to read 1 book a month rather than 1 book a week? It depends on you and what you enjoy and want to conquer. Sure, you can do all these things. But will it really be beneficial to you or just something you can say you did?

If you lose 10 pounds and gain it back, sure you lost the weight but failed to retain the weight you desire. Is that a win? For some, I guess. Mostly for the corporate world because they can sell you another tactic.

I mean, why not just grab one of the many self-help books that are promoted on the internet? Fill yourself with all the hope that you can do something to change your life like how they changed theirs. Work only 4 hours a week. But… Then why are you just reading one after another and now you’re a master of the art of not giving a f? Huh…

Almost just like they’re selling you hope. You can be this, or this or that. The future you is so moldable. So many things you can cast upon it with your imagination. You can be anything. But what do you actually want to be? The ultimate conflicting question that makes self-help and self-improvement influencers rich without giving you the answers because that’s your prerogative.

Constantly wanting to change things about yourself communicates to your subconscious that you need to change to be accepted by yourself or a specific group. This nonacceptance oozes into your mind from people who are appearing to do it all (when most of these people are outsourcing a good portion of their work).

Anyways, if you don’t figure out the underlying causes for the negative habits you have, you’ll revert or transform the habit into something else to get your needs met. Quitting drinking won’t address the issues you have with your toxic mom, but it will make them clearer to you and how those issues effect you. If these issues aren’t addressed and worked on, one can easily revert back to alcohol or a different substance to cope with the abuse. It takes a lot of effort and time for change to fully occur because these habits are deeply rooted and connected to underlying things.

It’s better to be the tortoise than than the hare with these kinds of things. Sure you can get abs in a couple months (if you’re in the right place health wise) but it takes most people a chunk of a year (or two) to get them. And keeping them is a different story.

Like, sure you can wake up at 5AM, but if you’re going to bed at 1AM that isn’t sustainable. And its not like you can just flick a biological switch and fall asleep whenever you want. You have to start going to bed at the right time, also filling up your day with activities that are going to drain you by the time you want and also get into the habit of not pressing snooze. It’s a long process to make a habit stick… and that’s not appealing marketing for our high paced society.

This is just another multi-billion dollar industry filling your head with things they have the solution for. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s your fault. It’s SELF help. I guess you’ll have to try a different coach with regurgitated grounding techniques.

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