When Self-Improvement Becomes Self-Destruction

I caught myself doing it again the other day - that familiar feeling of "I need to fix this about myself."

I've been a self-improvement junkie for years. Read all the books, done the workshops, analyzed my patterns until I couldn't tell the difference between houndstooth and paisley. I was going farther and farther out into the woo-i-verse, acting like a junkie looking for my next fix.

It got bad enough that my family finally had to do an intervention and cut me off from purchasing any more self-improvement courses.

I was justifying purchases with "oh if I do this business model, it will pay for itself with three clients" and then I wouldn't even finish the program. Or I'd go through it, decide I didn't actually want to do the thing I just paid for, and be off to the next self-improvement thing. It didn't matter whether the investment made sense or if the program was something I actually needed. I couldn't stop.

My daughter Amanda confronted me about it. We talked, and with her help, I started to climb out of that hole. But somewhere in all of that, I realized something: I'd turned personal growth into a form of perfectionism.

Every insight became a flaw that needed addressing. Every pattern I noticed became a project to optimize. I was basically turning myself into a never-ending Winchester House renovation project. I mean really, how many stairs that go nowhere do I really need?

Growth vs. Fixing

The difference between "fixing a flaw" and "actually growing" is subtle but huge.

Think about it: growth is like a tree getting bigger and stronger - expanding, reaching, becoming more. Fixing is tearing something apart because it's broken - digging into the damaged parts, making it feel smaller or less than it was before.

One feels curious and experimental, like you're discovering cool stuff about yourself. The other feels urgent and anxiety-driven, like something's fundamentally wrong with you.

I love Steven Bartlett's 1% better approach - I even have his journal. The idea of constant small improvements compounding over time is brilliant. But there's a fine line between "this is working well, let me make it a bit better" and "this isn't good enough, I must constantly improve it."

One comes from abundance. The other comes from scarcity.

The Real Question

Are you making it 1% better because you're excited about the possibilities, or because you're afraid it's not good enough as it is?

I'm still figuring this out for myself, but here's what I'm trying to notice now:

What's actually driving this urge to change? Is it "this is broken and I need to fix it" or "I'm curious what would happen if I tried this differently"?

Am I starting from a place of deficit ("I'm not good enough at this") or growth ("I'm pretty good at this, wonder how I could level it up")?

Is this solving an actual problem, or am I just optimizing because I can?

And the big one: How would I feel if I just... left this alone? If the answer is anxiety or discomfort, like something's "wrong" - that's usually a sign I'm in fix-it mode, not growth mode.

The Real Talk

Sometimes things are already working fine and don't need to be "made better." Sometimes the answer to "how can I improve this?" is actually "it doesn't need improvement - it's doing its job perfectly."

This is still a new concept for me. I'm trying to be a curious experimenter in my own life rather than someone constantly tearing myself apart to fix what isn't actually broken.