Self-improvement

If, like me, you’re the type of person who reads a lot of self-help literature, inevitably you will come across a lot of articles that tell you how to be your ‘better’ self. Now, if you have used some of the techniques bouncing around and find yourself a happier person — great! I sincerely mean that. However, there are a few thoughts I’ve had about the self-improvement movement that I would like to share:

1) Self-improvement can move away from self-acceptance

The term ‘improvement’ suggests that how we are in this moment is not good enough. I know that for some people, myself included, this kind of thinking can be the fire that motivates them to take action. The only issue is I highly doubt that this beat-yourself-up approach has a long-term positive effect on your emotional wellbeing. After all, you are being driven because you cannot accept yourself. I feel like that is moving away from self-love and peace. Yes, you may have a string of achievements to show at the end of it, but at what cost to your heart?

2) A linear kind of life may not be for all

Be consistent. Be obsessive. Be hungry. These are the overall themes I started to see reading autobiographies of so-called successful people. I also noticed though that a large majority of the people insisting on this kind of attitude were mostly men. In the last few months I have come to slowly accept and even embrace the fact that my inner nature is inherently chaotic. Everything from my moods, to my physical energy levels, to my cognitive functioning seems to be both cyclical and difficult to predict.

Our current patriarchal society still perceives these kinds of traits negatively, valuing instead calm, consistent linear living (A woman’s mood swings = “She’s crazy!”). However, a lot of ancient Eastern philosophies acknowledge and revere this beautifully chaotic aspect of human nature, labeling it as the ‘feminine’ side of existence. It is inherent in all of us regardless of gender, but as a woman I feel this aspect is magnified.

I see chaos a bit like a typhoon. It can come forth violently and destroy everything in its path, but from this destruction can also come brilliant creation. Although chaos may be impossible to mentally grasp, it also has magnificent depth. This is not to devalue linear living in the slightest — it has its own splendor and beauty. But it would be a shame to stamp out this other side of human existence through only valuing one side of human existence, a side that I often see the self-improvement movement championing as the only life worth living.

3) Self-improvement can be at the detriment of your inner voice

I’ve heard several people say that the key to self-improvement is to relentlessly stick at something, even if your whole being is resisting against it. This is one way to live your life, and I’m sure you will improve wonderfully at any skill you desire to cultivate. My personal conclusion regarding this kind of living is this: sure, you will externally achieve something, but it’s at the cost of ignoring your inner being. The physical sensation I get when I am in this kind of mode is a very heavy head and exhausted body. My attention, instead of feeling expansive, starts to feel very narrow. My head doesn’t seem to stop working and often I get insomnia. It’s only when I distance myself from whatever I’m doing, like in the form of a holiday, that suddenly I feel how detrimental this kind of living is for me personally.

If I’ve not snapped out of this through a break then usually my tumultuous moods will halt my productivity to a stop anyways. The painful thing about this is that despite my inner-self telling me that work isn’t possible, I start to berate myself for not being consistent. This is a negative spiral that doesn’t help. Recognising and accepting that my inner being actually is cyclical has changed things for the better. I may not be super consistent, I may often stop and start things, but I feel much more aligned with who I am. This in turns brings a sense of peace, one that I don’t feel if I’m forcing myself to do things repetitively.

4) You don’t create who you are, you unfold into who you are

I think that often we first try to craft the person we think we want to be. Only to find out that this is a vacuous endeavor that slowly drains our souls. No matter how much we mold our lives in ways that we think will bring us happiness there will be something missing. This can also lead to us clinging desperately to our achievements because we feel they’re the only things that make us “someone”.

But what if one day you lose everything? Your money, your academic degrees, your medals or even your memory. Who are you then? We then realise that actually we don’t need to create who we are, because we are “there” already. All we need is to gently unfold into it by surrendering and letting go. Listen to that inner voice. Relax and float on top of the waves of life instead of swimming against them. Be still and make space inside yourself so the song of your heart can soar through.

I know that I am not in the minority when I say I had a serious procrastination problem. For me, my wake up call was my PhD. You have three to four years to write a thesis. If you procrastinate, you’re royally screwed.

My procrastination habits were already pretty bad, and they were made even worse by my clinical depression. For months and months I was like an engine that couldn’t start up properly. My severe anxiety and stress would prevent me from even starting to read or write.

The good news is I eventually made a very significant breakthrough, and it didn’t involve any fancy techniques.

I simply used a pen and a notebook.

After months of self-scrutiny, I managed to pin down the reason for my procrastination onto one main thing: the avoidance of anxiety.

Let me illustrate. You have a big deadline coming up. You sit down to try to start. But because there is so much to do, you can’t quite figure out what the next step is. And oh my gosh think about all the work you need to do. Think about how this task is far too big to start, and even worse, you can’t think of the perfect way to do it. AAAAAH!

Before you know it you are clicking on Facebook and are looking at photographs of people you don’t care about. This all happens at lightning speed. Each time you open up Microsoft Word to start working again, that wall of anxiety hits you, and your default mode becomes avoidance.

In order to escape this never ending spiral, you first need to understand the following: anxiety is caused by not being in the present.

If you are asked whether there is anything you are unhappy about in general, I’m sure you could produce an endless list of things from not getting a pay-rise to your partner not giving you the attention you need. But if you ask yourself whether there is anything you are unhappy about in this very moment in time, it is highly likely that the answer is no (unless you are, at this moment, being tortured brutally by some terrorist group…in which case why are you reading this blog?).

Anxiety is caused by thinking about the past or the future, instead of embracing the present. Instead of focusing on the very next step that has to be done, you get swept away by all the things that you have to do in the future. You worry endlessly.

In step the pen and notebook.

Everyday I would sit down, open my notebook, and think only about what the very next step was. I really broke it down into the basics. Some days the first line was “Switch on the computer”, and once I’d done that, “Open Word document”. Once I got the ball rolling I could start making the next steps “Read first paragraph of journal paper” or “Type in first line of excel data”.

Essentially, it was a mindfulness technique that kept me focused on the present or the very, very near future at most. This prevented me from getting sucked into the tornado of anxiety. Because I was creating myself tiny baby steps that were guaranteed to be achievable, I wouldn’t panic. I could see how I was going to proceed. Plus I was constantly rewarding myself by ticking off all the things that I had finished. Tiny victories, but achieved nonetheless!

I also stopped worrying about whether I would finish in time, or whether the work was good enough (perfectionism is a common trait among those who procrastinate). I knew that using this notebook method I was working the best that I could at the fastest pace sensibly possible. So I just had to trust that so long as I kept this going, I was on the right track.

Thanks to this notebook technique for the rest of my PhD I managed to work consistently, in a focused manner. Procrastination is manageable. The key is to admit that you have a problem, and then to discover the truth behind why it’s occurring in the first place. The most important thing is to not beat yourself up about it. To get angry at yourself for procrastinating is to only make your anxiety worse. Remember that you are a human being, and that we are not perfect. Accept that you feel anxious, take a deep breath, and pick up your pen and notebook. It’s never too late to start.

Don’t Let ‘Self-Improvement’ Drag You Away From Self-Acceptance

How I Conquered Procrastination