Self-Improvement is Self-Conflict

If you saw me driving a car with a broken engine, and then you saw me coming home from the auto shop with a brand-new paint job, what would be your first thought? Probably something like, “You didn’t actually address the core issue; you just made it look better on the outside.”

This, without knowing any better, is what most of us are doing all the time.

I saw this constantly when I was a personal trainer. I could help someone lose body fat or get bigger biceps, but it didn’t actually improve their life in any holistic sense. Maybe they looked a little better in pictures, but their internal experience—their view of themselves—was still one of fear and stress. “I’m not fit enough.” Maybe they replaced stress eating with stress lifting, but they didn’t actually remove the stress. They just pointed their addictive personality in a different direction.

Whether you’re homeless on the side of the street or you’re the CEO in the corner office of that very same building, chances are, you’re being driven by the very same psychology with very similar internal experiences. The internal dialogue for both could be: This is stupid. I shouldn’t have to be here. I deserve better than this. This isn’t enough for me. What am I going to do? Are things going to be okay?

It’s just that one followed a self-destructive path, and one followed a self-improvement path. But internally, both of these are just different versions of self-conflict.

Implicit within the idea of “self-improvement” is the notion that there is something wrong, lacking, or insufficient about you that needs to be improved. I’m not saying it isn’t worthwhile to learn and grow; I’m saying the way most of us go about it is not only exhausting, but it’s usually futile.

The reason for this is that most of what we think are our problems are actually symptoms of a deeper problem. Overthinking, procrastination, self-sabotage, a lack of discipline, a lack of confidence—these are not the problem. These are symptoms.

We try to combat these symptoms (with all the best intentions) with pills, doctors, supplements, and self-help books, but at the end of the day, it’s like rearranging the furniture in a burning house.

This whole paradigm can be called Instruction. Instruction gives you tools and practices to combat dysfunction. It can help you make linear, gradual change in your external circumstances, which might look better on the outside, but the actual, internal lived experience is not much different. It initiates a problem-solving cycle. We’re always trying to solve the next problem and the next, not realizing that we’re the one who is neurotically trying to fix everything all the time.

So, what do we do instead? We make space. We Inspire.

Instead of combating the dysfunction, we make space to identify and remove the underlying root cause. Instead of getting locked into the problem-solving cycle, we address the root of the issue. I don’t solve problems; I dis-solve them. The goal is to remove the idea that there’s anything wrong with you in the first place, freeing up that energy to get back to enjoying life and doing what you love.

Most of us get stuck in a vicious cycle: we notice the surface-level symptoms, try to cover them up or ignore them, watch them get worse over time, and then find more ways to cover them up. We end up putting more and more pressure and expectations on ourselves, getting more and more out of balance, which makes us more stressed and disappointed. This, in turn, makes it even harder to get anything meaningful done, and the cycle continues.

Let’s take a cigarette smoker for example. In the symptom-suppressing way of life, they think, “Smoking is the problem,” and they try to stop smoking. If that simple approach works, they often end up compensating by drinking, eating, or distracting themselves in other ways. They removed the “smoking” but didn’t actually address any of the underlying anxiety, fear, or stress that makes them want to smoke. This is why relapses are so common.

The alternative is to get down to the why. How have you become the kind of person who feels the need to smoke? Let’s untangle whatever mental knots are keeping you stuck. Then, let’s create a lifestyle that’s so vital, joyful, and relaxed that you’ll scoff at the idea of smoking because it seems so silly.

I once worked with a woman who was struggling with insomnia. She tried fighting it with supplements, noise machines, and medications. She had come to identify with being an “insomniac.” Even if she slept well one night, she was expecting the next night to be twice as bad because, in her story, “I have insomnia.” It was part of her identity.

Eventually, she just gave up. She said, “Screw it. My life has been well enough with little sleep. I’m done worrying about it. My life will go on, and I will do what I can. The rest isn’t my problem.”

She made space for all of it. Whether she slept or not, whether she was an insomniac or not, whether she was tired or not—she could accept that and move on.

And just like that, she started sleeping well. In order for her to sleep well, she had to give up. She had to let go of the desire to sleep well. She had to let go of all the excuses for not living her life.

This is the essence of dissolving a problem rather than fighting its effects. Her chemical imbalance was the effect, the measurement after the fact; it was not the cause. The energy, the state, the mindset—that was the cause. By making space and letting go of the conflict, the problem dissolved on its own.