How can I be better? How can I become the best version of myself? What is ‘self-improvement‘? What is THE goal?
When starting their self-improvement journey many people start asking these questions. Asking for a defined goal, a ‘right‘ direction, THE overall working plan. Sorry to break it to you, but that does not exist.
When thinking of ‘self-improvement’, many seem to have forgotten the most important part of that word: ‘self’. This journey is personal, this journey is subjective, this journey is individual, this journey is about YOUR life.
I’ve seen more and more self-improvement videos recently telling you to:
wake up early;
only eat healthy, preferably whole foods;
drink 3L of water a day;
do sports every day;
meditate and journal every morning;
be more productive;
work harder;
think of only yourself, but also be selfless;
NEVER HAVE FUN AGAIN.
Well, the last one is rather what I’d experience if I was following these; this and depression. What about you, have you tried these? Maybe this way of living works for you, and guess what, that is 100 % fine! But the same applies if it doesn’t.
I myself have given you tips and provided strategies which include some of the above. These can be useful, for everyone, but you can always adjust them fitting to your own persona, your daily schedule, your life. Many of you probably work, which restricts the possibilities and leads to different difficulties than social media clean girls might have (that’s just an example).
If you were to ask me, the only universally applicable goal is health – and that includes physical and mental health.
It is true that waking up at 4 am theoretically gives you more time to accomplish your tasks. But if I personally were to wake up at that time every day, I’d do nothing but try to stay awake until 11 am (I’d also still get nothing done before).
How do I know that? Because I tried – not 4 but 7 am, so it wasn’t even that bad. Nonetheless, the earliest I actually started doing anything at all was 11 am. It also never mattered how many hours I slept until 7 am, I would be tired, meaning my productivity and the quality of my work were lacking on these days as well.
In contrast, I can still work pretty effective late at night. So instead of waking up unreasonably early, I pay attention to getting enough sleep, then I focus on my tasks until around 4 or 5 pm (depending on my daily schedule), afterwards I have a long break and then start recapping and working again at around 10 pm, for only around 1 to 2 hours.
I know that sounds crazy to some people, starting again late at night – I understand that. That’s just what somehow turned out to work for me, as I usually stay up late anyways – I’m a stereotypical night owl person.
Trust me when I say it took a lot of trial and error to get to that realisation. Also, the ‘work’ I’m referring to mostly includes my studies. I do not have a 9-to-5-job, which would restrict me with specific working times. I do understand that this does not apply to most people. So, what to do now?
What to do if neither the 4-am-super-productive-schedule nor the weird WP-Admin-10-pm-schedule work?
First of all, balancing self-improvement with adult-life is hard, honestly, it is. So, before we move on and talk about this problem, I want you to look into the mirror. Realise how brave and strong you are for making an effort to improve your life, besides the chaos it throws at you. Done? Wonderful! I’m very proud of you.
The most important part in optimising my schedule, to something which allows me enough freedom to try new things, see friends or relax, was getting to know myself. If you understand what defines you, yourself, your persona, then you’ll be able to work off of this knowledge and create a life in accordance with yourself.
So, whether you’re an employee and have specific work times or can adjust work hours freely as I do, getting to know yourself is key to a happy life.
Problem solved? Sadly, we’re not there yet.
When learning about yourself, you’ll inevitably come across characteristics and traits that you might not like. At that point, many will start asking: What am I supposed to do about these traits? I think the best answer to this question is: Why do you dislike them?
Besides providing very strict and one dimensional ideas of self-improvement, modern media also suggests that specific traits and characteristics are ideal by that approach.
I won’t deny that there are traits which we could define as ’negative’ or ’disadvantageous’ as a collective (eg. being unnecessarily mean, aggressive, ignorant, etc), but I want you to know that not everything others label as imperfect is truly something you need ‘to get rid of’.
Another important aspect to consider is the disruptive character of getting to know yourself. You’ll need to be fully opened towards what you’re about to learn, even though it might not align with the picture you have of yourself. Otherwise you cannot improve.
I recently found myself in a situation which included all of these problems. So, let me tell you what happened:
Some time ago I decided to do the Myers Briggs Personality Type -Test. If you don’t know this test, it’s a psychological personality test, which characterises your way to approach problems by determining your primary responses in four different functions:
Extraversion (E) vs Introversion (I)
Intuition (N) vs Sensing (S)
Thinking (T) vs Feeling (F)
Perception (P) vs Judgement (J)
Depending on your combination of these eight, you’re assigned one of 16 different possible types.
I did the test just for fun, and I also let each member of my family take it. I tried the actual mbti-test online, so I answered my questions on my own. As for my family, they were not willing to answer that many questions, so I asked ChatGPT to give me only a few which determine between each function. To do that it gave me a question and provided two answers (one for either possible function). But, this also meant I was the one to ask them the questions.
Determining my father’s type was truly easy. Honestly, I did not need the test to tell which mbti he has after reading into the different types a bit. So we were off to a good start.
Next up was my mother. My mother is an introvert and a feeler – there is no doubt in that. When she got her result she was extremely unhappy. Why? Because she perceived the type she received as weak. She thinks being emotional is a weakness and being introverted equals to being shy. That is not true. Introversion and shyness are not the same, emotions are the most natural and honest part about humans, they are a way to connect and communicate with others.
Society embraces extroverted individuals as the popular ones, the only ones capable of having fun. Who exactly said that that’s true? Do you need to be loud to have fun? I thought you’d need to do what you enjoy or be with people you like, whether that’s 10 people or 1 person. Don’t let this misconception fool you.
Second of all, being emotional does not make you weak, it’s quite the opposite. Being able to understand and appreciate emotions allows you to influence the world around you. Emotions are everywhere and more importantly, essential to every single one of us. They hold great potential and power.
My brothers test, well, that one was more of a search. His type was rather hard to determine as he did not really fit any. When I asked him the questions there was one answer that really made me wonder – the one to determine whether he is intuitive or sensing. Without going to deep into what these two functions actually include, let’s just say, by ChatGPT’s phrasing, the intuitive function sounded way better than sensing one.
Intuitive didn’t really describe my brother, nonetheless he chose the answer leading to it. Why? It sounded more useful, it sounded more wanted by society, a trait which was better than the other one – it sounded desirable.
You can read into the different functions, or simply ask ChatGPT as well for a short explanation, but overall, let me tell you, each and every single one of the eight functions has its strengths and weak aspects. If you chose something because you think it sounds better, or ignore a characteristic because you dislike it, you’ll end up with a result which does not represent yourself – you’ve wasted your time, because you’ll receive exactly 0 % useful information out of that.
You need to be honest to truly work with your insights. If you still want to change traits you dislike, that’s fine, but you’ll need to understand and acknowledge them first.
As for my brother, we ended up going through all the mbtis and found one of the sensing types to describe him the best – it’s an energetic, fun and popular type, even though it does not include the (solely better phrased) intuitive function.
Lastly, my test. I as well got a result I did not expect. My test suggested that I am an extrovert, lol.
To be a bit more specific, I received a 51% extroverted to 49% introverted result, so I would say I am typed as an ambivert (being both extroverted and introverted).
Now, what exactly was my problem with that result? In what way did I lie to myself?
I thought I was an introvert, I pressured myself into working and behaving as what I thought was right for an introvert.
I had to be independent since a young age, which led to me thinking I needed to do everything on my own. As a result I always worked alone, thinking I can only rely on myself. I pushed others away, disliked group projects and activities, never asked for help or shared my plans – all of that made me think I simply dislike working with others. This was my perception of myself.
Over the last years this facade started to crumble. I found myself craving more social interactions, I found myself in search for discussion, I found myself regaining energy when spending time with others. But, as this was not aligning with what I thought of myself – with being an introvert – instead of embracing this way of living I neglected these desires and locked myself away.
This mbti-test did not change my life, I realised I’m an ambivert before. But yes, it did function as a little confirmation and helped me to ultimately realise that I am not defined by my past.
The extroverted/introverted-conflict was something that messed with my health for a long time. Two contradicting traits both in one person – how was I supposed to deal with that? Do you have similar traits as well?
Be open to accept every side of you. Contradicting characteristics can hold a lot of potential as they’ll allow you to connect with and understand more people, or work effectively in different settings.
Understand that you can change. Experiences, relationships and knowledge form our character every day. You are evolving, developing, improving, so don’t let set definitions (including the mbti-test) restrict you. They might be a guide, but they are not you.
So, what did we learn today?
Self–improvement is about YOU and only YOU.
Self–improvement is personal, it is individual, it is subjective, so there is no universal answer as to what to do to truly move forward in YOUR life.
This allows and requires you to find YOUR way, fitting to your circumstances, schedule, life, and personality. You don’t need to listen to anyone else – you can if you WANT to, but you DO NOT NEED to.
You are versatile, you are different from others, you have ‘good and bad’, subjectively speaking, characteristics and they all are part of THE PERSON YOU ARE. There is no right or wrong, no good or bad. Accept and combine every side of you, allow them all to be a part of you – YOU are the one to VALIDATE YOURSELF.
All of your traits make you a multifaceted person, these are your dimensions, which make you interesting and unique.