There's a paradox with self-improvement and it is this: The ultimate goal of all self-improvement is to reach the point where you no longer feel the need to improve yourself.
Think about it: The whole goal of improving your productivity is to reach the point where you never have to think about how to be more productive. The whole point of pursuing happiness is to reach the point where one no longer has to think about being happy.
Self-improvement is therefore, in a weird way, ultimately self-defeating.
The only way to truly achieve one's potential, to become fully fulfilled, or to become "self-actualized" (whatever that means), is to, at some point, stop trying to be all of those things.
Now, before we go all "Fight Club" and punch each other in basements and blow up bank buildings, I do believe that there is an important role for self-improvement and all of the millions of podcasts, books, seminars, and articles that you obsessively consume. I promise.
But, as usual, a lot depends on why you care about self-improvement. So, let's put our shirts back on and take a look.
How to approach self-improvement
There are two approaches to improving yourself:
1. The self-improvement junkie
Self-improvement junkies feel like they need to jump on every new seminar, read all the latest books, listen to all the podcasts, lift all the weight, hire all the life coaches, open all their chakras, and talk about all their childhood traumas — both real and imagined — incessantly.
For the self-improvement junkie, the purpose of self-improvement is not the improvement itself, rather it's motivated by a subtle form of FOMO (fear of missing out). The junkie has this constant gnawing feeling that there's still some magic tip or technique or piece of information out there that will create their next big breakthrough (again, both real or imagined).
Self-improvement for the junkies becomes a kind of glorified hobby. It's what they spend all of their money on. It's what they do with their vacations. It's where they meet their friends and network.
For most people, this isn't necessarily that bad of a thing. You could certainly spend your time and money on worse things (oh, hello meth and cocaine, didn't see you there).
2. The self-improvement tourists
Other people only come to self-help when s*** has really hit the fan. They just got slapped in the face with a divorce or someone close to them just died and now they're depressed or they just remembered they had $135,000 in credit card debt that they somehow forgot to pay off for the last 11 years.
For self-help tourists, self-help material is like going to the doctor. You don't just show up to the hospital on a random Tuesday saying, "Hey Doc, tell me what's wrong with me." That would be insane.
No, you only go to the hospital when something is already wrong and you're in a lot of serious pain.
These people use self-help material to fix whatever is bothering them, to get them back on their feet, and then they're off into the world again.
I would argue that self-help tourists are using self-improvement advice in a healthy manner and that self-help junkies are (often, but not always) using it in an unhealthy manner. Remember, the paradoxical point of all self-improvement is to reach a point where you no longer feel you need to improve yourself. Therefore, the constant indulgence in self-improvement material just continues to feed that feeling of inadequacy.
Many people come to self-help material because they feel like something is wrong with them or the way they are. The problem is that anything that tells you how to improve your life is also implying that there is something inherently wrong with you the way you are.
These people can then end up in a spiral of sorts. They vacuum up productivity advice and start waking up at 6 AM and putting cow piss in their coffee and meditating 30 minutes before breakfast and journaling with binaural beats in the background while visualizing their spirit animal.
Then they wake up the kids for school…
And, oh no, what if they're waking up their kids wrong? And so now they order 22 books on parenting tactics, and then seminars on how to raise your kid's self-esteem, and then that leads to another seminar on how to plan for your kid's financial future, and that leads to a $10,000 super-premium platinum mastermind extravaganza where you've gone into debt and re-mortgaged your house so you can learn how to become a millionaire by the time you're 50.
Where does it end?
It doesn't.
At least not until you decide it does.
Focus on the big picture
There is no such thing as an optimum life. Sure, there are some habits and actions that are healthier than others. But the 80/20 here is pretty simple: Just don't screw up the big stuff.
It's fine to indulge in self-improvement material as long as you understand your relationship to it. And you make sure that it's a relationship where you control it, not the other way around.
Because the self-help junkie may get to experience the feeling of growth/transcendence/improvement/expanded-consciousness over and over again. But just because you feel like you moved forward doesn't mean you actually did.
Because the only way to truly benefit from self-improvement is to one day arrive at a place where you no longer need it. Like a cast for a broken arm. Or a bandage for a deep cut. You put it on, let it heal you. And then you take it off and move on with your life.
Mark Manson is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***." This article originally appeared on his blog and has been lightly edited.
More from Mark Manson:
What's the problem with feminism?
What's the problem with men?
How to be more productive by working less
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