Why Self-Improvement is Futile (and Where to Look Instead)

Before I even start this article, I want to mention what inspired it.

Wyn Morgan and I decided to do a LinkedIn Live next Thursday, June 23, entitled Stressless Success. (You can sign up for it here .)

A lot of people scoff at the idea that you can have success without stress. And this article was borne from an extension of that idea, that you can have success without struggle. Without suffering. (Or at least with a lot less of it.)

It’s not a long leap from “Success” to “Self-Improvement.” The idea that we not only can work on ourselves, but should. Constantly. And be hard on ourselves in the process.

I spent years on the Self-Improvement train. I overcame a lot–panic attacks, social anxiety, constant stress, nagging imposter syndrome. I also suffered a lot along the way.

But I’ve seen some things over the years that have resulted in a healthier relationship to self-improvement. Now, I find I can enjoy much more both where I am, and the fact that I am always growing, too. Self-flagellation, my former go-to strategy, just doesn’t look helpful anymore.

I can work hard and enjoy the process, too. Who knew?

What changed in me? I began to see a few fundamental things about the human experience. And then the change began to happen. Almost automatically.

The Myth of Self-Improvement

I’ve seen, over and over again, people try to change and fail and then feel bad about it. They often feel there’s something wrong with them when they are not able to change.

I’ve experienced this myself, too. Many times.

Occasionally someone is able to change a habit or, for example, lose weight and keep it off. There seems to be just enough success in changing that people think brute force is the only way. They don’t even question it. They think they can overcome these seemingly solid aspects of their personality by the sheer force of their personal will.?

The people that I see who are most able to change, on the other hand, are generally people who see, on some level, an essential truth.

That there is no self to improve.

That the very notion of self is a myth.

What do I mean by this? Certainly, I have a history, a personality, certain characteristics, right?

Well, yes and no. We certainly create those things. Both for ourselves and for others. Telling stories about others, telling stories about ourselves. Or believing stories we hear about both.

But what we fail to see is that those stories aren’t solid. They aren’t real. We have to make them up in the moment–every time I say, “well, you know I’m an introvert,” I’ve made it up, said it, and believed it all in the present moment. Because there is no other time I can do it.

Scientists have shown that our brains do not store memories. They create (and recreate) them.

Many times, these memories feel solid. We have feelings that make these thoughts seem very real. Sometimes, we even feel thoughts that we are not conscious of.

But if you watch your thoughts closely, you will see that they are constantly changing. Even without trying, they change. Even when they are intense, they change.

So you can be different in any moment. You actually are different, feel different, moment by moment. And seeing that just a little bit more deeply can make change easy. Even inevitable.

Looking in a Different Place

Everything you think and feel comes, brand new and fresh, in the present moment.

Now it sure doesn’t look like that. You have been told that you have these solid things that make up a self and believed it. So a lot of your thoughts are repetitive. You have to remind yourself that you are an introvert or an extrovert, that you are creative or not creative, that you are funny or not, friendly or not, that you have certain values, and you spend a lot of time and mental energy reinforcing these ideas. Remembering them. Recreating them.

Most of us don’t see that we are doing this. We don’t see that there is a program, running in the background, like our own personal Matrix.

Have you ever briefly forgotten who you are? Maybe when you woke up one morning? This is a glimpse of what I’m pointing to. The glitch in the Matrix that lets you see that it exists.

Your entire experience of the world is created anew, internally, each and every moment. It looks solid and continuous but scientists have confirmed it is neither.

And now there are a lot of scientists proposing that consciousness itself is the fundamental characteristic of our universe rather than matter.?

In other words, we are creating the world we experience, rather than being a byproduct that showed up in it.

At the very least, you and I are each creating our experience of the world in each moment and treating that experience as solid and real. We are feeling our thinking, not the outside world. Not our partner, not our boss, not our job, not our circumstances, not even our physical surroundings. We are instead feeling our thinking about those things, which of course is changing moment by moment.

When I say looking in another direction, this is what I mean. Because when most people get, really see, that they are reacting to their thinking and not the world around them, their thinking starts to quiet.?

They begin to get what mystics have called the cosmic joke.

They see that a lot of what they treated as their lot in life is really their thinking.

And like a child realizing they burn themself when they touch a hot stove, they stop doing it.

I’m not saying when you get this you will stop thinking. But I am saying you will start taking a lot of your thinking a lot less seriously.

I know that’s what happened to me.

And as I see this, my thinking changes. It slows down. It feels less personal. I begin to see that there is something creating this thinking, and that this thinking is creating my experience of the world.

This thinking is constantly creating. It is creation itself.

And it’s a lot more interesting than my personal insecurities, even though it is happy to create those, too.

This thinking is writing this article.?

Who Are You, Really?

In an article it’s hard to show this, to experience it, but if you want a taste of who you really are, a direct pointer or two, I’d encourage you to head over to headless.org and try some of the experiments there.

Try, for example, pointing at objects in the world and then describing them. And then try pointing at the space that is looking at those objects. The space that others say is your head. Try to describe what you can actually say about that space, that opening, without resorting to things you can’t personally verify.

When I do this, I find my thinking slows down just a bit. See what happens for you. See if you are stymied by the brief but incontrovertible experience of you as an experiencer rather than an object in the world.

As a witness to the world rather than something that is in the world.

Notice that you can, in those quiet moments, see the nothingness from which your life is emerging, moment by moment.

It is that nothingness I am pointing to. That nothingness is infinite potential, infinite creativity. You and I and everyone and everything else come from it. Are made by it.

From that perspective, the idea of self-improvement seems kind of silly, doesn’t it?

Symptoms versus Cause

I used to coach people on things like managing their stress, having more executive presence, communicating better, managing their time better, delegating more effectively, developing more healthy habits.

Because, from the perspective that most of the world has, that most of us have most of the time (including me), these things look real. They look like, with enough focus, with enough effort, they can be improved.

But from another perspective, they pretty much vanish. They are symptoms of a misunderstanding.

Because when I really see that there is no solid self that could ever be hurt, there’s nothing to stress about.?

If you’ve ever been with someone who has truly been present with you, you know that presence is what’s left when you stop trying to be present. It’s not a skill to add. It’s the fundamental you that remains.

If you’ve ever really been listened to, you know that communication isn’t something that you need to work on, either. It automatically happens when you are present.

On and on, these things that looks like skills reveal themselves as inherent qualities.

Creativity, connection, calm.

All our default responses, when our personal thinking stops getting in the way.

You have a version of this that is perfect for you. And I have another that is perfect for me.

The Gift of Separate Worlds

Something amazing happens when we start to see who we really are. When we see we are infinite intelligence (what the mystic Syd Banks called “Mind”) creating a unique world that makes perfect sense to us according to our history and experiences.

We see that everyone else is creating that, too.?And that their world makes perfect sense to them.

Two things occur to me as a result of that awareness.

The first is that because I see that my world is not outside me, but created in me, I know it isn’t the “right” one, or even solid from moment to moment. If that’s true, then it’s obvious I can’t possibly know all the answers from my limited perspective. So I get a lot more curious about other worlds, including yours. And much more open to what you see as well as what I see. Like the blind men and the elephant, we can make more sense of things together than apart.

The second is based on how much my experience varies, based on what I am thinking and then feeling in each moment. Sometimes things seem easier, more full of love, and other times seem more full of struggle and frustration. Sometimes I’m in a better place. Sometimes I’m in a more challenging place.

When I am in a more challenging place I take it a lot less seriously than I used to. Because I know it will pass. I have some compassion for my own human experience.

And when I see someone else is in a more challenging place, I take it a lot less seriously, too. I have compassion for their humanity as well as my own. I feel connected to that humanity that we share.

The “real me” and the “real you” seem like they show up in the easier, more loving places, not when we are at our worst. So when I have a hard time, or I see someone else having a hard time, I am a lot more likely to feel a sense of compassion rather than frustration or anger. Because we’ve all been there. And we have all felt that sense of embarrassment when we say or do something we regret.

Seeing this has helped every relationship I have.

Conclusion–Seeing What You See, Whenever You See It

What I find with most people is that when they are exposed to this inside-out understanding, there is a resonance, a bit of a recognition, but it’s really easy to go back to what you’ve always done–working on yourself and feeling bad about the lack of progress you’re making.

Don’t.

That is, don’t feel bad. The first step can be to recognize when you’re doing it and simply giving yourself some slack. A little self-compassion can go a long way.

That’s right. The first step can be compassion for a self that doesn’t really, in any solid way, exist.

But at some point you will catch yourself. You will see yourself thinking something, making something up, and then believing it. You’ll catch yourself in the act!

Whether gradually, or in very rare cases, all at once, at that point the unravelling will begin. You will begin to see how many things in your world aren’t real, but only made of thought. More and more, you will find change becomes easier, because it’s just a choice to do something different. Not something solid to overcome.

Once you begin to see this, there really is no going back.

It might surprise you, it might challenge you, it might frustrate you, it might even change the things you want for yourself and for the world.

But you will never think about self-improvement the same way again.

Staying in the Conversation

If you’ve been reading my work, or the work of others in this field like Sydney Banks or Michael Neill or Jack Pransky, you may have noticed that there is this consistent pointing to what is creating rather than what is created.

I find that for most people, that consistency is incredibly helpful.

Here are a couple ways you can make sure you stay in this conversation.

First, I try to post something on LinkedIn every day. If you’re not seeing everything, subscribe to my email list here . You’ll also get a special weekly video for subscribers, and you’ll hear about new ways to work with me as they are in the works. (I’ve also got a special introductory video series in the works, and you’ll get full access to that when it’s ready.)

Second, I find that some things just work better on video, so I started a YouTube channel a few months ago. You can subscribe to that here .

Third, you can always reach out to me to have a conversation. There is something about looking in a direction together that is incredibly powerful, whether one-on-one or in a group.

Thanks for reading this second edition of Creating Monthly, and see you in July with another longer form exploration!