I have been on my self-improvement and personal development journey for just shy of two and a half years now. These two and a half years have by FAR been the best two and a half years of my life. I have learned so much about myself, have started to actually enjoy the individual I am, and I have overcome more challenges than I had in the previous 25 years of my life combined.
But still, there’s a lot of room left for improvement.
One of the things that I still struggle with on a daily basis is my obsessive mindset. It doesn’t matter if it’s with work, money, food, or even my self-improvement journey, when I get an idea stuck in my head, you better believe I am going to give it 110%.
Can You Obsess Over Self-Improvement?
I will admit that sometimes I become overly obsessed with self-improvement that I forget to do the one thing that self-improvement is designed to help you do more of – to live more.
Part of me feels that I sometimes become so focused on finding new ways to improve my life and enter this “flow” mindset that I completely forget about the world around me and lose sight of time. It’s as though I put my head down to do something, and the next time I look at the clock, I realize that most of the day has already ticked away.
Just like we can become obsessed with anything else in our lives, we can also become obsessed with self-improvement. We can become obsessed with trying to solve the puzzle of mastering our lives that we completely forget to even live our lives.
With that being said, one might ask whether or not self-improvement can stop you from actually improving. You know, the thing that it’s meant to focus on in the first place?!
Can Self-Improvement Ever Stop You From Improving?
From my personal experience, I would much rather obsess over self-improvement than anything else. There just isn’t the same level of stress associated to obsessing over self-improvement as there is with obsessing over work, obsessing over money, or obsessing over negative behaviors.
Again, at least not in my personal experience.
But I will also say that obsessing and focusing too much on self-improvement can and will stop you from improving your life is you allow it to.
When you become so fixated on trying to improve yourself in any way possible, you can sometimes forget to live. You can forget to take chances on yourself, forget to be aware of the present moment you are in, and you can forget to acknowledge how valuable you already are as a person regardless of the improvements you are trying to make.
For example, over the last month, I have put so much time and energy into finding ways to pay off all of my debt. I have read numerous finance books, have watched hours of YouTube videos, have listened to countless financial independent podcasts, and I have even written a plan for how I was going to do this.
At the end of the month, I had done everything I needed to do in order to someday live a debt-free life except one thing… make any progress towards actually paying off my debt.
This is what can happen when we spend all of our time trying to find all of these different ways to improve our lives. We do everything but what we are meaning to do, which is to improve.
How to Make Sure Self-Improvement Helps You To Improve
There are many things you can do to make sure self-improvement actually works for you.
Step 1: Take Action
This is necessary. If you want to achieve something that you have yet to achieve in life, you need to be willing to do something you have not yet been doing. Most of the time, this means taking action. Try not to become so fixated on finding the solution to your problems that you forget to act. Without action, you are never going to see the results you wish to see.
Step 2: Recognize Your Gains
When it comes to self-improvement, everybody is on a different timeline. What may take others a few days to improve on may take me a few years. What may take me a few years to improve on may take others a few decades.
The point is, we just don’t know how long something is going to take to master. Focus on the strides you are making and how much you have improved on over the course of your journey. When you do, you are going to be more satisfied and will likely have an easier time continuing on your journey.
Step 3: Be Present
This is another crucial step. As much as you want to succeed, don’t forget to be present. This life, the one you are living right now, is the only one you are EVER going to have. Don’t allow yourself to become so obsessed with anything to the point that you forget to actually live. Be present, treat every day for the amazing blessing that it is, and cherish the amazing blessings that already fill your life.
What’s The Next Best Thing That You Can Do?
As always, ask yourself what’s the next best thing that you can do. What’s the next best thing you can do that’s going to get you from where you were yesterday towards living the life you envision for yourself tomorrow?
All that’s left is to take action to make it happen. Act on your dreams, believe in all you are capable of achieving, be the best that you can be, and make sure to be present at all times. That’s how you’re ultimately going to master your life.
Michael Bonnell
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