There is a better alternative to self-improvement.
Our experience of reality is a product of our mind. What we see, smell, think, and feel is accessible to us only after internal processing.
Let's take eating an apple as an example.
My direct experiences of the colour of the skin, the first bite, and the texture are tightly linked to what these sensory inputs are triggering and cascading in my mind. I can use descriptors like "green", "crunchy", and "silky" to describe and communicate part of my experience in a relatable way to others. Still, they are always an approximation and a product of what I perceived in the first place. This perception is anchored to a shared external reality but is not a pure reflection of it.
This process is happening even more evidently for the thoughts and feelings associated with eating an apple. While you might recall a cosy and warm feeling linked to a childhood memory of running around in grandma's yard, for some, it might trigger tension and resistance because of that time they were forced to drink apple juice when they didn't feel like it as a kid.
While the apple is still the same in its objective reality, our direct experience can vastly differ. Also, we can never fully convey our direct experience to anyone else.
Modern physics takes this concept further by showing that observing directly impacts the reality we observe.
The observer principle has been widely used in many fields, particularly in quantum mechanics, where the perturbation from observing is in the same order of magnitude as the object of the observation. This principle limits how precisely we can access reality even if it usually does not account for a significant effect in ordinary experiences, for example, the impact of a thermometer on outdoor temperature while measuring it.
Our "inner life" is where this principle is much more evident: thoughts and feelings significantly impact the reality of what is experienced.
So, what happens if we move from an apple to your experience of yourself?
Everything still applies: you exist and have a physical continuity to your being. Still, your experience of yourself is purely a product of your mind.
Reality influences how you perceive your body, your place in the environment, and the thoughts and feelings coming and going. Still, your only direct experience of them is purely an appearance in your mind.
Frameworks are powerful tools to internalise and process your experience, and they should be evaluated in the light of their usefulness in helping you pursue a life you value.
Self-improvement is a widely adopted framework. Usually, self-development is seen as a regular conscious assessment of one's ability coupled with action to improve what is found to be lacking.
The promise is that potential and happiness are achievable by countless iterations of this self-improvement cycle. Your "full and true" you is locked behind flaws and unoptimised edges. Your role is to invest energy in the detective work of finding and fixing these barriers.
It is not a coincidence that this framework matches the current pressure to consume our way out of a lack of progress in these personal quests. Services and products are much more attractive if they can speed up and help you progress in such an important journey. Especially since there is an endless list of abilities that are not fully developed. It is hard to resist purchasing a product/course/experience when you feel that it could be the solution to making you feel whole and closer to happiness.
This core element of the self-development framework is its major flaw. It favours an experience centred on looking at what is lacking and can be fixed in yourself and the people around you. You achieve fulfilment by "fixing" yourself through tools on the outside. Effort and improvement are crucial elements. It promotes an endless struggle based on identifying weaknesses and barriers and gating happiness. The goal is always evident but moving, dragging you in an infinite self-evaluation process. Your experience of reality is dominated by finding what can be fixed in everyone and the struggle to improve as a path to an unobtainable goal of fulfilment. On top of that, you are entirely self-focused and looking for an objective wholeness inside yourself.
What if there was a more helpful framework?
Let's assume that fulfilment and happiness are already there and that there is no need for effort or external intervention.
Let's also assume that your perfect and unique version of you is also already there from the start.
Your role is to tap into what is already there, discover its traits, and remove what hinders your inner self from blossoming in the form it was meant to have.
No struggle, no development. Only discovery, curiosity and cherishing the unique flavours you bring to the world.
Learning new abilities and skills isn't an endless struggle. It becomes about cherishing and nurturing the manifestation in the world that you already are.
Your incompleteness and flaws are understood and integrated; they are not fixed.
You are embracing that life is finite and that you can interlink each individual's incompleteness into a complete web of relationships. You put yourself in a relational world where you are in symbiosis with other people bringing flavours and skills you do not possess, and you cherish each individual for what they already are.
You approach life as a gardener trying to discover which specific flower or tree she has in front of herself and identifying the best setting for letting them blossom. A gardener would never blame a rose for not being strong as an oak tree or an oak tree for not having bursts of beauty as a rose. She will be able and willing to cherish a rose for her colours and an oak for the shadow and shelter, reminding herself that the ecosystem needs both. When you put them in an ecosystem framework, there is no point in comparing each plant individually and finding their weakness. It is about finding the strengths that are already there.
This framework makes you shift from flaws to strengths; from self-focusing to embracing relationships; from struggle to discovery; from buying and fixing to exploring and nurturing.