Self-Improvement is Addition by Subtraction
The person you want to be is buried in there somewhere.
Often when we talk about how we would like to improve ourselves as people, we talk about making improvements via addition:
I want to be happier.
I want to be more fit.
I want to be more confident.
I want to be healthier.
We talk about our shortcomings as if something is missing. We present our weaknesses as if they are caused by missing pieces. We think that if we could just fill a particular void in our identity, do a little more this or be a little more that, we could finally reach our full potential.
This is the wrong approach to self-improvement.
The reality is that you are already, somewhere inside of yourself, exactly the person that you want to be. Buried underneath our misconceptions about ourselves, we are the healthy, productive, active, confident person we want to be. But we suppress that true-self by saying things like:
I wish I was more active, but I am not athletic.
I wish I could wake up early, but I am not disciplined enough.
I wish I was more sure of myself, but I am not a confident person.
We self-define ourselves in a certain way (lazy, not athletic, not successful, not disciplined) and then limit ourselves based on that self-perception. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. We put ourselves in a box and then complain that we can’t get out.
And what we fail to realize is that because we are the ones who have put ourselves in the box — we teach ourselves to perceive ourselves a certain way — we are equally capable of removing ourselves from the box.
What does it mean to say that we can remove ourselves from the box we place ourselves in?
Let’s take a simple example: waking up early to exercise in the morning. You might say, “I wish I could wake up early to workout, but i’m not a morning person.”
What does it mean to say “i’m not a morning person?” It doesn’t mean anything. How do we know? Because you likely have a friend, or at least know someone, who does wake up at 6 am to exercise in the morning. And they are no different than you. But since they have taught themselves to wake up in the morning, they now perceive themselves as a “morning person.”
It is all self-perception. And notice: they developed that perception of themselves. The only thing that separates the “non-morning person” and the “morning person” is that the morning person isn’t buried under a perception of not being a morning person.
In the end, the only defining difference between them is that one gets out of bed in the morning and the other doesn’t.
Take another example: confidence. The difference between a confident person and a non-confident person is that the confident person hasn’t tricked themselves into a fake identity of not being confident. Think about when a shy person drinks: all of the sudden, after a few margaritas, they are as confident as can be! So we know that confidence is inside them. But when they are sober, that confidence is suppressed by their self-perception of not being a confident person.
What you soon realize is that the only thing standing between becoming whatever type of person you envy (morning person, outgoing, etc) or any behavior you wish you exhibited (reading more, writing more, eating healthier) is, as cliche as it might be to say, shedding that self-perception and just doing it.
That is it. You just have to do the things you want to do. You are the only thing standing in your way. If you want to be more confident, rid yourself of the perception of “not being that guy” and act more confidently. If you want to be healthier, rid yourself of the perception that “you just love food too much to eat healthy.” If you want to read or write or paint more instead of watching Netflix, stop tricking yourself into thinking you are “…just not very disciplined” and get out your easel.
The effects of doing this on your life, of just doing it, can be both profound and immediate. And the best part about it is that, when you just do one thing, it causes positive feedback loop across other aspects of your life. Imagine:
Tomorrow morning, you wake up at 6 am. You head to the gym and get in a workout. Nothing special: no crazy crossfit or olympic lifting. Just a little something to get woken up and break a sweat.
Afterwards, it is time for breakfast. Normally, you would grab a bagel and cream cheese. But you just worked out and don’t want that work to go to waste. So instead, you grab some eggs and whole grain bread. How do you make the right choice? You just do it.
After breakfast, you head to work. After your workout and healthy breakfast you notice walking to the office you feel…better. You stand a little straighter, you have a little pep to your step, you have more energy.
Lunch comes around and, since you had a workout and good breakfast, you don’t want all that disciple you have shown so far to go to waste. Instead of grabbing your usual slice of pizza, you grab a salad. How do you pick salad over pizza? You order salad instead of pizza. It’s that simple.
And, lo’ and behold, as 3 o’clock rolls around, you aren’t feeling as sleepy or worn-down as you normally do in the late afternoon. You actually feel fresh. Before you know it, it is 5:30 PM and you realize that you never had an afternoon energy crash. In fact, you feel great!
Now work is over and you are home. Normally when you come home, you cook up some pasta, grab some snacks, and binge Netflix until you pass out on the couch. But you have to protect your workout, breakfast and lunch! So you grill some chicken breast and veggies. Again, no secrets here, you just chose the chicken and vegetables over the pasta.
You finish dinner and, rather than popping on Netflix, you join your friends for rock climbing (or whatever your hobby is). Normally your evenings are wasted because you are “always dead after work” but today you have plenty of energy left to make use of your evening.
This is the positive feedback loop in effect. Your workout drives your healthy eating. Your healthy eating drives more healthy eating. Both of those give you more energy, allowing you to be more engaged in your job and make your evenings more productive.
Look at your life now: just by doing the things that you know deep down make you feel good, you are exercising regularly, eating healthier, are more engaged at work, and you are enjoying healthy hobbies outside of the office that help you decompress. So much for not being an athlete or loving food too much.
The harsh truth is this: if you are thinking it isn’t that easy, you are simply bullshitting yourself. It simply is that easy. It will take some time to develop these habits, of course, but you would be surprised how quickly you can change your life in the ways you thought were out of reach.
These life changes do not require discovering spirituality or a magic personality. All that’s required is that you shed the misconceptions you have of yourself. Inside of you is an athlete, an artist, a person of greater discipline, or anything else you wish you are.
The scariest realization is that, once you strip yourself of these misconceptions, you have no more excuses for not being the person you want to be. There are no faux-genetics or personality traits to blame your shortcomings on.
There is just you, with nothing else standing in the way.
Got a hankering for more? You can read more of my posts on Letters to a Young Professional, you can check out my blog 12HourDifference.co for my thoughts on launching an international career and you can connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter to chat about…whatever you’d like!
