I still remember the first self-improvement book I ever read: The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People.

I picked it up at the beginning of COVID during my Junior year of high school. It was a time of loneliness, boredom, and stagnation. I felt lonely because I couldn't see my friends physically, forced instead to connect over video games for hours more than I already did before the pandemic. The boredom seemed to fill the air, almost choking me as I sat through endless Zoom classes and YouTube rabbit holes. But worst of all was the stagnation—the feeling I wasn't going anywhere with my life and, perhaps, never would.

Self-improvement became my sanctuary.

I came across The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People on a YouTube binge and was hooked. The book promised connection, engagement, and growth. I finished it in three days and was hungry for more, so I read How To Win Friends And Influence People. Then Deep Work. Then Atomic Habits.

I felt amazing--like a chick finally able to take its first flight. I stopped slumping while I walked, instead getting a spring in my step. Waking up in the morning, I didn't need to immediately douse myself with coffee. I radiated positivity.

It happened slowly, almost imperceptibly...

First, I began creating" deep work hours," time between 7:00 and 11:00 a.m. for ironclad concentration. My parents or brother would knock on the door, and I would wave them away, no matter the issue, with a "Sorry, I'm focusing." I didn't learn until later they wanted to see me before I went off for my first year of college.

That summer, my family and I took a trip to the Adirondacks. I’m with my family, nature all around me, and what do I do? I’m like, "Hey, mom, I know we’re supposed to be connecting with the great outdoors, but did you know how important it is to optimize your morning routine?" They described this experience to me later as a "pain in the ass."

Once I got to college, I applied every productivity, habit, and relationship tip I learned to do as much as possible. I juggled a YT channel, blog, podcast, four clubs, a girlfriend, and schoolwork simultaneously. I was in a race. For what? I don't know. I just kept running because, secretly, I was deathly terrified that if I stopped, for even a few moments, I would topple down like a Jenga tower and return to the person I was in high school.

One day, I woke up and couldn't get out of bed.

The feelings of restlessness and anxiety from doing so much had caught up to me. So many things were bouncing around my head I was paralyzed. My girlfriend texted me on my phone, saying we needed" to talk." That day, she almost broke up with me because I wasn't present in the relationship.

It was the slap in the face I needed to realize: self-improvement was hurting me.

I had become so obsessed with self-improvement, I had forgotten the reason I started in the first place: to better follow my values. I was doing self-improvement for the sake of self-improvement. In the process, I had estranged myself from my relationships, burned myself out, and was left thinking, what's next?

The Problems Of Self-Improvement For The Sake Of Self-Improvement

I won't lie: self-improvement has tremendous benefits.

I genuinely grew in many ways from my journey. I set in stone solid habits like resistance training, healthy eating, a writing routine, and more. It gave me hope at a time when it felt like the world was imploding. It made me hungry to grow.

But these positives hid the fact I was treading on my values. Before I reveal the new path I'm taking—self-improvement after self-improvement—I wanted to highlight some of the problems with self-improvement for self-improvements sake.

The first problem of self-improvement is that at its core, it's a business, a business that sells hope.

While they might not all consciously do it, realize it, or mean ill by it, many people in the self-improvement space thrive on false hope. Want to unheck your life?—You can do it as long as you watch this free video online. Want something more actionable?—sure, get my $99 course on the subject. That wasn't enough?—give me $1,000 and your first born chi–-oooooohhhhhhh my god.

During my journey, I bought countless books, watched stupid amounts of videos, and listened to podcasts on walks. In the bubble, it felt intoxicating. All these people encouraging each other to grow. There was hope. You were high on life.

Then, the bubble pops.

The problem is if self-improvement content actually worked, you wouldn't need it anymore. No more money for the business. If you make it, they lose income.

So you keep buying. The culture of self-improvement makes you believe anything is possible. It just takes hard work. There's a word for this--hustle culture. If it's not working, it's cause you're not working.

Never mind that I've been creating content for almost four years and haven't gotten even close to a full-time passive income yet. If I just keep consuming self-improvement content I'll get there eventually. Right?

You are trained to continuously be dissatisfied with yourself because that keeps you consuming. There I was, 5:30 a.m. wake up, run, cold shower, four hours of deep work, walk, read for ninety minutes, gym workout, and somehow still not be productive enough. Instead of developing from a place of abundance, you do so from a place of deficiency.

You're always reaching for more and yet never get the one thing you truly want--enough.

A second problem of self-improvement is "productive" procrastination.

Consuming self-improvement content is one thing. Applying self-improvement content is another. The problem is the first feels so good it often makes you skip doing the second.

This is why I call it "productive" procrastination. It feels productive to write out your goals on a sheet of paper. It feels productive to clean your room before doing your essay for class. It feels productive, to well, feel productive.

Of course, I did improve while in my self-improvement phase. But a lot of time spent was procrastination in disguise.

It's like playing the tutorial mission of a video game over and over. You can do it for eternity, mastering that tutorial mission like it's brushing your teeth. But if you really want to get good, it's better to venture out into the game, fail, and learn.

The third problem with self-improvement is meaninglessness

When self-improvement is done for the sake of self-improvement, it loses meaning.

We're getting healthier, but what for? We're getting better at focusing, but what for? We're becoming more charismatic, but what for?

Working hard, without a greater vision or underlying meaning, is a recipe for burnout and estrangement from oneself and others, which is exactly what happened to me.

I became more charismatic, but people felt I wasn't being authentic. One person asked me suspiciously if I had read How To Win Friends And Influence People after a few minutes of conversation. I distanced myself from those I thought were "wasting their life" which meant not being into self-improvement back then. High school friendships, family relationships, and more were damaged for years.

I got better at focusing, but it led to me spending less time before going to college with my parents and brother. I was obsessed with my routine, trying to stick to 90-minute work blocks and 20 minutes of rest like some divine creed.

I got better at creating content, but only content that was better fitted for the algorithm, not content that spoke to my soul. I created Obsidian videos for months because it was doing well, even though I knew other people like Nick Milo were making better stuff.

Clearly, we can't just do self-improvement for the sake of self-improvement. So what's the alternative?

Self-Improvement After Self-Improvement

Self-improvement must be rooted in something deeper, more primordial, more dare I say, wise.

What we need is self-improvement after self-improvement: self-actualization.

Self-actualization is the process of building one self--actualizing it--combined with wisdom. It's impossible to fully define wisdom because it's more a way of being than a script to conform to. But definitions can help bring clarity to a new and hidden world, like wearing goggles in the ocean.

For our purposes we will define wisdom as the ability to use:

1. Cognitive, reflective, and affective skills[^1]
2. To properly value, prioritize, and act
3. Balancing intrapersonal, interpersonal, and extrapersonal interests[^2]
4. For the common human good
5. Keeping context in mind[^3]
6. Over the short and long term
7. While following an ecology of practices[^4]

It's with this definition we can begin to spot the root problems of self-improvement done for self-improvement's sake. What's the point in becoming healthier, more productive, more creative, more intelligent if it's not done with wisdom? You'll just become more effective at not following your values.

Before we go on I want to preface by saying, this is simply my guess at what wisdom is. I'm only 21--I'm no Buddha, and if I suggested I was, you should probably run from this article. But as someone intensely interested in the question of what it means to live a good human life, I have compiled years' worth of personal reflection, study, and the work of philosophers, folk wisdom, and academic experts to navigate what I believe wisdom looks like in the context of self-improvement. That leads us to our next question.

What Does Wisdom Look Like In The Context Of Self-Actualization?

Wisdom is working smarter, not harder. It's not about putting in 80-hour weeks. It's about figuring out the best way to spend the hours you do put in. It doesn't matter how long you sail or if you're sailing in the wrong direction. Even with a combination of hard and smart work, things still might fall through--nothing is guaranteed.

Wisdom is loving yourself, for yourself. Self-improvement tells you to love yourself—but only after you’ve bought 12 more books, gone vegan, started meditating, and joined a CrossFit gym. But has fulfilling a desire ever provided everlasting fulfillment? There's always something you can be dissatisfied with. Wisdom means actualizing yourself not from the standpoint of deficiency but from the standpoint of abundance.

Wisdom is knowing there is no quick fix or self-improvement hack. If you could become ripped by taking a pill, everyone would be ripped. The shortcut is actually the long way because it doesn't work. And the long way is actually the shortcut.

Wisdom is rooting your self-actualization in your values. I become healthier to show up better for my work and relationships. I become more charismatic to foster better friendships, and romantic relationships. I become more productive to help others through my content creation more effectively.

Wisdom is realizing everything is contextual. You have your own genetics, childhood, skills, relationships, and more. Everyone perceives the world differently as if we were all wearing our own set of tinted glasses. So, of course, you can't blindly take someone's advice and slap it onto your life. There are usually a bajillion ways to solve a problem. Wisdom is adapting all advice through the lens of your unique life context.

Wisdom is noticing the difference between productivity and "productive" procrastination. Consuming content on self-improvement is one thing. Actionalizing it is another. Wisdom is recognizing the difference between the two and prioritizing the second. It's better to read one self-improvement book deeply than gorge on fifty like it was a McDonalds Big Mac.

Wisdom is not turning self-improvement into a dogma. Self-improvement is just one of the many things one could be interested in. It's not a moral failing if someone else isn't as into it as you are. Don't try and force them to. You'll find more people will become interested in your example than through annoying parroting.

Wisdom is realizing progress often means taking one step forward to go two steps backward. It's impossible to improve constantly. Having that mindset is exhausting. There are seasons of growth and seasons of savoring what you already have, and the ability to be at peace in the second is rarely talked about in the self-improvement bubble.

All this talk about wisdom and self-actualization is awesome. But how do we actually build wisdom to self-actualize?

How Do We Build Wisdom In Trying To Self-Actualize?

All this talk about wisdom is great, but if we can’t translate it into action, what’s the point?

We’re like an obese doctor who tells their patients to eat their vegetables (and of course apples), but who then goes home and engorges themselves on ramen noodles and ice cream.

As mentioned earlier, I can’t give you prescriptive facts about how to be wise. Following advice dogmatically is a classic quality of foolishness. Instead, building wisdom is all about building an ecology of practices which check and balance each other. Here are those practices.

The meta-wisdom triforce is this: Experience. Reflect. Iterate.

Part of this comes on the day-to-day, but I personally like to make the process more conscious through conversation, and daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly review and reflection.

As you experience and reflect more and more, you'll uncover your values. But the work isn't done there. As you change, your values change. It's a never-ending, beautiful cycle.

Become curious and open-minded. Value learning for learning's sake. Question everything—especially the most obvious things. Question even this article. Be open to changing your most deeply entrenched beliefs.

Get mass experience. Don't consume a small information diet, like only self-improvement. Vary it. Consume academic papers, pop science, fiction, cinema, anything you can get your hands on. Study eastern and western conceptions of wisdom, as well as from a multitude of philosophical and spiritual traditions and teachers.

Involve others in your wisdom journey. Surround yourself with people who get you to think differently, not those who affirm everything you believe.

Study wise people. Those you know and people long dead like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Lao Tzu, and more. Study fools. Learn from others mistakes so you don't have to make them yourselves.

Look for self-deception in others first. After all, it's much more fun to judge other people than to look at your own messy life. Then, try and spot self-deception in yourself.

It starts with yourself. In The Great Learning Confucius states that if you want to love on a worldwide level, you first have to love your own state; if you want to love your own state, you first have to love your own family; if you want to love your own family, you first have to love yourself. Self-love, is the root to building love in the world[^5].

Build your cognitive, reflective, and affective skills. Obviously, you shouldn’t try and do all of these at once. My suggestion is to pick one or two and focus on building those. Then, integrate more practices into your life as feels natural.

I wish I could tell you if you applied everything in this article you would become wise, float into the air glowing as The Buddha of the modern era. But I would be lying. The reality is, wise people often don’t feel wise because they are constantly questioning the wisdom of their choices. But that’s the very thing that makes them wise.

Doing all these things and more, you can learn to entrench your self-improvement in wisdom: self-actualization. Self-improvement shouldn't be done for self-improvement's sake. It must be rooted in something deeper, more primordial, in wisdom. If I had realized this when going through my self-improvement journey years ago, I might have avoided a lot of the suffering I inflicted.

As I self-actualize more and more, I feel nothing but sympathy for my past self. He had good intentions. But now, I have more actualizing to do. So if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a lunch of some wisdom soufflé.

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References

[^1]: Ardelt, M. (2003). Empirical assessment of a three-dimensional wisdom scale. Research on Aging, 25(3), 275–324. https://doi.org/10.1177/0164027503025003004 

[^2]: Sternberg, R.J. (1998) A balance theory of wisdom. Review of General Psychology, 2, 347-365.

[^3]: Baltes, P. B., & Staudinger, U. M. (2000). Wisdom: A metaheuristic (pragmatic) to orchestrate mind and virtue toward excellence. American Psychologist, 55(1), 122–136. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.122 

[^4]: Vervaeke, J. (2019). Awakening from the meaning crisis. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54l8_ewcOlY 

[^5]: Confucius., & Leys, S. (1997). The Analects of Confucius. New York, W.W. Norton.