Self-Improvement as a Competitive Sport

The race without a finish line...

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

What Would It Look Like to Be Wholly Okay with Who I Am?

Just typing that sentence feels strange, like I’m attempting some new-age mantra that I don’t quite believe in. The second I think about being okay with myself, the inner voice immediately starts throwing punches: “Complacent! Arrogant! Self-satisfied!” Oh, and my favorite: “Who do you think you are, thinking there’s nothing left to fix? Have you met yourself?”

And the list of “things to improve” just snowballs from there. Turns out, I’m exceptionally good at being hard on myself. (Do you see what I did there? I can even excel at that.)

But seriously—what if, just for a moment, I could sit down, breathe, and say, “I’m good. I’m enough. There’s nothing else I need to accomplish today”? If I’m being honest, the thought feels not just impossible but, dare I say, unthinkable.

The Self Improvement Treadmill

We live in a world that’s obsessed not just with doing more, but with becoming more—always striving to be better, more optimized versions of ourselves. It’s not enough to be productive; now we have to be mindful while we’re at it. It’s no longer enough to just work out; we need to be training for a marathon, bio hacking our longevity, or mastering the latest wellness trend.

Self-improvement has become the ultimate treadmill. There’s always a new good habit to adopt, a new skill to learn, or another flaw to fix. The idea of simply being content with who we are, where we are—well, that sounds almost absurd in a society where improvement is framed as a moral virtue.

Even in our moments of rest, there’s the pressure to optimize it. It’s not enough to relax—we have to meditate, journal, or engage in deep self-reflection so that even our rest becomes productive. It’s as though we’re running from some undefined version of ourselves that, for whatever reason, we’ve decided is never quite enough.

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The Guilt of "Should"

But here’s the twist—it’s not just about achieving; it’s about the guilt that follows when we dare to pause. You know the kind: the guilt that creeps in when I decide to take a break and watch a mindless TV show or indulge in a chocolate cream pie. For a blissful moment, I tell myself, “You deserve this!” But soon enough, that little voice returns, wagging its finger: “You should be doing something productive! Shouldn’t you be reading that book? Drafting that email? Exercising?!”

I can’t even enjoy a good reality show without a side of self-reproach. It’s as though I’ve become a master at "shoulding" all over myself, making sure no indulgence goes unpunished.

When My Body Rebels

And then there are those rare moments when I do allow myself to slow down—on the yoga mat, during a massage— (because at least I’m still self-improving, right?) and I realize it feels less like relaxation and more like stepping into enemy territory. My body, long neglected, seems to have its own grievances: “Where have you been? What have you been doing to me? Don’t you know how tired I am?”

This is where the real question emerges: What am I so afraid of if I stop?

What terrible, awful, very bad thing will occur if I simply say, “I’m good today. I don’t need to achieve anything to feel worthy”? I’ll tell you what happens—my fear gremlins come out to play. They whisper (or, in my case, shout): “If you stop, you’ll fall behind. You’ll be irrelevant. You’ll lose your edge. People will think you’re lazy. You won’t be enough. Or even worse - maybe the real fear: I like this. I like this sloth version of myself, and I want more.”

Photo by Javier Mazzeo on Unsplash

Living in Europe definitely helped tame my over achiever. There are great jokes about American work culture vs European Culture (if you’re not too busy working to watch them these really are a hoot!)

But even in a culture that values relaxation I found excessive stillness threatening. What if this busyness was also about avoiding something deeper?

Busyness as a Distraction from Feelings

Think about it—when we’re constantly busy, there’s no space for those messy, uncomfortable emotions to surface. As long as we stay in motion, we don’t have to confront the feelings we’ve been avoiding. Sadness, fear, loneliness, anxiety—those emotions get tucked away, buried beneath the mountain of tasks, to-dos, and distractions.

It’s easy to fill every moment with doing so we don’t have to sit with our feelings. We keep running because if we slow down, even for a second, we might have to face the deeper emotions we’ve shoved into the back of the closet.

For many of us, those feelings were too much to bear when we were younger. If you grew up in difficult circumstances—whether it was an unstable home, a loss, or just the need to keep everything together when your world was falling apart—checking out of your body and your feelings was a smart survival strategy. When things feel too big or overwhelming, it’s easier to focus on doing, achieving, or staying busy than to feel all that hurt.

Back then, disconnecting was your best tool. It allowed you to cope, to keep moving through those hard times.

But it’s easy to forget that survival isn’t the goal anymore—it’s about healing now. And healing doesn’t mean becoming some perfected version of yourself. It means learning to love your messiness, your imperfections, your inner sloth. If we can’t offer ourselves that acceptance, how can we expect the world to?

The invitation is simple, though not always easy: to stay. To stop running. To allow stillness, to offer yourself the grace to be fully present with who you are—no more, no less. To say, “I’m here with you, in all of this. It’s safe to feel.”

Maybe that’s something worth getting really, really good at.

Greatest of all time... I’ll start working on that—just kidding.

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