Hello and welcome back to the Thoughts that Bind! And if you’re new here, welcome! On this site, we like to talk a lot about how to improve yourself and your life. And if you like what you hear, consider subscribing to the blog for some more of this content.
Today, I really wanted to talk about self-improvement, in general. Because while there are loads of things you can do to improve yourself and your life, it’s equally important for us to examine how we approach it in general. (In my opinion, of course.) Because if we don’t, we can start to spin our wheels and get nowhere, or worse, start hurting ourselves and our mental health.
We’ve talked before on this site about our individual power when it comes to the direction of our life, which I succinctly named “nobody can teach you how to live your life” and “you already know exactly how to live your life”, which I recommend checking out here and here, respectively. But essentially, those two titles nailed it. This life is your life. You have your own set of values that are going to (and should) determine your own personal journey. Don’t let others tell you what your life should look like or what your goals should be. At best, they have good intentions. At worse, they don’t care about you and are only thinking about their own personal agendas. But ultimately, it is up to you to guide your life in the direction you’re looking for, for your own fulfillment and mental and emotional health.
Let’s talk about it
So with all of that being said, the point of this post may at first seem like a bit of a contradiction. “Why did you name this self improvement is not a solo sport if you just got done telling us that we need to learn to be individuals with visions and boundaries and stuff?” And yeah, it’s definitely a balance. While it’s true that you need to decide what your direction is in life, we can only give the wisdom we’ve earned.
Nobody has all the answers in life, and nobody has all the answers for your life. So when I say “self improvement is not a solo sport,” what I’m really telling you is that it’s a journey. You don’t know everything. You don’t know what you don’t know. And nobody else does, either. So you also can’t just find your guru and be set for life. (Even if it’s me, I’m sorry to say.) If you’ve got an issue, you’ve got to search out different perspectives.
Look for new perspectives
The good news about this is that there is no shortage of people in this world who are trying to get you to listen to their perspective. You just have to find them. Now, there are people who have grand systems of habits and strategies for attacking life, and there are others who may be more specific in their recommendations. And they’re all interesting and valid in their own way. But that’s the kind of beautiful part to all this.
You have to take initiative and find them. If someone you like references another person, look up their work and see what they’re all about. This chain can go on for quite a while. Read multiple books on the same topics. Find different people who’ve lived in different backgrounds and read their stories. Gather, gather, gather. No one is as smart alone as we can all be together.
The discernment phase
But with all of these resources, some of them are bound to contradict. And that certainly is the downside of the Information Age, isn’t it? And this is when we have to apply our own discernment. Listen to the reasoning behind the perspective and evaluate it for merit. See what the other side has to say and how they got to that conclusion too. Think about both what resonates for you, and how they got there.
Now, I’m talking about when it comes to self-improvement. So another thing to take into account is how much these people are like you. For instance, if they’re talking about cutting down smoking to one cigarette a day, for example, and you don’t smoke, obviously that doesn’t mean you should start smoking one cigarette a day. Now, that’s a very obvious example, but many self-improvement things are similar in the sense that it’s very important to evaluate where you’re at and if the material is meant for you. Sometimes you are more advanced than you realize in one subject or another. This is not a time to move backwards or get complacent, but rather a time to seek out more advanced material. Get what you can out of what you’re consuming, and then move on.
Mix and match
Although it may not seem like it at first glance, all of us humans are adorable little hybrids of perspectives and thinking anyway. We get these beliefs from our parents and those from our friends and colleagues and maybe this thing over here from some formative experience in school that one time. There are some people who think that they solely follow one way of living. (Whether that’s a religion or philosophy or what have you.) But no one is immune to this phenomenon. It’s just what we do as humans.
So don’t be shy! Go ahead and do it on purpose. Take one idea from this expert, if it works for you. And another from their rival. Like we said, nobody has all the answers. And what works for you and your life has nothing to do with personal loyalty to someone with an all-encompassing opinion. If someone’s idea of a good life doesn’t fit into your own, don’t try to force it to fit. It won’t. Not now, at least. And that’s okay. By mixing perspectives and ideas, you’re forming your own way of living and looking at the world, and that’s incredibly valuable for your life. That’s exactly what you want to be doing, if you want to build your own fulfilling existence.
If you have a perspective, share it
And this last part is something that I think often gets overlooked by regular people like you and me. We think “who am I to tell others how to live?” And that’s true. You shouldn’t be telling people how to live. Neither should I. But all of those people who’ve written books are just humans, too. And when you have a story, an experience or an important thing that you’ve learned, I think you deserve to share it with the world.
Not to mention, the world deserves to hear it from you. The fact is, “self improvement is not a solo sport” applies to you too. You have wisdom. You have curiosity. You have stories. And the world can benefit from you sharing them. The truth is, we all learn from each other. Your voice is just as important as mine. And if you have the vocational training, then it’s just as important as that other personal who’s a professional in your field.
We have this idea that others know things and that we know nothing. Like we’re just floating through life, looking for someone to tell us the answers. Well, that’s no more true about you than anyone else. We’re all learning, looking for the truths and how to make our lives better, happier, more fulfilling. So if you know something, if you’ve learned something, don’t be afraid to tell others about it. Their self-improvement isn’t a solo sport either. And if they’re looking for wisdom, yours might just do them a world of good.
You’re not a guru, and no one else is, either
I think I have tended to favor the independence side to this equation on my site because I wanted people to feel their own sense of personal power. I find that very important. That being said, you’re not a guru. You don’t have the grand answers for all of life. And nobody else does, either. At first, this can seem quite disheartening. It means that sometimes you’re going to be wrong. And that you can’t just glom onto somebody else who seems like they know what they’re talking about. There may be some grieving there.
But with time, as you sit with this truth, you’ll see how freeing it is. The fact is, disagreeing with a smart person isn’t the end of the world. You might be right. Or at the very least, right for you and your life. And it also means that life isn’t as fixed as you might otherwise think. It means that if you open your mind, you can learn things in the future that today might seem impossible. It means that no matter how old you get, you can always reinvent yourself. It means that listening, once again makes sense. Because most people can teach you something.
No, self improvement is not a solo sport. And it was never meant to be.
