Forget self-improvement — trial and error.
People who truly, desperately want success do not pursue all-around self-improvement; they find a way to do something they can do right now.
Through a variety of attempts and executions, they go through trial and error. They actually walk toward the goal they've set. On top of that, most successful people don't so much have their own routines as they are either outlandishly good at some specific thing, or just completely — routineless — absorbed in it.
For example, if the issue is improving social interaction, the solution isn't to devour bestsellers like How to Win Friends and Influence People or lectures like Sebasi — it's to go out into real life, attend various gatherings, and spend time with people. In other words, the best socializing is socialize itself.
The biggest problem with self-improvement is that after reading, attending lectures, doing an early-morning routine, or taking notes, you get addicted to the feeling — a sense of accomplishment, hope. No matter how good a drug is, addiction is a problem. The sense of accomplishment in routines builds habit. And the inertia that accomplishment generates risks making us lose and forget the chance to think for ourselves. For practical usefulness — not just self-satisfaction from a sense of accomplishment — you have to make yourself into a person who is already 'doing something' before you ever form a self-improvement routine.
The reason is:
— as I said, successful people move toward their set goal through action and trial and error, not through self-improvement at a desk — but there's one big problem here. It's when there is no goal of your own. Much of the time, most of us live on top of a right-answer track or on some universally-assumed direction. When preparing for college entrance exams or job hunts, it is very rare that the process, decisions, and achievements reflect goals of one's own. The scope of desiring someone else's desires often covers all of daily life. So studying a theorized case built from another person's past combinations of possibilities — based on their specific environment, capabilities, situation, and goals — is very dangerous. Furthermore, the vicarious catharsis felt through their dynamic success cases — the way you feel after finishing a drama or a movie — pulls your thought far away from your original question. It's like when you open a search bar to look something up, click on a trending search, ride that wave, then another wave, and end up losing and forgetting what you were even searching for.
The reason you have to act first is that before developing yourself to be better and more skilled, execution gives you a chance to see — based on your background, your circumstances, and your abilities — whether your current situation is a matter of choice or an unavoidable problem. And if the problem is solvable, it gives you a chance to judge your own taste: will you solve it, or will you ignore it. That's why you need to put aside the so-called 'must-haves' and 'common-sense' popular self-improvement.
Conclusion
I don't think you have to try your hardest at everything, self-improvement included. But for anything worth doing, you should hold back nothing and give your best. To do that, you have to be able to convince yourself why — and what — value that thing actually has.
Don't dream of an all-around success. Don't benchmark other people's success. Don't learn from others. You can learn methods, but at least direction and reason, you have to define the answers yourself. This is not exam time. This is not interview time.
If you don't want to live like a mammal caught in a trap running in its wheel, unaware it's in a wheel, you have to allow yourself time to wander — to face your own native longing — and wait through it. You need the courage to uncover, without hiding, that desire that looks beastly, embarrassing, sometimes shameless. Only with the courage to act on it can you refine that desire. For that you need the courage to separate ego (pride) from self-esteem. You must not let ego dictate about your capabilities, tendencies, tastes, or their absence. You have to be able to see things as they are.
Meanwhile,
to me — who is still self-improving out of inertia, out of habit, for self-satisfaction; to me — who doesn't even realize it; to me — who jots and records so many ideas but can't bring myself to practice them; to me — who designs platforms while failing to look after my own daily life
urging not regret but reflection, February 2022.
