The Self-Improvement Trap: What To Do When We Try to Fix Everything at Once

Russ Ewell

You know, I was at a conference once and I was listening to a guy talk and he was talking about all these things and I was getting wound up because I was like, I don’t do that, I don’t do this, I don’t do that, I don’t do this, I’ve never done that, I do that badly, and that’s kind how I was traveling through it. And I talked to a friend after and I was like, I don’t know what to do with this, and he said, well first of all, it’s not true that you don’t do those three things well. He said, you do those three things well, you shouldn’t even be worried about that. The last thing you need to do is work more on those. You don’t need to get stronger at those strengths. You need to look at these other two, three areas, and those are areas you can grow, but you need to pick one of them, not pick all three of them. 

And so, I think one thing is that people need to, and I’ll talk about this in a minute, because we’re going to break down, I think, how do I tackle self-awareness? Because I really think the foundation of this is being courageous enough to look and understand who we are. But that’s a bigger thing than I’m even saying.

So what I what I think you do is just enjoy the process coach Nick Saban of the Alabama Crimson Tide, which some people may not like that team. I really enjoyed Nick Saban’s leadership, but he used to build the team and talk a lot about process that he tells the kid don’t focus on going to the NFL. Don’t get focused on being an All-American. Focus on the process and what he’s talking about is getting to the dream is something I mentioned

in the first podcast, and I like to call it spiritual incrementalism. It’s the tortoise in the hare. It’s being willing to do the things each day. And I have a hard time with this, but I’m really working hard on this. Do the things each day to get where you need to get to. When I was really out of shape, and I still need to get in better shape, but when I was really out of shape, one things I had to do was not get overwhelmed and go, I need to lose 25 pounds right now. And instead I said, okay, what are the things I need to add to my life? What do I need to do with my diet, and then forget about it, and just do those things. And then you wake up three years later, or two years later, and you’re more what you want to be. And so I think some of this is, people ought to just love and enjoy getting a better relationship with God, seeking a best life. And if you’re in your 20s, or your 30s, or your teen years, you really shouldn’t worry about how quickly am I putting it all together. You should be more about, am I aware of where I’m at in life, in space, and am I making progress? As I alluded to, think again on the previous podcast, one of the earlier podcasts, I had a friend of mine, Howard Kiyuna, a good friend of mine, his brother, was a professor at Fresno State, and I met with him to talk about what do you do in churches with, you know, how do you handle the mental health issues? And he gave me a lot of advice, and one thing he kept repeating to me, he goes, I believe that awareness is health.

And I think what we have to do as we go through the Best Life Series is say, if I’m aware that time management is a challenge for me, and I’m working on it, then that’s positive. We do not have to accomplish. It’s what I said about the difference between Western thinking and Eastern thinking. Are we going for accomplishment or are we going for growth? And I think we need to be more growth oriented and less accomplishment oriented and we’ll get there. So that’d be the answer to that one.