Can You Get Burnt Out On Self Improvement?

This weeks podcast and share are on the ideas of self-care and self-improvement, figuring out the difference and how both play roles in your individual life & journey. I hope you enjoy xo - Donna

“ You are not a project, you are a person. You are allowed to just be. This whole thing is optional, you are under no obligation to make yourself do it.”

— Seerut Chawla - Psychotherapist

Hustle Culture has us working all the time - including on ourselves. Go on Instagram for 5 minutes and you are being told you have to upgrade. Some part of your life needs improvement - your clothes, your vacation, your lips, your butt, your wrinkles, you need more motivation, inspiration, and you need to be aware of what’s happening all over the world, in politics, down the street and with your friend from third grades new baby. It’s a lot.

I am someone who enjoys working on myself and I love self care - I also know these two things cannot be the only things that consume my whole existence. I also know the differences between self care and self improvement and that these definitions may differ for me than say one of my friends.

“If self-help is about fixing something, self-care thinks you’re already great.”

— New York Times

Self Care to me is like - I’m here - the good, the bad, the work in progress, but I love myself for it - I’m so cool with me I’m gonna love up on her and self-improvement is just that…I want to improve upon this or change it. Think of it like a haircut - self-care would be trimming my bangs, or cutting split ends and the maintenance…while getting a bob or bangs, highlights, or a new color might be self- improvement. Is that a good example? I don’t know..but if you come up with a better one please put it in the comments.

By finding the balance between these two things it helps prevent an over obsession with me wondering and feeling overwhelmed. I also cannot tell you what self care means for you - cause we are different. For me it could be one thing and for you it can be another and to be honest it took me some time to find the things that really fill me back up.

“Self-improvement is like dedicating time to do things that will make you feel like you matter. Self-care, on the other hand, is taking time to remember that you already do.”

— Pacific Mind Health

The issue is sometimes we go on this improvement thing too much that we forget to take care of ourselves and just like you can burn out at work you can burn out "from working on yourself" - we are so conditioned to want it now and fast and have that 30 day transformation and we forget that even high school was 4 years, think about all you learned and how you grew and developed from freshman to senior year of high school. Yet we want a life overhaul by next Wednesday.

If you are no refueling [self care], how the hell are you going to keep improving and doing and giving and working at such a high capacity? You cannot run the car on fumes, you gotta give it gas - and the same thing needs to be said for yourself. Self Care is just that — doing something to take care of yourself.