What I’ve Learned In One Minute…

Hi friends,

Who is self-improvement actually for?

I think we are living in a more divisive time than we realise. Not because people disagree, but because disagreement no longer challenges us. It reassures us. We are encouraged to hold our views tightly, to protect them, and to surround ourselves with people and ideas that affirm them, no matter how extreme they become.

There was a time, not too long ago, when opposing opinions did not immediately threaten relationships. You could disagree with someone and still respect them. Now, whether it is through the people we spend time with or the phones we carry everywhere, we are constantly reinforced by perspectives that mirror our own. Slowly, almost invisibly, the space for friction disappears.

What unsettles me most is that this process does not feel imposed. It feels chosen.

When you open Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube, you are only shown what you want to see. Or at least what appears to align with you. On the surface, that seems harmless. Recipes, fashion, workouts, technology. But when the same mechanism is applied to values, beliefs, and ways of living, something shifts. Opinions stop being tested. They stop being questioned. They become rehearsed.

I began to wonder how much of what I consumed was genuinely my choice, and how much of it was quietly shaping the way I thought without my awareness.

For me, this question became clearest through self-improvement.

I did not grow up chasing it. Discipline was never something I labelled or admired from a distance. It was simply part of life. Years of martial arts taught structure early. My upbringing encouraged independence without ever calling it ambition. Routine existed without needing justification.

It was only when I lost those foundations that I went looking for them.

By 2021, I had lost my physical fitness, my structure, and my enjoyment of movement. I was nearing triple-digit weight and felt disconnected from myself. The desire to change did not come from inspiration, but fear and discomfort. I wanted to become someone else because the person I was becoming felt unfamiliar.

The gym became the entry point. At first, it was purely physical. Learning movements, watching technique videos, trying to understand how progress worked. Then, gradually, something else entered the picture. The people I followed spoke not just about training, but about thinking clearly, building habits, and living intentionally.

Through YouTube, especially creators like Ali Abdaal, I noticed a pattern. The people I admired read. They reflected. They spoke carefully. Reading, in particular, stood out to me as something I had never really done growing up but felt compelled to adopt.

I remember being gifted Think and Grow Rich and struggling through it. Not because the ideas were wrong, but because I was not ready for them. Eventually, I picked up Think Like a Breadwinner by Jennifer Barrett. Short chapters. Clear ideas. Digestible insights. That was the moment something clicked.

It felt like discovering a hidden curriculum. A stream of knowledge meant for people who wanted to improve themselves quietly and deliberately.

For a while, it felt undeniably good. Then, slowly, it stopped being a tool and became an identity.

I began to treat self-improvement as something unquestionable. If it was labelled as good for you, then it had to be good. Discipline became moral. Optimisation became responsibility. I believed that if I followed these ideas closely enough, life would eventually fall into place.

What I did not realise was that in my pursuit of becoming better, I had begun to narrow my view of what life was for. I became so focused on extracting the most out of each day that I stopped allowing space for the parts of life that do not optimise well. Imperfection. Unplanned moments. Conversations that go nowhere. Mistakes that do not teach clear lessons.

I had learned how to move forward, but not how to remain present while doing so.

The deeper I went, the more streamlined my thinking became. The same ideas appeared again and again, rewritten in different voices. Discipline. Direction. Systems. Habits. All useful, but increasingly repetitive. And without noticing, I found myself consuming more and thinking less.

I began to wonder whether the constant search for improvement was quietly eroding my ability to form independent opinions. There is only so much discipline you can extract from rereading the same philosophies before they stop refining you and start confining you.

Self-improvement rarely distinguishes between temporary techniques and permanent lifestyles. You can adopt extreme discipline for a season and see results. You can wake up early for months. You can follow restrictive diets. But the moment inconvenience arrives, when life interrupts the system, everything collapses if nothing has truly integrated.

What begins as motivation often ends in fatigue.

Another quiet consequence is comparison. Most people offering advice are credible precisely because their lessons took years to internalise. What you read in a few hours is the result of long periods of trial, error, and support. They have systems built around them. Teams that protect their focus. Space to think.

Trying to replicate those routines while managing complex, demanding lives often does not produce clarity. It produces guilt. And guilt slowly turns growth into resentment.

So who is self-improvement actually for?

I no longer think it is for people looking for a straight path or a final answer. It is not a replacement for thinking. It is not a doctrine to live by. At its best, it is an invitation to listen, to experiment, and to reflect.

It can be helpful for people at a low point who need a different perspective. It can offer language where there was none, and structure where there was chaos. But without discernment, the search for improvement can quietly replace the ability to sit with uncertainty and form your own conclusions.

I have learned that self-improvement works best when it is held lightly. When it is used as guidance rather than instruction. When ideas are adopted slowly, tested honestly, and released if they no longer serve the life you are actually living.

There is also wisdom in stepping away. Reading fiction. Living offline. Allowing boredom. Returning not because you feel behind, but because you feel ready.

The longer I sit with it, the more I believe that growth is less about constant optimisation and more about discernment. Knowing what to keep. Knowing what to ignore. And knowing when improvement itself needs to step aside so life can be lived fully again.

Perhaps the real question is not whether self-improvement works, but whether we are still listening to ourselves while we pursue it.

And whether becoming better is costing us the ability to be human along the way.

TL;DR

Self-improvement often starts as a solution but quietly becomes an identity. What begins as a way to regain structure, confidence, or direction can turn into a narrow lens through which life is judged, optimised, and compared. Algorithms reinforce this by feeding us ideas that feel chosen, but are rarely questioned.

The problem isn’t self-improvement itself. It’s treating it as doctrine rather than guidance. When discipline becomes moral, habits define worth, and optimisation replaces presence, growth slowly turns into fatigue.

Self-improvement works best when it’s held lightly. Adopt ideas slowly. Test them honestly. Let go of what doesn’t integrate. Step away often enough to think for yourself. Becoming better should not cost you your ability to live, reflect, and remain human along the way.

WINS & LESSONS

Win:

I got a sleep score of 97 on my Whoop on Monday night, what a banger of a sleep it was!

Lesson:

Meal prep the night before at least and not the day of. It'll save you so much time.

QUESTION FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

When was the last time you felt questioned/ challenged for the most basic thoughts you have?

Alright that's it from me.

In a bit,

Motheo