‘Toxic Positivity’: What the self-help world doesn’t tell you
‘Self-improvement’. A realm of dopamine inducing content that is designed to fuel an insatiable urge to supposedly become the best version of yourself. We meet a lot of people these days who claim to be ‘into self-help’. Upon first glance, we’re amazed at how these individuals manage their time, stay productive, avoid procrastination and maintain a balanced lifestyle. After all, they’re doing something positive with their life…right?
Not quite.
It’s more complicated than that. I can attest to this because I used to be in the self-help realm.
Each time I completed an audiobook, or finished a podcast, meditated or did anything that I thought was ‘good’, I felt amazing. My brain was on this perpetual dopamine high, one that was fuelled by the sense of satisfaction of doing what other people weren’t doing. It wasn’t until I found myself feeling utterly miserable one night, 2 years into the self-improvement realm, that I realised I had reached a breaking point. A state of what’s called: ‘Toxic Positivity’. This isn’t really a new term, but it’s not discussed as much as it should be. In this article I’d like to shed some light on the fallacy of self-improvement and how it can lead to a negative spiral in our seemingly short lives.
I’d like to mention that self-improvement has played a crucial role in helping me become a better version of myself. There is nothing wrong with striving to improve oneself, whether that be mentally or physically. ‘Toxic positivity’ is an unfortunate consequence that I went through because I didn’t know when or how to draw the line. By writing this article, I hope to share some of my experiences that you can be mindful of, if you’re new to the journey of self-help.
Background
‘Self-improvement’ is one of the buzzwords of today’s society. What initially started off as concept that complemented certain non-fiction books, has evolved into a full-fledged industry that is worth over $10 billion today. In fact, the various markets in the self-improvement industry and their net worth are as follows: Audiobooks ($770 million); Books ($800 million); Personal coaching ($1 billion); Motivational speakers ($1 billion combined). (source)
Clearly this industry is booming, which is why so many people are jumping on the bandwagon. Self-improvement is a magnetic term; it’s strong and highly effective at pulling people towards it. After all, what’s wrong with doing something ‘good’ for your mental, physical, emotional or spiritual well-being?
To give credit where credit is due, self-improvement does have its benefits. Self-improvement can help reinforce a trait that’s forgotten in most of our lives: self-awareness. Activities like meditation, yoga, exercise and healthy eating can help reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression and weight gain. Moreover, self-improvement opens our minds to learning about other people’s stories and success. If our mindset is right, we can draw inspiration from their journeys and channel it in our own lives.
So where exactly do we draw the line?
The Road Downhill
Here are 3 shortfalls I’ve experienced over the past 3 years with self-improvement:
1. Spending
Upon first glance, one of the obvious downsides of spending time, money and effort on self-improvement is….well, time, money and effort. While proponents of self-improvement may argue this by claiming how much it can improve their lives; one must question the degree to which this improvement is genuine and credible.
For example, I could go on and on about how many books I’ve finished, how many podcasts I’ve subscribed to, or how many online courses I’ve completed. But how much of that knowledge have I truly retained? 40%? Maybe even lesser. It’s easy to get into the mental state of spending money on self-improvement, classifying it as an ‘investment’. As I mentioned before, it’s a $10 billion industry. I’ve seen numerous people who buy a book for the sole purpose of getting something out of it; only to become increasingly frustrated when they realise that their lives weren’t any better afterwards.
While I do believe that certain self-help books can be an ‘investment’, it largely depends on the individual consuming that knowledge and content, as well as their underlying purpose for doing so. People are better off approaching self-help content with a desire to learn, analyse with skepticism and maybe apply if appropriate. Only then, could they expect a real improvement.
2. Not so subtle narcissism
I was quite the chubby kid growing up. Poor eating habits and lack of exercise led to a ‘round’ childhood and teenage life. As a result, I was a victim of bullying, harassment and entertainment for other people. Things changed when I began working out and eating healthy; and things changed even further when I began self-improvement.
As I began learning new skills, reading more books and consuming more content, I was beginning to feel more and more confident in my skin. The phrase ‘knowledge is power’, hasn’t felt any more true because of this. I could comfortably approach anyone, strike up a conversation with ease, without having to worry about being embarassed or humiliated. Soon, people began admiring my ability to communicate, and directed compliments my way that I wasn’t quite used to back then.
The more I improved myself, the more I began to think about how other people didn’t do what I was doing. I started developing feelings of apathy and disregard for other people’s interests and hobbies; thinking that if they aren’t into self-help, they weren’t as good as I was. My narcissism started off subtle, but soon became evident in the way I carried myself and interacted with others. I became obsessed with wanting to be the smartest in the room, the ‘winner’ of any discussion, the centre of attention, and so on. All the love, respect and admiration I was receiving from my friends, family and colleagues, fuelled my desire to be recognised and appreciated; something I didn’t have when I was growing up as a chubby kid.
Narcissism is something I’m still trying to deal with. While it has gotten better since I began self-reflecting, there are times where I genuinely feel better than everyone else. Not because of wealth or privilege, but because of my innate desire to keep on growing. Earlier, I used to look down at people who proudly claimed that their hobbies include eating, sleeping for hours, drinking or being lazy. Now, I adopt a ‘live and let live’ kind of approach and change the topic.
Or at least, I try to.
3. Information Overload
If you’ve recently gotten into self-improvement, you’ll probably agree with me when I say that the first few months feel incredible. The feeling of productivity, knowledge, health & wellness is absolutely euphoric to say the least. Book after book, podcast after podcast, workout after workout, we don’t feel like stopping. We bathe in the glory of our own tales, each time we proclaim to others what we did, read or finished.
Soon after, we seek out more content, before even finishing what we already had. We read/listen to multiple books at a time, follow more channels, try more hobbies and feel happier. But for how long?
As I had mentioned above in the spending point, successfully retaining information is an art that requires practice and attention. All the information I was consuming felt great at the time, but slowly began diminishing before I could even realise it. As easy as it is for me to display my audiobook library for all the books I’ve finished; I might only be confident enough to summarise a handful of them.
More importantly, if the underlying purpose of consuming that information was to improve myself, and if I wasn’t able to retain most, if not all of the information; then what did I get out of it? That sounded like a mouthful, which is kinda how I felt reflecting back at all the audiobooks I read, podcasts I heard and new activities I tried.
The Solution?
While I’m not a self-help guru, I do feel as though my mental state has improved ever since I began actively acknowledging everything I was doing wrong. Here are some tips that I followed to help get myself out of the toxic positivity trap:
- Change of mindset from: “I need this” to “I want this”.
I looked for content I genuinely wanted to know about. With so much information online and around us, filtering out to identify what you truly feel will benefit you, is significantly better than buying into content you think you need. Just because one particular self-help book is trending, doesn’t mean we have to read it. - Wrote this quote to be displayed on all my devices to remind myself:
“Throw out your conceited opinions, for it is impossible for someone to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
~Epictetus
I listened more, spoke less. I reminded myself that everyone has their own journey, their own problems and their own skills. Approaching people with a healthy mindset of learning something from them, helped reduce any negative, narcissistic tendencies that could potentially arise out of feeling superior or knowledgable.
- Embraced skepticism and application with everything I saw
Just because something is a self-help bestseller, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s relevant or helpful for us. While it may be helpful or inspirational to learn about someone else’s stories, whether or not we can apply that to our own lives is a whole different ball game. Taking baby steps one at a time and questioning everything we consume is a good way to test whether it was helpful, or forgettable. This helped reduce some of the information overload feeling I got out of ‘doing too much.’
Self-help can be life-changing, it certainly was for me. However, just like everything else in the world: moderation is key. Too much of anything is bad, and this isn’t any different.
Thanks for reading! Check out my publication: The Modern Z for similar stories and content.
