What's Beyond Self-Improvement?

Sometimes, what was previously good enough is now not acceptable anymore. It could be a person who gets in shape but now wants 6% body fat.

The problem isn't the mindset of continual growth, but motivating that growth by creating new, imagined needs. One can pursue excellence without mentally downgrading your past accomplishments.

Since most of our motivating tensions come from our difficulties, we create struggles to feel the motivation.

To escape this trap, we need to shift our philosophy of life away from fixing our problems and onto goals that you know won't explicitly improve your life. These include service to others, pursuing mastery, or creative vision.

Self-improvement can reach a stage of diminishing returns. Once your basic needs are met, and there are no large, obvious things that would make your life better, the motivating tension that structured and guided your life may be gone and create a vacuum you want to fill. A major indicator that you're near a transition is when you mostly feel bored.

We have to consider planning for this transition. This involves new ways of thinking about the step beyond.