This Is Why Self-Improvement Bothers Me
Hard work, failure, and the illusion of balance.
When I was younger, I had a lot of anxiety.
Anxiety turned to depression, depression got worse, and eventually, everything sort of spiraled from there. My mind was a pretty unpleasant place until I was like 25.
Sorry to start out the article with complaining — I promise it gets better.
I tried pretty much everything that a person could try to relieve myself of my depression and anxiety and to have good mental health.
I trained a lot of Jiu-Jitsu. I read self-help books. I read philosophy books. I meditated. I wrote. I drank alcohol. I tried drugs. I tried spending a lot of time with other people. I tried avoiding other people. I tried SSRIs. I tried some other kind of antidepressant. I tried therapy.
I tried pretty much everything that I possibly could to “become happy”.
As of today, I have both succeeded and failed in my journey to “become a happy person”.
Here’s my story and how maybe it can help you do whatever you’re doing a little bit happier and with better results.
Stop trying to be happy.
In everything in my life that I have tried to achieve, the more that I have wanted to achieve it, the more I have struggled.
The more desperately I’ve wanted wins in Jiu-Jitsu, the fewer wins that have come my way. The more that I’ve wanted to write high-performing content, the more that I have written crappy, preachy-sounding content that sounds forced.
Likewise, when I was younger, the more I “tried to be happy”, the less happy I really was. Not that I burst from the seams with joy nowadays, but I am certainly 2x happier than I was a year ago and 10x happier than 5 years ago.
See, when you’re dealing with depression or sadness, in my experience, the obsessive desire to “snap out of it” and “become happy” only makes the unpleasant sensations worse.
You start to feel embarrassed by your unhappiness. You start to become angry and resentful not just with yourself, but with the techniques that you’re using to improve your level of happiness.
This is why I was struggling, I hated Jiu-Jitsu because Jiu-Jitsu never “made me happy”. It was just a band-aid. The same is true with everything else.
When I was 23-24, and even through the most part of 25, I was obsessed with “happiness”. I wrote a lot of articles on the topic.
These articles seemed to have been helpful for a lot of people at the time (especially this one), but in time, they made me miserable.
I was trying to be something that I couldn’t be.
Balance doesn’t exist.
In my study of happiness and the pursuit of it, one thing that I learned was that a common thing to strive for to improve your happiness levels is “balance”.
But what is balance?
When we think of the word “balance”, most people think of order. They think of a tidy room. Clocking out of work at a reasonable hour. Always eating a balanced plate and reasonable-sized portions. Getting 8 hours of sleep every night. Pushing themselves, but not too hard.
Most people think of balance as this perfect ideal that we should shoot for. I know I did.
The problem with this approach is that it is flawed. Balance is more of a concept — a reminder that you can go too far. It’s not a thing that you can achieve for yourself. It’s not really something you can truly experience.
The pretty ideas of balance that a lot of us are sold are completely fabricated. They’re not real.
People are shooting to live “balanced lives” — but balanced according to who?
This creates a precursor that expectations will not meet your reality.
Embracing the highs and the lows.
Life tends to find balance for you.
Balance is not boring. It’s not doing the same things every day, feeling the same all the time, or getting everything right all the time.
At least, it’s never been like that for me.
Balance for me has high highs and low lows. There are amazing days and shitty days. Days where I feel like I’m on top of the world and days where I feel like crap.
These highs and lows are what give life meaning.
In those moments, it’s hard to remember that you are still balanced. You think that life is either going to continue to spiral upward for you like you’re Icarus on your way to the sun or you think that you’re on a downswing that isn’t going to end until you reach the gates of hell.
But that’s balance too.
Balance isn’t something that you pursue. It’s something that just happens. Whatever you put in you get out.
That’s why, instead of aiming for a perfectly balanced life, you should aim to have a mind that is sturdy enough to endure the highs and lows of a real one.
This is what bothers me about self-improvement.
Everyone wants to chase the highs and peace and the meditation retreat in the mountains without realizing that the real test of balance is how well you handle failure and chaos getting thrown off your routine.
What bothers me about self-improvement is that it was created by people who are so far removed from the reality most of us live.
Closing Thoughts
Learning to embrace the illusion of balance has been essential in helping me improve my skills as both a grappler and a writer.
Instead of aiming to string together a bunch of days where everything is the same, I’ve learned that the way you really live a balanced life is by rolling with the punches. Take the good days in stride with the bad. Don’t let any of them affect you too much.
Work as hard as you can but don’t take yourself too seriously. Know how to focus and how to play.
Yesterday, I had a great training day. Today was pretty awful.
Last fall, I lost in the round of 16 at the ADCC Trials to someone I’d beaten the year prior. In April, I took 4th at a higher weight class and beat someone who had beaten me 3 times in the past.
Good things and bad things never stop happening.
Last week, I hit 300 on a back squat without a belt (pretty good for someone who's had back problems). This week, 245 was heavy and I slogged through the whole workout.
The newsletter last week wasn’t my best. The article 2 weeks ago was one of my favorites that I’ve published in a long time.
I wonder how I’ll feel about this one 3 weeks from now.
Either way, it doesn’t matter too much. I have to get back to work.
The Grappler’s Diary is sponsored by BJJ Mental Models, the world’s #1 Jiu-Jitsu podcast!
This week’s episode features Dr. Jooyoung Lee.
Jooyoung is a BJJ black belt, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, and an accredited expert in the sociological study of violence.
In this episode, Jooyoung discusses the science behind "pulling the trigger" when grappling, how to be more aggressive in the moment, and how to avoid becoming flustered in the face of your opponent's aggression.
To listen, look up BJJ Mental Models wherever you listen to your podcasts or just hit this link.
The Grappler’s Diary is also sponsored by The Brolo!
Last weekend, I wore my Brolo out to a coffee shop here in Austin, pictured above.
What happened?
Immediately, people swarmed me. One guy shouted at me. A dog ripped off its leash and ran up to me. An angel descended upon me. My girlfriend looked at me with a new light. My Jiu-Jitsu got better. My golf swing improved.
Okay, none of those things happened.
What did happen was that a guy stopped me dead in my tracks and said “Excuse me, sir, I need to know… Where did you get that incredible shirt?”
True story.
I’m gonna tell you exactly what I told him:
Visit Brolo.Me and use “Chris 10” at check out.
It’s the only logical course of action.
Also published this week:
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