HealthyGamerGG - The Addiction You Didn't Know You Had (Self Improvement)

Episode Date: January 7, 2024

The roots of an addiction to self-improvement often stem from the soil of conditional love. This journey often commences within the framework of our upbringing and the relationships we fostered. Join us as we delve into the origins of this pursuit for constant betterment, examining its ties to the environments we were raised in and the interpersonal dynamics we experienced. Our discussion sheds light on how conditional love in our formative years can foster an unending quest for personal development. Check out HG coaching: https://bit.ly/47dF7rF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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When we sort of think about parenting, we kind of think like, okay, parents should give unconditional love, right? That's what raises healthy kids. And what does unconditional love mean? It means that I love you no matter what you do. So you can do well or you can do poorly and my love for you is the same. It doesn't mean that we don't encourage you to do well or we don't reward you to do well. But that fundamental sense of love is there no matter what. But oftentimes if you're kind of one of these.

people who feels like, I got to do better, I got to do better, I got to do better, where did you get that idea? You got that idea from your parents who were conditional with the love that they provided. In the household that I grew up when I was nine years old, my dad sort of told me and my brother, he was like, one of you is going to be doctor and one of you is going to be lawyer. And so I learned at a very young age that my value as a human being depends on my performance. And whether I'm loved, whether I'm a good kid, a good little Indian boy or bad little Indian boy, depends on whether I get straight days. No girlfriend, no fun. You need to get grades, grades, grades. And so literally the affection and love that I felt in my household was somewhat conditional based on my performance.

If you grew up in a household like that, this may be resonating with you whether like, you know, the affection that your parents gave you depended on how well you did at particular things. And if you did grow up in a household like that, your mind constructed a view of the world, that my value as a human being depends on my performance. Therefore, if I am feeling bad about myself, what do I need to do? I need to perform so that I can show everyone how good I am. And now we move on to a really important adaptation that people who are addicted to self-improvement have, which is that they use external factors to solve internal problems. So we sort of know about this, and this is actually a little bit more common in men, is that sometimes when we feel bad emotionally, we will turn to an external thing to fix an internal

emotional problem. So if I'm addicted to, let's say, like, heroin or alcohol or marijuana, how do I fix that anxiety or feeling bad about myself? I turn to an external thing to make it feel better, right? I'm going to drink alcohol. I'm going to get high. And I can do an external action to improve my internal state. For people who are addicted to self-improvement, they just turn to a different kind of action, right? I'm going to accomplish something. So if I feel insecure and unlovable on the inside, like I don't really belong here, I feel like an imposter, what am I going to do? I'm going to do the best job that I possibly can. I'm going to rise to the top.

And if I rise to the top, then I will feel pride, right? People will respect me. People will love me. People will like me. And then this feeling of insecurity or lack of love on the inside will go away. But that's not actually what happens, right? So if you're addicted to self-improvement, you know this, that even when you get a gold medal, you're not like chilling and happy, right?

The first thing that you're thinking about is, oh, my God, who's going to beat me next year? And even when there aren't competitions, like, let's say, for example, like you do a group project or you pitch something to your boss. Even if they say like, hey, great pitch, in your mind, what you're sort of thinking is like, that person's just saying that. I know I could have done something better. And then you go asking for feedback and you're like, what could I have done better? What could I have done better?

And so what you sort of fall into is this sort of idea where when you have a negative emotion, you're going to engage in an external behavior to make that negative emotion go away. But there's a fundamental problem with that, which is that any kind of relief that you get is temporary. because fundamentally, emotional problems require emotional solutions. So a good example of this is people who are, like, afraid of being behind in, like, romantic situations, right? If I'm like, if I'm like a virgin or whatever, and I'm thinking to myself, oh, I'm a loser, like, I feel bad about myself because I'm a virgin. That is a insecurity that I have internally.

And so how am I going to fix this? I'm going to, like, you know, sign up for some, like, pick up artist's course or whatever. I'm going to, like, become a chat or whatever. And I'm going to, like, do better in life, right? I'm going to go and I'm going to get laid. So I'm going to fix this problem by getting laid. But when I work with people who are insecure about being virgins and they will go get laid, either sort of some meaningless kind of sex at a party where everyone's drunk or in some cases

they'll even work with like a sex worker or a prostitute, that doesn't actually fix the problem. In their mind, they're sort of thinking like, okay, if I fix this thing on the outside, it will make me feel better on the inside. And so they go on fixing those external things. This is exactly what happens with people who are addicted to self-improvement. I don't know where I'm going in life. Let me go to a spiritual retreat where I will fix that problem. I don't know what's happening in my life.

I'm not getting promoted or I don't feel like I'm a competent person or I feel like an imposter. Let me go work really hard so I can get promoted and then the imposter syndrome will go away, right? On the contrary, the imposter syndrome gets worse because now I've tricked these people into promoting me. And the imposter syndrome is like, oh my God, like now I'm going to screw it up and people are going to realize they never should have promoted me in the first place. It doesn't work because emotional problems are required. emotional solutions. Now, there's a caveat to this, right? Or there's a counterpoint, which is that sometimes, let's say, I feel unloved, or I'm afraid of being a virgin or I have low self-esteem, wherever. And then I can get into a relationship, and sometimes that can actually fix the

problem, right? Sometimes if I, like, find a boyfriend or a girlfriend and, like, that can fix the problem. How's that the case? Well, there's a big difference between getting laid and entering into a relationship that is emotionally nurturing, right? So if you're actually in a relationship where sure, you're having sex, but then this person also gives you, like, an emotional. antidote to your needs, then that's a completely different story because emotional problems require emotional solutions. And if I'm insecure about being a virgin, it's not getting laid that's going to fix it. It's actually entering into a relationship where someone helps me feel loved and accepted and accepts me for being a virgin in the first place. And this is the trap that people

fall into is that we start to think that external things will fix my emotions. And we sort of also see that in cases of people who are very materialistic, right? They go on like buying lots of stuff to make themselves feel better. Or we see this even in the cases of toxic relationships where some people that I've worked with and you may fall into this where like, you will do anything that you can to get someone to like you, right? And so you end up becoming a doormat

and putting up with a lot of abuse because you think that if you can convince this person to like you, then you will feel loved. But it doesn't work like that. And self-improvement addiction is even worse than any of those other examples because self-improvement addiction does a couple of other things that are really devastating.

The first is that it objectively improves our life. So think about this, right? So if I'm so friggin insecure that, like, I'm terrified that I'm going to fail a test. So what do I end up doing? I torture myself with anxiety and I study really hard. And then I get an A. And then I wind up in medical school. And then I'm like, oh my God, I'm an imposter. So I got to work really hard because I don't deserve to be here. And then I do really well. And I end up at the top of my class. And then I match to a beautiful residency at some Ivy League institution. So if we really look at self-improvement addiction, it's really, really scary because being addicted to self-improvement objectively correlates with,

like, better success in life. And so when I work with these people, what I end up discovering is if I were to ask you, like, you know, you're addicted to self-improvement. Is it a problem? You say yes. And then I ask you, okay, like, despite all the fact that you've succeeded these five times, do you feel better about yourself as a human being? And you're like, no. And then I ask this question, which is, do you want to change? And at the beginning, people will say, yeah, I'm tired of being unhappy. But if we kind of like, go deeper into the conversation, I'm like, do you want to change? And then they end up saying, no, I don't want to change.

And why is that? It's because my addiction to self-improvement gives me direction in life. It gives me fuel. It gives me energy. It allows me to accomplish stuff. And so what these people, the reason they're so friggin addicted, and the reason it's such a hard addiction to kick is because they don't want to give it up. And this is true of all addictions as well.

Why are addictions hard to kick? It's not because they're harmful. It's because they're helpful. If you're very successful and you're addicted to self-improvement and we take away your insecurity, what's going to help you wake up in the morning? Why are you going to go to work? How are you going to decide what to gun for? So addiction to self-improvement, when we have this insecurity, it gives us a sense of direction and it gives us energy.

And we don't even want to give it up because if we lose our direction and we lose our fuel, then, like, what are we doing in life? Like, how do I know what I'm going to be doing? I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm going to be sitting at home. I'm going to be lazy. I'm going to become the failure that I am afraid I've always been. So this is the huge problem is that people don't want to give up their addiction to self-improvement.

So how do we fix this? So the first thing that we've got to understand once again is that emotional problems require emotional solutions. So the one concrete thing that I would recommend to everyone who is addicted to self-improvement is stop looking outside yourself to fix that kind of thing. Right. So if you feel insecure, share it with. someone else. You can talk to a therapist, you can talk to a coach, you can talk to a boyfriend, you can talk to a girlfriend, which is what we're terrified to do, right? But here's the problem is that

right now, the only reason you're in this mess is because when you feel insecure, you go and try to fix it on the outside. You never actually, like, try to fix it emotionally. So what I would strongly recommend that you do is share that emotion with someone. I know it sounds crazy, but that's literally all you got to do, right? So as you share that emotion, something is going to happen. The emotion will start getting better. You will start to realize, okay, I am loved. Like, if you go to your boyfriend or girlfriend or your non-binary partner, whatever, you go to someone that you love and you share with them, hey, like, I'm afraid that I'm undeserving of your love. And yeah, it's really challenging and yeah, it's really vulnerable, but that's when, like, you don't need to do anything in that

moment to earn their love. If they really love you, they're going to love you anyway. And then something very important will happen. Holy crap, if I feel unloved, I don't need to do anything to fix it. I don't need to do anything to deserve love. I'm deserving of love, and this person is giving me love anyway. And that's when there's a fundamental crack in the way that you view the world, which is going to be where a lot of this healing and growth comes from. Now, some of you all may be paranoid, because I don't want to do that, because it's scary. I get that. And how are you going to manage that fear?

You're going to go take some course on managing fear and boosting your EQ, right? Oh, I'm afraid. I have to go fix that fear through something else. Dr. K, tell me how to fix the fear. I get that, right? So we're just going to skirt past that for a second. And the next thing that we really need to understand is that a lot of people are paranoid about this, because if I no longer have the fear driving me, then it's going to lead to problems. So right now I'm in this relationship with a awesome person who is better than I am,

and I don't deserve to be in this relationship. It is my fear of them abandoning me that causes me to go the extra mile and become the epic partner. I'm a plus partner because I'm afraid they're going to leave me, right? That's how, and that's why they stay, because if you stop being an A plus partner, then you would leave because you're not fundamentally lovable. This is a cycle. And so you try really hard. You burn yourself out to make this person assure that this person never discovers who you are. And are you actually happy in that relationship? Absolutely not. So start by sharing your emotions because emotional problems require emotional solutions. And you'll start to feel better.

There's another problem that we have to solve, though, is if you start feeling better, what we're doing is draining your gas tank, right? because it's the fear or the insecurity that causes you to progress in life objectively and stay in this relationship. And that's where you'll discover something really cool, which is that once you're no longer living life to fix an insecurity, that is when you start to live life like for fun and excitement. So people who are addicted to self-improvement are going to live a life of avoidance. We're trying to avoid this catastrophe constantly, constantly, constantly. And so your life is so stressful. But the thing is, if I'm avoiding that catastrophe, I know, like, I've got direction because I'm always running away from the fire, right? Like, where is the fire?

We're going to run in the opposite direction. And the fire keeps chasing us because that's what fire does, right? It doesn't just stop. It just keeps coming and growing and growing and growing, and I keep running and running and running. And at least I've got direction. If the fire stops, which direction do I go? And this is what's beautiful, is once you stop running from the fire, you can start moving towards stuff that actually excites you. So what I've noticed in the probably well over 100 people that I've worked with

who are addicted to self-improvement is that they're terrified that they will no longer have direction in life. But actually, the direction in life that they find is exactly the direction in life that they want, which is I want to stop living a life of fear and avoidance. I want to start living life where I move towards joy and excitement. And the way to do that is to stop running away from the fire, right? And as you start sort of healing yourself emotionally, then there is space in your mind for you to get excited about stuff. Literally, there are studies on burnout that show that the first thing

to go when you are burnt out is curiosity. The brain does not have time for curiosity or excitement or joy when our ship is sinking and we're in damage control. So start by vocalizing your emotions, sharing them with someone else, give other people a chance to accept you without you doing a good job. And the moment that starts to happen, your emotions will start to feel better. you will start to feel a little bit healed, you'll start to feel loved, and you will create the space in your mind for things like curiosity or excitement, which will ultimately give you a completely different compass, which is the compass that you've been looking for this entire time, which is, I want to live a life where I'm successful and it's filled with joy. But you can't do that as long as you're addicted to self-improvement. This episode is brought to you by CarMax. Want to buy a car the easy way? Start at CarMax. Want to browse with confidence? Get pre-qualified with no impact on your credit score. and shop within your budget. From luxury to family rides,

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