The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - Self-Acceptance vs Self-Optimisation: Which Wins?

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

Are you always trying to improve yourself or is it time to accept where you are? In this episode of Inner Work, Dr Marianne Trent explores self-acceptance, perfectionism, alcohol, and the pressure to keep optimising ourselves. 💬 Where do you draw the line between growth and acceptance? #InnerWork #SelfAcceptance #MentalHealth💡 Want to support the channel? Like, comment, and share this episode!📩 Business & Collaboration Enquiries✉️ Email: [e-mail]🎧 Stay Connected With Me🌍 Aspiring Psychologists Website: www.aspiring-psychologist.co.uk🌍 Good Thinking Psychology Website: www.goodthinkingpsychology.co.uk💼 LinkedIn: Dr Marianne Trent: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-marianne-trent-psychology/📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GoodThinkingPsychologicalServices🐦 Twitter/X: @DrMarianneTrent📸 Instagram: @DrMarianneTrent🎵 TikTok: @DrMarianneTrent.📚 My Books on Amazon📖 The Grief Collective → https://amzn.to/4hNHru5📖 The Clinical Psychologist Collective → https://amzn.to/3ErIEJs📖 The Aspiring Psychologist Collective → https://amzn.to/4jSxc9N📖 Talking Heads: Stories of Psychology & Mental Health → https://amzn.to/3EvbKaN📖 An Autistic Anthology: Neuro-Narratives of Mental Health Professionals → https://amzn.to/3WXBpz9⚠️ DisclaimerThis content is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute medical, psychological, or professional advice. Any actions taken based on this content are at your own risk.© Dr Marianne Trent

Hi, welcome along to Inner Work. I'm Dr. Marianne Trent. Thank you for being here. This week's main episode was all about Tourette's, and we were talking with Jason about that. And as I've been kind of thinking, what shall I talk to you guys about? I was thinking the idea of self-acceptance versus what we can change, what we can't change, kind of what we just need to put up with. And I was reminded of the very noises debate on social media about Stephen Bartlett saying on his podcast that having a few glasses of wine had ruined his next few days. People have not all been super supportive of that. What I will say is as someone who doesn't drink anymore, I've never drunk problematically,

I wouldn't say, but I just realised that I didn't need that in my life anymore. I don't know if Stephen Butler has reached that same stage of kind of realization. Maybe he will after this. Maybe he'll like, well, I'll show you. I'm not going to have that ruin my life anymore. I'd love to know what your thoughts are. What are your relationships or stages of change with alcohol or substances? Have you decided to put them down?

But it's that idea of what we can optimize and what we can't optimize. This might be timely as well, because I'm recording this. this at a point where I've broken my hand. I broke my hand whilst trying to optimise myself, I guess. So I've broken my fourth metacarpal bone, which if you are not watching this on YouTube, you might be like, I don't know where that is. If you look at the back of your own hand, look at your ring finger, that bone that runs down your hand is basically where your metacarpal will be. I've been into the hand clinic today. which is over a week after I broke it, over a week after I had it x-rayed.

And the medic maybe, I don't know, saw a little bit of perfectionism in me and said, oh, of all the bones that you could have broken, the fourth metacarpal is the best one to have broken because it heals really nicely. So well, far time for choosing that one to break. And I was like, it wasn't really a choice, but thank you. And I hope it does heal nicely. So mine is my right hand, so that is not ideal. But I was in there trying to just really work on my wellness.

I was in the gym. This is why the optimization came in. I was in the gym. And of course I didn't know that I'd end up having an accident and breaking my hand. That is what has happened in reality. And now it's kind of set back my goals. So yeah, I didn't know that I would end up hurting myself and then not being able to exercise. I'm able to do sit-ups.

Sit-ups are pretty much all I'm doing. I did think earlier now that I'm going. now that I'm a little bit less hand anxious. I could probably do some squats, but I can't run really. It's probably not safe to be running with my hand in a splint when I might fall over and injure myself again. I can't drive for six weeks.

So it's encouraging me to just, I guess, accept where I am and not optimize. And I appreciate someone with a Tourette's diagnosis may not necessarily have that level of kind of optimization, sub-optimized, on days, off days, because it might not be something that they can control in the same way that you can do that. But I guess I would be interested in whether kind of mindfulness is an approach which might help someone with Tourette's. That is something I meant to ask, Jason, perhaps I'll

ask. And we can, yeah, cover that in future. But yeah, what relationship have you got? I was speaking to someone today about, I guess, that gestalt idea of when you feel like you've got to do things and then just tweaking it a little bit and thinking, well, am I getting to do that? Because am I, in fact, choosing to do that? So I guess even with the Stephen Barley example, if I'm choosing to drink alcohol, I guess more than a glass or two, then am I choosing to have disrupted sleep? Am I choosing to then be a bit cranky with my kids the next day because I'm, you know, coming out the after effects of drinking alcohol?

For me, I didn't choose to do that. I didn't want to, my kids didn't sleep. So when they were very young, I thought I'm not adding alcohol into the mix because any time my head hits the pillow, I want to actually be getting that benefit of the sleep. So for me, alcohol just didn't make sense in my life. And for me, it helped me just be firmer in my choices, I think. I just don't drink.

It means I can drive when I can drive, when I haven't got a broken hand. I can drive whenever I want to. How will we get there? How will we get home? Well, I'll drive. It just, I don't know, it just makes things simpler. And, you know, days gone by, I think it would have made things cheaper. I don't think that's the case anymore because you can easily pay as much for a mocktail

or even a non-alcoholic drink sometimes. I think a pint of Coke in London is about £5.50, six pounds, depending on where you buy it from. Obviously, that's at a higher end place, but that's a lot of money. That isn't, you know, well, maybe let's think about how much the alcohol would be there as well. but I would love to learn more about what your relationship is like with acceptance and optimisation and to think about how that shows up for you whether you've got any physical health or mental health diagnoses or symptoms and I would just love to learn more about that. Thank you for watching or listening to Inner Work.

The next episode will be available on Wednesday evening. Now, at the moment, I'm just trying to get myself into a predictable pattern. I think it's going to be around 7.30pm on a Wednesday evening. And I think that will happen both on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts at the same time. I think that's the plan. But again, I love your feedback on this. You know, I don't get everything right all of the time. So originally, I launched in a work as a member-only service where you guys paid to get these

episodes, but I just thought, you know what, I would sooner, if I'm creating the content, I'd sooner get listened to, get watched, you know, so every day is a school day. And I guess maybe this is part of my optimization journey as well. Thank you for being here. Thank you for choosing to be a listener or a viewer on inner work. And I'll look forward to bringing you the next episode next week. Take care.