Betterment: It's a trap

In professional circles, it is common to think that working towards betterment is a good thing. But what If that’s actually what is holding us back from our true growth?

Follow on Linkedin: Olivier Egli 

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I'm your host, Olivier, and this is the Do Happy Work Podcast, where we look at work in a different, more natural, and more peaceful way. How often do you catch yourself trying to get better? To be a better version of yourself at work, in relationships, as a leader, or simply as a human being. We spent so much of our lives trying to improve, to optimize, to upgrade our minds, our bodies, our habits, it's become almost second nature. This quiet belief that who we are right now isn't quite enough, that we need to fix, refine, and improve ourselves before we're allowed to feel proud, happy, or at peace. And yet, what if this whole idea of betterment, this obsession with self-improvement is actually what's keeping us stuck? What if the very thing preventing our growth, our peace and our joy was just that, this obsession with betterment? The idea that we have to become better rests on a strange assumption. That we were born incomplete, that we arrived in this world somehow lacking, and now we must spend the rest of our lives earning our worth, working towards betterment, to become a better person, a more complete and fulfilled person. Most of us were taught this early on. Parents, teachers, bosses, all kinds of conditioning. And all of these told us that being young or inexperienced meant being unfinished, incomplete, that our job was to climb the ladder, fill our bucket, make ourselves valuable. And so we enter the world believing that life is a competition, a race to the top, a contest for validation, but it really just leads to a race to the bottom. And here's the problem. When you believe you're broken, every effort to get better only deepens the wound. You start from a place of incompletion. You're incomplete. You start in weakness. Think about it. If I tell myself I need to become better, I'm also saying I'm not good enough right now. That I'm somehow flawed, inadequate, or behind. And that belief quietly eats away at our confidence, our creativity, and our sense of self. It makes it impossible to have true introspection because we think there's nothing to see in there. And then we look outward in the hope to find things we can grasp and pull inside of ourselves. It keeps us chasing a future version of ourselves that never arrives, because by the time we get there, we have already moved the goalpost. This is how so many of us end up exhausted, burned out, and quietly disappointed. We've achieved the titles, the money, the house, maybe, but peace still out of reach. Because we've been taught to see peace as something that comes after betterment, not before it. Remember, I always say happiness is self-created. It is a reality in which we exist, in which we show up. It's not something that we wake up to find because that would mean that we're broken, unhappy people, and nothing comes to those. Nature, on the other hand, doesn't operate that way. A seed doesn't strive to become a tree because it hates being small. It doesn't wake up in the morning thinking, oh no, I'm not tall enough yet. I'm lesser than. It just grows. Naturally, in rhythm, guided by something inside of it. The caterpillar doesn't crawl because it's ashamed of not being a butterfly. It transforms because that's what it's meant to do. It follows its inner code, not a vision board, not a five-year plan. Its transformation isn't about betterment, it's about alignment. It's about fulfilling its nature and by doing so, fulfilling its present and then also its future. But when humans chase betterment, what we're often chasing is not truth. It's approval. We've confused growth with performance. And so we measure ourselves constantly. Am I doing enough? Am I good enough? Am I better than yesterday? Will I be better tomorrow? And with every question like that, we drift a little further away from the present moment. The only place where real change can happen. The truth is, when we think we need to improve, we immediately disconnect from our power. We start looking outside ourselves for methods, for hacks, for validation. But peace and fulfillment never come from outside. They come from being fully present, from honoring who you are now, not who you think you need to become. So what if you stop trying to get better? What if today you started asking instead, how can I be more honest with myself? How can I be more aware of who I already am? How can I be more loving toward the person I'm right now, not the one I hope to become someday? How can I embrace that person I am today and with it everything I've done in the past? Because here's the truth: you're not incomplete, you are not broken, you're not behind. Everything you will ever become is already in you. But that will only come out of you. It will only get chiseled out of you if you see yourself as complete today already, as having all of that inside of you. You're evolving exactly the way you were meant to. Every chapter of your life has been necessary. Every mistake, every detour, every heartbreak, even. All of it was essential to your becoming. The point isn't to fix your story, it's to understand it, to meet it with compassion and curiosity, to really look. When we do that, something shifts. We stop fighting a reality. We stop rejecting the gift. We start unwrapping it. And when we unwrap the gift, we use the gift. We stop comparing ourselves to others, and we stop postponing happiness for a future that may never come. Because let's be real. That's exactly what might happen. And suddenly we find ourselves back in the present moment. The only place where joy, creativity, and peace actually live. You see, growth isn't about chasing something out there, it's about expanding in here. When you accept yourself as you are today, right now, you create space. Space, the creation of space is what growth is all about. Like the caterpillar, your transformation will come when it's time, not through force, but through surrender, through flow. And when it comes, it will feel less like striving and more like flowing. So maybe it's time to release this pressure to be better. To stop chasing butterflies and start being a grateful caterpillar. To stop measuring your worth in progress and start honoring it in presence. Don't compare today to tomorrow or to yesterday. See it as what it is today. 100%. Give 100% today, not 110% of yesterday. The real work is not betterment, it's remembrance, it's coming back home to yourself. And from that place, every kind of growth becomes possible. Not because you forced it, but because you finally allowed it. So as you move through your week, try this simple shift. Instead of asking how can I be better, ask how can I be more myself. Because that's where true transformation begins. Don't strive for perfection. Honor your perfection as it already is.