Go Team! 2024: Think Expansion Not Improvement

Hey Team,

One of the things that really bugs me about a lot of the marketing around fitness and wellness is the notion that we must “improve” ourselves.

I hate that for us!

I’d rather we start with these ideas:

There is nothing wrong with us – we are good just as we are.

We don’t need to feel bad about our current selves.

We’re doing what we can with the resources we have.

And we don’t need “self-improvement” but we can welcome expansion…if we want it!

What do I mean by expansion?

Well, let me borrow an example from something else.

I have a close friend who struggles with anxiety and whenever they ask for my help to talk through things/brainstorm solutions I am there for them.

But I always stress that I am not brainstorming from the position that there is something wrong with them, I am not helping in the spirit of ‘fixing’ them.

Instead, I note that anxiety limits their activities and the ways that they can participate in the world, and I want more for them than that.

I want them to be able to decide what they want to do, I don’t want anxiety making that decision them.

I want an expanded life for them.

Now, I don’t think that my mindset can magically fix the challenges of anxiety but I do think that it helps strengthen my relationship with this person because it keeps working together as opposed to me telling ways to “improve” themselves.

And since I have started doing that with them, I have started taking the same approach with things I want to change in areas of my life.

I’m no longer trying to improve myself or even ‘be better’ at certain things. Instead, I am framing changes as expansion.

If I meditate daily, how does that expand my life?

If I do my rehab exercises for my foot, what options open up for me?

If get better sleep, what kind of space does that create in my mind and in my day?

Thinking on these terms gets me away from the idea that my current self is bad or broken or weak, and that I need to improve myself.

Instead, I end up thinking about what these changes will open up for me, how my life will expand as a result.

And that just feels better to me.

So, Team, if you get a squicked-out feeling from talks of self-improvement, perhaps you might like to think in terms of expansion, too?

And, as always, no matter what you are up to today, here is your gold star for your efforts.

Be kind to yourself out there, pretty please!