10 Reasons You’re Not Being Your Best Self

Ironically, this blog post about how to be your best self has been the worst on my site since I first published it on May 30, 2020.

Most posts I publish get at least one hundred views a month. Some get thousands. This post?

Read it as I weep:

But just like you and I can do better to be our best selves, so can this post. I believe in its potential and have lofty aspirations.

So what if I apply these strategies for being your best self to this post? If they’re any good, they should work, right?

And if so, they might help you figure out how to be your best self, too.

Let’s see how it goes.

Part 1: Experiment Like a Scientist

These proactive approaches are essential for self-improvement, as they push us to objectively explore and expand our capabilities.

1. Less Why?, More What?

Asking Why? leads you to wallow in the past and create false narratives with morass like, “Why are people not enjoying my post on how to be your best self?”

Instead, ask What? to focus on how to proactively deal with your situation. For example, “What can I do to make this post more valuable to readers?”

2. Blow Sh*t Up In Your Face

If your experiment fails, that’s fine. It’s called trial and error, not trial and perfection.

At the very least, setbacks teach you what you can’t do yet. Also, as JFK said, “An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.”

This post has been an error-fest. Too long. Too obvious. Too conventional. So I keep trying different things—photos, titles, edits, rewrites. Now, I’m trying this whole meta concept of applying its be your best strategies on itself.

And if it doesn’t work out?

I’ll refrain from crying myself to sleep cuddling one of my son’s stuffed animals for comfort. I’ll keep a growth mindset, learn from the evidence in front of me, and continue tinkering toward making it the best version it can be.

3. Aim For the Unspectacular

“To aim at results that cannot be achieved—or that can be only under the most unlikely circumstances—is not being ambitious; it is being foolish.”

Peter Drucker, Managing Oneself

Adopt a lifestyle of realistic, incremental improvements, as opposed to chasing grand goals.

Despite what self-help podcasts affirm, a positive attitude and repeating “I can do it” self-love mantras to yourself in the mirror every morning doesn’t mean you can. Sometimes you can’t.

Deluded dreams only blind you from reality and lead you astray.

They also make for blog posts nobody reads.

When I initially published this post, I deludedly envisioned it would teleport to the top five of Google search results for “how to be your best self.”

Surprise, surprise, that hasn’t happened. Currently, it’s 67th:

Rather than wait for the Google gods to acknowledge this post’s greatness, I need to be practical: chop down my grandiose goals into incremental improvements and little wins I have control over, do those, and measure their effectiveness.

If they work, keep going.

If they don’t, I’m better off accepting the reality that I don’t have what it takes and repointing my fingertips toward typing about topics I have proven results in, like fasting, floor sleeping, mind-opening, packing, and bug eating.

4. Stop Your Ego From Coddling You

Self-justification is your overprotective ego’s habit of coddling your feeble, fragile identity with lies and excuses that back up whatever it wants to believe, usually limiting beliefs.

In the case of this failing blog post, I am at risk of self-justification because of the painful dissonance between two incongruent beliefs:

1. I think the strategies I’ve summarized for how to be your best self work and are worth sharing.
2. Nobody cares about what I’ve written.

I could let my ego explain away this dissonance with bunk like, “It’s not your fault. It’s Google’s. The algorithm is unfair to small publishers like you.”

Or I could apply the tips from my more successful post on how to stop justifying yourself, such as:

• Turn to humility instead of ego: “Your post simply isn’t as helpful, interesting, or well-written as those that rank above it.”
• Be actively disconfirmation biased: “What other evidence can I find that proves this post sucks?”

Part 2: Exhibit Like An Artist

5. Quit Mining Your Belly Button

As self-awareness sensei Tasha Eurich has written, whatever gunk you pull out of your navel-gazing is probably not your best possible self.

Your actions define who you are, not your thoughts.

So, in the case of this post, rather than twiddle my thumbs delving into negative thoughts about why it’s the worst, I’ve got to fiddle with it to fix it.

Even if such behavior feels forced at first, if you think it could be the path to being your best self, give it a shot. “No one can tell you’re acting,” writes Ellen Hendriksen in How to Be Yourself, “Guess what else? Eventually, you won’t be.”

6. Play Golf With Your Identities and Approaches

“The human personality invariably contains myriad personality dispositions, emotional tendencies, values, attitudes, beliefs, and motives that are often contradictory and incompatible even though they are genuine aspects of the person’s psychological make-up.”

Jongman-Sereno, K. P., & Leary, M. R, The Enigma of Being Yourself

Give up on digging for authenticity to find your “true best self.”

Allow yourself to be many inconsistent selves. Then pick the self that suits your current situation like a golfer choosing a club for their next shot:

• Be selfless and sometimes look out for number one.
• Be open-minded and stick to your guns on some topics.
• Be straight and have a gay experience.

Or not. Whatever. Keep your options open and identity flexible.

The same applies to the strategies in this post. None of them are foolproof or set in stone. Sometimes doing the opposite might work better. And maybe admitting and accepting this will make the ideas seem more credible—authentic, even?

7. Make Yourself Unrecognizable

“You are only unable to change because you are making the decision not to.”

Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, The Courage to Be Disliked

“Yourself” is constantly changing. You’re not the same person at 20 years old as at 30, 40, or 50. At least hopefully not.

This post is unrecognizable compared to its first version. And who knows how’ll it’ll evolve in the future? That’s the fun of it.

8. Remember What’s Better Than Best

Different is better than best.

When you’re one of a kind, you’re unbeatable. And when you’re unbeatable, by definition, you’re the best.

So for this post, I need to keep finding one-of-a-kind strategies and ways to explain them. The more I do, the more likely it will stand out and catch people’s attention.

9. Only Worry About Certain (Imaginary) People

“When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you.”

Lao Tzu

Everyone else has too much anxiety about their own life to spare any energy to care about yours. And on the rare occasions that other people do think about you, what you think they’re thinking usually isn’t what they’re actually thinking, anyway.

Want to impress someone?

Focus on impressing your future selves.

Not future self. Future selves. Consider this thought exercise:

Does that mean I don’t need to worry about what others think about this blog post?

No. If I want people to read it, I have to worry about what they think about it.

So then is this strategy’s cliché drivel?

Cliché, certainly. And sometimes not worrying about what other people think is a bad idea. Speaking of which, I think this strategy’s worth keeping in the post.

10. Think About Your Great-Great-Grandchildren

What would you want your grandchildren to tell their grandchildren about you?

This is one of my favorite “GPS” questions to ask yourself from time to time.

As for this post’s legacy, I guess I hope it will inspire you to do something to be your best self in some small way.

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