LIFESTYLE
There’s nothing wrong with chasing perfection. Self-betterment has acquired a complicated reputation, diluted by slogans. You’re enough as you are. Don’t try so hard. Embrace imperfection. And while these messages can sound nice, they also risk excusing stagnation.
Wanting more for yourself has become taboo. Women shouldn't want to be rich, be successful, be beautiful or be muscular. Effort has become embarrassing. We're surrounded by celebrities who claim olive oil over facelifts and influencers who say their fitness just happens naturally. We've said goodbye to graft.
To hold yourself to a higher standard isn’t weakness, it’s the biggest form of self respect. Respect for your body, for your mind, and for the life you get to live because of the decisions you take.
There is nothing wrong with striving. There is nothing wrong with chasing perfection, even if you will never catch it. In fact, it is often the pursuit that is the enjoyable. If you think perfection is a final state, a flawless body, a flawless home, a flawless self, you’ll be forever disappointed. But that is the wrong definition.
Perfection is not a finish line, it’s a compass. It’s the standard that gives you direction, the vision that pushes you to keep trying, to fail, to adjust, to try again. It is not there to be achieved, it is there to be chased. Without some vision of perfection, you drift. With it, you move.
Discipline is the New Luxury
Luxury is usually described as things, handbags, villas, a table at the right restaurant. But really the biggest luxury is discipline, the ability to demand more from yourself than comfort requires.
It’s choosing the gym when it would be easier to sleep in. It’s putting down your phone to read something harder. It’s studying a new language even when you stumble, cooking instead of ordering, showing up when no one would notice if you didn’t. These are not punishments, they are investments. They are proof that you believe your future self is worth the effort of your present self.
Discipline is not aesthetic, but it shapes everything aesthetic. The body that moves well, the mind that learns easily, the face that glows from sleep and care, these are by-products of effort.
The Illusion of Effortlessness
We’re conditioned to admire what looks easy. Marathon runners who look like they could run all day but we don't feel the burn of their muscles. Tennis players who almost never miss a shot but we don't remember the hours and hours of practice they have given. Models who walk the fashion weeks but we don't see the time spent in castings and in rejections before success. Ballerinas who perform in elegance and grace but whose feet are bleeding and bruised.
But behind every so-called effortless achievement is the opposite, effort, hours, practice, failure, disappointment, repetition. The glossy life you admire is not the absence of effort, it is the accumulation of it.
Try Too Hard
Go against the fear of trying too hard. There is nothing shallow about wanting more for yourself. It isn’t vanity to want your body stronger. It isn’t arrogance to want your mind sharper. It isn’t delusion to want your life better.
Ambition doesn’t mean discontent; it means belief. Belief that you can stretch a little further, that you are not stuck in who you were last year, last month, or even yesterday. To want more is not to reject who you are, it is to invest in who you could be.
Self-betterment doesn’t have to mean dramatic reinventions. It is usually built in increments so small they go unnoticed by anyone else. Waking up thirty minutes earlier to workout. Spending ten minutes on vocabulary instead of scrolling. These acts are not impressive; they are invisible. But repeated, they become the texture of a different life. Better is built quietly and slowly. And those who dismiss the small steps are often the ones who never arrive anywhere new.
Owning the Chase
Perfection might be a myth, but the chase is real. And the chase itself is what builds a life of shape, texture, and pride. The better body, the better mind, the better self, they are never complete, they are always a project to keep working on. Showing up for yourself every day.
To better yourself is to stay awake to your own potential. To keep moving, keep refining, keep pushing against the soft gravity of complacency. It gives you something to measure against, a higher mark to aim for, a reason to push beyond what is comfortable. It doesn’t trap you, it frees you from mediocrity.