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Key points
- Many women believe they are not “good enough” and that they should always be trying to improve.
- Self-improvement should not be confused with self-care.
- Giving up self-improvement can mean giving up self-obsession.
After more than a stressful pandemic year of, shall we say, letting myself go, I was ripe for self-improvement books. Instead, though, I decided to read Karen Karbo's latest book: Yeah, No. Not Happening: How I Found Happiness Swearing Off Self-Improvement and Saying F*ck It All―and How You Can Too. Karbo's humor and no-B.S. style make this book a page-turner. Well before the last page, you'll feel motivated to be your best self—including accepting you'll never be perfect! Here's more from the author:
Jennifer Haupt: What was the breaking point when you kicked self-improvement to the curb?
Karen Karbo: Pre-pandemic, which now feels like not just the Before Time, but the Before Time in a Parallel Universe, I decided to perfect my morning routine. The funny thing is, in retrospect, I didn’t even have a bad routine! It wasn’t like I was smoking weed until all hours, rolling out of bed at noon only to binge-watch Gilmore Girls and eat Twizzlers. My morning routine, while not perfect, was already pretty good. Get up at 8, make coffee, take the dog for a walk, write for a few hours. Even so, someone was out there saying I could improve it. And if someone said I could, I felt like I should.
At the time, those expensive, complicated planners that were guaranteed to change your life were all the rage. One of them claimed that perfecting your morning routine was the key to happiness. Every day you were to arise at o’dark-thirty to read, meditate, write in your gratitude journal, exercise, say affirmations, review your To-Do List, mindfully make a green smoothie for which you needed a degree in chemistry, and maybe four or five other things I’ve since forgotten. After you performed all these tasks, you would be ready to start your day.
I managed it for three days, then stayed up late one night reading and overslept the next morning. I was in a panic. I couldn’t do all the things! Now what? Which were the most enriching? Should I meditate and exercise? Read and write in the journal? Was it cheating if I did the affirmations while I was whipping up the smoothie? I felt terrible. I had messed up.
And then I realized how ridiculous this was. I was beating myself up for “failing” at something I hadn’t even known existed two weeks earlier. And what was this morning perfection system anyway? Just somebody with an idea who was really good at shilling it on the internet. I threw the planner away, and really started thinking about the colossal scam of the self-improvement industry.
JH: You point out that shame is a huge underlying factor in keeping women invested in constantly trying to look, feel, and be better. How did that show up for you?
KK: Like so many women I know, I’ve spent most of my life feeling like it was necessary to always working at being “better.” Thinner, hotter, nicer, more productive, more organized, more grateful—the list goes on and on. It’s a given in our culture that while a woman is working and taking care of her family and trying to enjoy herself a little, she should also always be working to be better. Even when she’s got things mostly in hand, she should still be trying to improve. That’s what a good woman does.
For me, I lived with a chronic feeling of never being good enough, not just because I was never able to follow whatever program I thought would fix me, but because after a while, I also stopped bothering. Instead of interpreting this as wisdom on my part (of course I’m not doing the intermittent fasting program based on finger length, it’s idiotic), it felt like lack of self-esteem. Shouldn’t I be trying everything I can to be the best woman possible?
JH: When you weeded shame out of your life, what showed up to replace it?
KK: It was complex. On the one hand, it’s fabulously liberating to say “Yeah, no. Not happening.” It makes you confident in a way you weren’t before when you were chasing after every new self-improvement trend. But there’s also grieving involved. Once you give up on the fantasy that there’s some perfect-as-defined-by-the-culture you out there, you are left with a flawed human being whose task is to find a way to enjoy her life right here, right now, just as she is. But dealing with the emotions of giving up self-improvement was much less time-consuming than continually chasing after it. I had time now, to read more, write more, swim more, volunteer for a dog rescue, pay attention to the world.
JH: You also point out that self-improvement, in itself, is not negative. It's the industry of self-improvement that is harmful to our self-esteem—and pocketbook. What forms of self-improvement are useful in your life?
KK: I’m all for improving concrete skills. Obviously, if you want to get better at cello playing, you have to take lessons, practice, and work to improve. Also, if you suffer from addiction or mental health issues, it’s good to get help. It’s good to spend time on your relationships with other people, which I suppose is a way of “improving” connection. Also, self-care, which some people confuse with self-improvement, is paramount.
JH: What's the one true thing you learned about happiness and self-improvement from writing this book?
KK: That giving up self-improvement also means giving up self-obsession. The world is much more interesting when I’m not always thinking about myself.
Karen Karbo is the author of 14 award-winning novels, memoirs, and works of non-fiction, including the best-selling "Kick Ass Women” series. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Karen’s memoir and three novels have all been named New York Times Notable Books. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in Elle, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, The New York Times, Tin House, Salon, and other magazines. Most recently, she is the author of Yeah, No. Not Happening: How I Found Happiness Swearing Off Self-Improvement and Saying F*ck It All―and How You Can Too.
