Is working on yourself a new productivity trap?
When growth turns into another goal and how to come home to yourself instead
Everywhere you look, someone is working on themselves with a new routine, course or mindset shift. It’s all very inspiring for sure. However, slowly it starts to feel like another task you are failing at.
I think that the current generation is exposed to a lot of knowledge, which is amazing. We are so much more aware of the impact of our actions, habits, mental conditions and environments. Most of us (not all) are fortunate enough to be able to use the resources around us to become the best version of ourselves. But when does becoming the best version of yourself low-key become a form of self-criticism? It feels almost that we are trying to escape from ourselves. I have also seen mindfulness become another checkbox: meditate check, journal check, self-regulate check. I remember reading in Kek Mama (Dutch magazine on motherhood). A woman explaining how her daily 7 o’clock morning yoga routine had the opposite effect on her well-being than what it was intended to do. Nowadays growth easily becomes performative. Are you growing to achieve, track or to prove something? So let’s unpack that!
One of the beliefs behind Orange & Kin is well-being. And well-being is not always about fixing yourself. And you don’t have to fix yourself to be well. Often it’s actually returning to yourself. You only need to remember who you are underneath the noise. The narrative of fixing is to assume that something is wrong with you that needs fixing. Returning to yourself is rather looking inwards than upwards. And reconnecting with what is already there inside of you
.
That’s why I created Orange & Kin. Not to ask you to become someone new, rather to invite you to remember who you are. Where you belong, to yourself, to your body, to nature, to other women.
Your approach to well-being is not about “upgrading” your life but realigning it. It’s sustainability in well-being: not more effort, but more awareness. Not self-optimization, but self-remembrance.
Life is a constant change of seasons and growth is not linear. We move through cycles. Therefore, if we are being honest to ourselves we give ourselves rest and expect uncertainty and imperfection. Which is not always that easy to follow. I guess what I am getting at is that sometimes the most effective form of self-work is not working on yourself at all.
What would your well-being look like if you stopped trying to optimize it?
Love,
Romy