Moving into 2023, there was a deluge of motivational messages from news, radio, adverts, and most significantly social media, telling me how I can improve my well-being: ‘new year, new me’. Social media is filled with posts illuminating the key to happiness and by sheer coincidence, success. This happiness is achievable through a precise morning or night routine and journal prompts. These are all well-meaning ideas to support yourself, developing into a person with a positive and healthy mental existence. Theoretically a good concept. Helping me to develop the things that aren’t working for my life and well-being at the moment. Great! This random person on social media has some tips on how to stay organised and set up a gym routine to care for my mental state. Let me take notes. This discussion is similar to my very first, where I questioned the true benefits of romanticising life. Has wellness similarly crossed a boundary, moving the focus from truly caring for the self into yet another expectation in which to measure success? The issue behind both trends is that they have good intentions, but sometimes negative consequences.
The obsession and reinforcement of self-improvement is more accusatory and pressurising than its initial intent. A reminder of what you could be failing at than really fixing something that is not working? The judgement if you don’t have a curated breakfast plan, only drink water, and always read before bed, sort of undermines the benefits of these positive actions. It presents the idea that there is a universally correct way to care for your physical and mental well-being, despite everyone being different, being individual. I wonder if perhaps it actually shields a critical internal voice, which the wellness movement attempts to calm and remove. The true face of the self-critic hidden under an approachable proactivity; masquerading as constructive criticism, in fact enabling judgement and disparagement. Is this a positive method for wellness, to be fuelled into improvement by the idea of low self-worth? Of course, this is not the case for all, but as the trend expands has its meaning and intention been warped? Will it end up representing the very struggles it has proffered to fix?