The Pressure to Be the “Bigger and Better Person”
There’s an unspoken rule in the world of personal growth, self-improvement, and even sometimes therapy: you should always be striving to be better. You should always aim to be patient, forgiving, understanding, and kind - especially when faced with difficulty. You should always take the high road, always be the bigger person, always choose grace, and always respond with unwavering maturity.
I mean it sounds good in theory. It even sounds noble. But in reality, this expectation can become exhausting, even harmful. When we believe that we must always be the "better" version of ourselves, we set ourselves up for failure. Why? Because we are human. And humans are, by nature, imperfect. Somewhere along the way in this modern age of media, self-improvement stopped being about becoming more self-aware and started becoming about being flawless and "virtuous". The idea of becoming a "better person" turned into something that often feels impossible - being patient even when we’re furious, being understanding even when we feel hurt, forgiving even when we’re still bleeding from the wound. And if we don’t meet this impossible standard? If we react with anger, if we struggle with resentment, if we refuse to take the high road? We feel like we’ve failed.
But have we?
Who decided that being human was something we needed to overcome? That making mistakes, having feelings, or struggling with boundaries meant that we weren’t "good enough"? Why do we hold ourselves to a level of virtue that we wouldn’t and shouldn't expect from anyone else?
We live in a world that tells us that to be a good person, we must always be striving for more - more kindness, more patience, more resilience. And whilst growth is a beautiful thing, the pressure to be constantly evolving into some idealised version of ourselves can become suffocating and unrealistic. It can make us feel as though who we are, right now, in this moment, is not enough, which defeats the object.
The Trap of Always Striving to Be Better
One of the biggest traps in self-improvement culture is the belief that we should always be working toward being the best version of ourselves. That sounds positive, doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t want to be better? But the first problem arises when we interpret "better" to mean perfect, to mean that we must never falter, never react, never experience negative emotions, and when does better end?
When this happens, self-improvement becomes a burden rather than a journey. Instead of being a path toward deeper self-awareness and healing, it turns into a relentless checklist of things we should be doing. Be more patient. Be more forgiving. Be more resilient. Be more emotionally intelligent. Be more understanding. We start to view every emotion, every response, every choice as something that needs to be optimised. If we feel anger, we immediately tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel that way. If we set a boundary, we wonder if we were too firm, if we should have been more compassionate. If we decide not to forgive someone who hurt us, we question if we are holding onto resentment unnecessarily. This creates an internal dialogue that is constantly judging, constantly evaluating, constantly making us feel as though we are never doing enough. We don’t allow ourselves the space to simply exist in the moment, to feel what we feel, to accept that we are not always going to respond in the "perfect" way, and then well... just move on. We begin to associate self-worth with how well we can manage ourselves. If we struggle, if we have a day where we don’t handle things as gracefully as we should, we feel like we are failing at the very thing that was supposed to help us.
This is where conventional self-improvement can sometimes get it wrong. It can place all the emphasis on changing ourselves rather than accepting ourselves, and whilst growth is important, it should not come at the cost of our self-compassion. If we are constantly trying to "fix" ourselves, we will always feel broken. If we are always striving to be better, we will never feel enough.
You Don’t Always Have to Be the Bigger Person
One of the most exhausting expectations placed on people - especially those who are emotionally aware, empathetic, or sensitive - is the idea that they must always be the bigger person. That they must always forgive, always take the high road, always show maturity and grace. But here’s something that rarely gets acknowledged: being the bigger person all the time is not a sign of strength. Sometimes, it’s a sign that we are prioritising other people’s comfort over our own well-being. Sometimes, it’s a sign that we have been conditioned to believe that keeping the peace is more important than acknowledging our own feelings.
We do not owe forgiveness to those who have hurt us. We do not have to swallow our anger in the name of being "mature." We do not have to be endlessly patient with people who continue to cross our boundaries. There is a difference between being a "good" person and being a self-sacrificing person. There is a difference between choosing kindness because it aligns with our values as opposed to choosing kindness because we feel we have no other option. You do not have to be the bigger person every time. Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do is stand your ground, honour your feelings, and choose yourself.
What If We Simply Allowed Ourselves to Be Human?
After years of self-improvement books, therapy sessions, deep introspection, and pushing ourselves to be the best version of who we think we should be, many of us find ourselves still searching. Searching for that elusive feeling of being enough. Searching for the moment when we finally feel healed, wise, resilient, and evolved enough to handle everything life throws at us with perfect composure.
But what if we never reach that point?
What if the truth is that we were never supposed to?
There’s an unspoken assumption in many personal growth spaces that healing is a destination, a place where struggle no longer exists, where emotional reactions are perfectly controlled, where we rise above pettiness, impatience, resentment, or insecurity.
It sounds beautiful, doesn’t it? But it’s a fantasy.
The problem with chasing this kind of self-improvement is that it turns being human into a problem that needs fixing. When we believe that we must always be evolving, always self-aware, always doing the emotional work, we rob ourselves of the very thing we are meant to experience: life as it is. Striving to be flawless often leads to a different kind of suffering - one where we are at war with ourselves, never satisfied, always self-monitoring, always questioning whether we are reacting in the "right" way. It creates a cycle of self-judgment where every setback feels like failure, every moment of struggle feels like a reason to be disappointed in ourselves. We become hyper-aware of our emotions, analysing every reaction, every conversation, every choice. Instead of just feeling, we start to police our feelings, wondering, ‘Did I handle that well enough? Was I patient enough? Was that a healthy boundary, or was I too harsh? Should I have been more understanding? Should I have forgiven more quickly?’
This is not healing. This is performance review.
True healing is not about being a perfectly composed version of yourself. It is about accepting yourself in the moments when you are not, and growth is not about eliminating struggle. It is about changing our relationship with ourselves when we struggle. It is about learning how to be patient with ourselves, how to trust that we are still moving forward even when it feels like we’re standing still. It is about knowing that even when we stumble, we are still worthy. This kind of acceptance allows us to approach growth from a place of curiosity rather than judgment. Instead of reacting to our struggles with, 'Why am I still like this? I should be better by now, we can ask, What is this struggle trying to teach me? What do I need right now?' Instead of seeing our imperfections as barriers to growth, we can start to see them as opportunities to learn more about ourselves, to become more in tune with our needs, and to figure out what truly works for us rather than what we think should work.
Allowing Room for Messiness
So, what if we stopped trying so hard to get it "right"? What if we accepted that we will sometimes react out of anger, or insecurity, or fear? What if we acknowledged that we will sometimes shut down, or be defensive, or say the wrong thing?Would the world fall apart if we allowed ourselves those moments? So often, we fear that if we let go of the need to be better, we will somehow lose control. That if we don’t push ourselves to be kinder, wiser, more patient, we will end up hurting people or ruining relationships or making irreversible mistakes. But in reality, we will make mistakes anyway. We will have bad days. We will be reactive at times. We will say the wrong thing, hold onto resentment longer than we should, avoid difficult conversations, let our insecurities lead us. Because well, we are human. And yet, the world does not end. Instead of striving to be someone who never makes mistakes, what if we focused on being someone who learns from them? Instead of trying to control every reaction, what if we practiced being gentle with ourselves when we don’t react the way we wish we had? There is freedom in this. There is a deep, profound relief in realising that we do not have to be better all the time, as better is the enemy of good enough.
Sadly, one of our biggest obstacles is still the idea that we must become someone else in order to be lovable, worthy, or successful. So many of us have spent years trying to prove that we are worthy - by being helpful, by being accommodating, by being forgiving, by always being the one to rise above. But at what cost? How many times have we sacrificed our own needs, our own boundaries, our own feelings, just to be seen as a “good” person? However, we do not need to become perfect versions of ourselves in order to deserve love. We do not need to master our emotions or be endlessly patient or achieve some higher level of wisdom in order to be valuable.
Choosing Self-Compassion Over Self-Perfection
If there is one thing that can change everything, it is the decision to treat ourselves with compassion instead of criticism. This is because growth happens when we create a safe space within ourselves to be imperfect without punishment. It happens when we say to ourselves: “It’s okay that I struggled today. It’s okay that I reacted that way. I understand why I did. I will learn from it, but I will not shame myself for it.”
Self-compassion does not mean excusing harmful behaviour or avoiding accountability. It means recognising that accountability does not require self-punishment. It means understanding that mistakes are not proof that we are failing; they are proof that we are learning and living.
And there is a kind of peace that comes with self-acceptance that no amount of striving can give us. When we stop fighting against our own humanity, we begin to see the beauty in it. We begin to realise that growth is about experiencing life as it unfolds - messy, emotional, uncertain, and real. We begin to trust that we do not need to control every reaction or always get things right in order to be worthy of love, respect, and happiness. We begin to understand that being human - fully, imperfectly, unapologetically human - is the most honest, most beautiful way to exist.
So, I wonder what would happen for you, if you simply just tried allowing yourself to be human today, as you are?
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