You Don’t Need Fixing

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” ~ Carl Rogers

I have said this so many times before, but it's so important that it's worth repeating until I go blue in the face: you do not need to fix yourself.

You don’t need to fix yourself to be worthy of love, acceptance, or approval. You don’t need to fix yourself to be happy or to get the things you want in life. You don’t even need to fix your thinking to manifest your deepest desires.

This idea that you must be fixed? It’s a myth. A marketing myth. It's how the self-improvement and coaching industry is taught to sell to you, by taking normal, human experiences and turning them into problems so someone can sell you the solution. And honestly? That makes me angry. Because I’ve bought into it too.

But I 100% believe this: we are all fundamentally okay as we are.

Learning Doesn’t Mean Fixing

Sure, there are things I want to get better at. I want more grace when I'm in conflict with my partner. I'd like a more open relationship with my parents. I'd like to get better at speaking Bahasa Indonesia. These are all skills, things I can learn and practice.

I'm not negating the value of learning. Learning can be joyful, especially when we remember that a lot of what we learned as kids were coping strategies that worked for us in those moments. They helped us survive. And that deserves gratitude.

But coping strategies are just that: strategies. If they’re the only tools we have, we end up stuck. It's like the old analogy: if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Hammers are useful. But they're not the tool for every job.

By all means, add more tools to your toolkit. And yes, sometimes our hammers are a bit wobbly. Adverse childhood experiences, mental health, trauma can all leave dents. Sometimes, a little repair work is helpful. But it’s the hammer that needs support, not you. You are fundamentally okay.

What If You Already Had Everything You Need?

What if you could believe that, even if you never took another workshop or added another certificate to your wall, you're still enough? What if the happiness you think is waiting for you after you've achieved that next goal, built that successful business, or become a 'better' person is already here and accessible now?

It doesn't mean it's easy. It doesn't mean it happens instantly. But I’ve noticed something: the more I try to force myself to be different, the harder it is to change. The more I treat myself like I’m broken, the more stuck I feel.

Carl Rogers said it best: "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."

When I let myself be as I am, my whole system relaxes. I become open to learning and growth. But not from a place of shame or fear. From a place of curiosity and care.

Choosing Growth for Joy, Not Fixing

I'm about to start my second master's degree. Why? Because it lights me up. It makes me feel alive. Not because I need it to be worthy. Not because it will make me a better person. Just because it excites me.

Life is short. As far as I know, we only get one run at it in this particular configuration. I don’t want to waste it by brutalising myself into change. I want to enjoy it. I want to feel the aliveness of it. Even the hard parts.

One of my cats has been seriously ill recently. He was in the hospital for a week with kidney failure and his life will be shortened through the resulting damage. Of course I don't want that. And it's happening. I could fight it, but I can’t change it. So I'm practicing acceptance. I'm feeling all the fear, sadness, and anticipatory grief. And I'm letting it be part of my world.

This is what it means to meet life on life's terms. Not to fix it, but to live it.

You Don’t Need Fixing

Being human is not a condition that needs fixing. There is no state of perfection to achieve. There’s just the invitation to be here, now, with all of it. To enjoy the music and dance along the way.

As Alan Watts once said, "We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played."

This is it. This is all we’ve got. And I know why it's so hard: we're marketed to constantly. We're told that fixing ourselves is the way to happiness. But maybe, just maybe, there's another way. One that includes more grace, more acceptance, and more joy in the moment.

That's the way I want to choose. To find grace here and now, and enjoy the ride.

What might shift for you if you stopped trying to fix yourself and simply allowed yourself to be?