Why We Can’t Stop Chasing Self-Help (And What We’re Really Looking For)

Let’s admit it, the modern marketplace runs on aspiration. Scroll through your feed and you’ll find yourself drowning in it, six-word slogans, reels laced with piano music, pixel-polished gurus promising that if you just “rise and grind” or “manifest harder,” your life will suddenly align. It is the same ethos that decorated corporate walls in the 1990s with framed photographs of mountain peaks captioned Perseverance or Excellence. The font has grown bolder, the quotes shorter, and the distribution algorithmic, but the subtext remains the same… you are not enough as you are.

It is the same ethos that decorated corporate walls in the 1990s with framed photographs of mountain peaks captioned Perseverance or Excellence.

But the deeper question is not what we are consuming, it is why we are so enthralled by it. Why this compulsive itch to become better at everything, fitter, smarter, calmer, richer, more productive? What subterranean hunger drives us to share slogans like scripture, even when our lived behavior rarely changes after clicking “like”?

Why this compulsive itch to become better at everything, fitter, smarter, calmer, richer, more productive?

The Psychology of the Chase

Human beings are wired for movement. Our stories require arcs, an A leading to a B, a problem bending toward resolution. Behavioral scientists call it the progress principle… our brains release dopamine not when we have arrived, but when we sense momentum. Harvard researchers Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer found that the single most powerful motivator at work wasn’t rewards or recognition, it was the felt experience of progress, however small.

The shadow of this wiring is subtle but corrosive. If movement itself becomes the drug, we can confuse scrolling for growth, consumption for transformation. The more we chase “better,” the less we integrate. We become connoisseurs of the chase: self-help junkies high on possibility, starving on practice.

The single most powerful motivator at work wasn’t rewards or recognition, it was the felt experience of progress, however small.

What the Stoics Would Say

The Stoics would find our obsession faintly ridiculous. Their counsel was not to endlessly “optimize” the self, but to cultivate virtue, courage, discipline, justice, wisdom, in the ordinary chaos of life. Marcus Aurelius, besieged by war and plague, wrote simply: “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

His point was not to stockpile frameworks, but to embody them. To stop debating the merits of the perfect morning routine and instead live in accordance with principles that hold in every circumstance, boardroom, battlefield, kitchen table alike. This way of thinking also relates to the best branding strategies—where authenticity matters more than endless polishing.

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

What the Buddhists Would Say

Where the Stoics speak of virtue, Buddhism turns the spotlight on desire itself. Our restless craving to become better, they remind us, is not progress at all, it is the root of suffering.

Thich Nhat Hanh distilled it this way: “The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”

The work, then, is not to fabricate a shinier self, but to wake up to the one that is already here. To stop rehearsing tomorrow and notice the texture of today.

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”

Neuroscience and Biology Agree

This isn’t just philosophy, neuroscience reveals that more than 90% of our behaviors are governed by subconscious patterns laid down before age seven. Unless we interrogate the stories we inherited, we simply recycle them, new goals, same operating system. This is where the neuroscience of habit comes into play.

Epigenetics goes further…the environment doesn’t just shape behavior, it literally shapes biology. Stress, trauma, even belief systems leave chemical signatures that alter gene expression. We are living archives of our conditioning, and until we choose to rewrite the narrative, we are condemned to rerun it.

And when it comes to well-being, the Journal of Positive Psychology shows that people who regularly reflect on values and align their daily actions with them report far greater life satisfaction than those who chase external metrics of achievement. In short, fulfillment comes not from new hacks, but from congruence between who you are and how you live.

Neuroscience reveals that more than 90% of our behaviors are governed by subconscious patterns laid down before age seven.

The Reality Check

And yet, we are not monks in caves or mystics in jungles. We live in the static of calendars and emails, grocery lists and mortgages, children who need rides to practice and bosses who expect quarterly reports.

I am no different. Every morning, I drag myself to the gym not because I am chasing a six-pack, but because my nervous system needs the reset. I eat clean not because I’m a zealot, but because I know how easily food can become anesthesia. I even buy my beef by the cow from a Raleigh farm, pasture-raised, not because I romanticize agriculture, but because I want my habits to mirror the alignment I ask of others.

The point is not renunciation, it is integration. To stop ricocheting between hustle culture on one extreme and escapism on the other. To create a life where strategy and soul sit at the same table.

That was the Stoic’s wisdom in calling for discipline, and the Buddhists in teaching balance. Neither demanded escape from the world; both pointed toward living in it consciously.

The Unanswered Question

Perhaps the uncomfortable truth is that we don’t really want to be better, we want to be enough. And “better” is just the socially acceptable mask we wear for that longing.

Are we running toward something, or away from it? Are we seeking mastery, or are we just trying to outrun the silence inside?

The Stoics warned us against wasting our lives chasing abstractions. The Buddhists cautioned us that desire itself was suffering. Neuroscience tells us we are mostly just reenacting old patterns. And yet, every bookstore still has a self-help aisle, and every one of us has a tab open promising transformation.

So maybe the real question is not how we improve, but why we are so desperate to.

Are we running toward something, or away from it? Are we seeking mastery, or are we just trying to outrun the silence inside? And if we stopped chasing, if we set down the hacks, the slogans, the endless appetite for progress, what would we actually have to face?

I don’t have a clean answer, and maybe that’s the point. Maybe the work isn’t to solve the question, but to sit with it. To notice the tension between who we perform as and who we ache to be, and to let that friction teach us something about the life we’re really living.

Because in the end, the danger isn’t that we’ll fail to get better. The danger is that we’ll spend our one life chasing “better” and miss the deeper invitation entirely.

Curious whether you’re ready to step into this excavation? Join me inside the Becoming You Blueprint™ and let’s unpack the story beneath the story.

Why Work With Deevo?

Because I’ve lived it. I’ve been the guy in the corporate grind, the entrepreneur chasing the next big thing, the one who’s made money and the one who’s blown it spectacularly. I’ve worn all the hats, and none of them really fit until I stopped trying to “be impressive” and started getting honest.

I won’t just make your brand look good, I’ll help it feel good. Clear. Aligned. Magnetic in a way that doesn’t feel forced. I know what it’s like to fail, reinvent, and grow again, and I bring all of that into the work.

Working with a branding consultant means more than just surface changes. It’s about going deep into the story behind your brand. I’ve studied successful rebranding examples and helped leaders align not just their messaging, but their identity.

We’ll laugh, we’ll challenge each other, and I’ll probably call you out on the places you’re hiding. But mostly, I’ll help you step into the version of yourself your brand has been waiting on.

If you’re done performing and ready to actually embody your brand let’s work talk.

About Deevo

Deevo is not your typical brand strategist. He’s part storyteller, part mirror, part provocateur, the person leaders call when they’re tired of faking it, tired of polishing what doesn’t shine, and ready to build a brand that actually feels like them.

After a corporate career that left him restless, Deevo rebuilt himself through entrepreneurship, storytelling, and a relentless exploration of identity. Over the past 15 years, he has launched and scaled creative businesses, photographed hundreds of leaders and brands, delivered keynotes, and coached founders through the messy work of aligning who they are with how they show up.

His philosophy is simple but not easy: you are the brand. Your business, your relationships, your results, everything is a reflection of your identity, your story, and the patterns you’ve learned (and can unlearn). Whether he’s leading a mastermind, capturing someone’s essence through photography, or guiding clients through his Becoming You Blueprint™, Deevo combines strategy with soul, clarity with compassion, and a little irreverence to keep it real.

Working with him isn’t about quick hacks or shiny tactics. It’s about excavation, unpacking your story, uncovering blind spots, reprogramming what’s held you back, and building a brand and business that resonate because they’re rooted in truth.