When Self-Improvement Becomes Self-Abandonment – A Person-Centred Critique of Hustle Culture
- Brainz Magazine
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Blending Person-Centred therapy with coaching and DBT, Aleksandra Tsenkova helps people worldwide heal trauma, unpack emotional wounds, and step into confidence.
We live in an era where self-improvement is no longer optional, but it is expected. Wake earlier. Work harder. Heal faster. Optimise your mindset. Become better. Hustle culture has quietly merged with the language of mental health, reframing exhaustion as a personal failure and rest as something to be “earned.” Under the promise of growth and success, many people are left feeling chronically behind, never quite enough, and strangely disconnected from themselves. This article explores what happens when the pursuit of becoming “better” requires us to abandon who we are.
The person-centred approach, developed by Carl Rogers, offers the understanding that growth does not begin with pressure, discipline, or fixing. Instead, it invites us to look at how modern self-improvement culture may be recreating the very conditions that disconnect people from their authentic selves.
1. Hustle culture and the rise of conditional worth
Hustle culture does more than promote productivity, it quietly reshapes how people relate to their own worth. Beneath the language of ambition, discipline, and “becoming your best self” lies an implicit message: you are valuable when you are achieving. Rest, slowness, and uncertainty are tolerated only when they serve a future outcome.
From a person-centred perspective, this reflects what Carl Rogers described as conditions of worth, the internalised belief that acceptance, love, or self-respect must be earned through specific behaviours or achievements. In contemporary culture, these conditions are often tied to output, resilience, visibility, and constant self-improvement. People learn, consciously or not, that they are most acceptable when they are productive, positive, and progressing.
Over time, these external expectations are absorbed into the self-concept. Individuals begin to evaluate themselves not through their lived experience, but through external standards: metrics, milestones, comparisons, and perceived success. Emotional states that interfere with performance, exhaustion, doubt, grief, or ambivalence are pushed aside rather than listened to.
What makes this particularly insidious is how normalised it has become. Many people do not experience this as pressure imposed from the outside, but as an internal voice urging them to do more, be more, and cope better. Yet this voice is rarely compassionate. It does not ask what is needed, it demands what is expected.
In person-centred terms, this creates a growing gap between the Organismic Self with its natural rhythms, limits, and needs, and the Idealised Self shaped by hustle culture. The cost of this incongruence is often subtle at first: chronic tension, a sense of never doing enough, or the inability to rest without guilt. But over time, it can lead to burnout, emotional numbing, and a profound disconnection from one’s inner life.
When worth becomes conditional on performance, self-improvement no longer serves growth. It becomes a survival strategy, one that asks people to abandon parts of themselves in order to belong.
2. When growth is driven by fear, not authentic desire
Not all growth is inherently healthy. From a person-centred perspective, the question is not whether someone is changing, but what is driving that change. Growth that emerges from authentic desire feels expansive, self-directed, and internally meaningful. Growth driven by fear, however, is different, shaped by anxiety, comparison, and the need to keep up.
Yet, when individuals are motivated by the fear of falling behind, becoming irrelevant, or not doing “enough,” that is repackaged as discipline and drive, they are no longer responding to their inner valuing process but to external pressures and imagined standards. According to Carl Rogers, this represents a shift away from the innate capacity to sense what is right, nourishing, and growth-promoting. When this internal compass is overridden, people may continue to develop externally while feeling increasingly disconnected internally. Progress is achieved, but satisfaction remains elusive.
3. Self-optimisation as emotional disconnection
Modern self-improvement culture often treats emotions as obstacles to overcome rather than signals to be understood. Fatigue is reframed as a mindset issue. Emotional pain becomes something to “work through” quickly. Vulnerability is postponed until after success is achieved. In the pursuit of optimisation, emotional experience is frequently sidelined.
However, when individuals consistently ignore their internal signals in favour of productivity and performance, they gradually lose trust in their own emotional wisdom. The self becomes something to manage rather than relate to.
This disconnection often masquerades as resilience. People may appear highly functional while feeling increasingly numb, restless, or empty. What is lost is not motivation, but aliveness, the sense of being in genuine contact with oneself.
Person-centred theory reminds us that emotions are not disruptions to growth, they are guides. When emotional experience is honoured rather than optimised away, individuals regain access to authenticity, self-direction, and meaningful change.
4. Why acceptance, not pressure, is the foundation of real change
The majority of people assume that change requires pressure: stricter discipline, greater effort, stronger motivation. From a person-centred perspective, this assumption is fundamentally flawed. Pressure may produce short-term compliance, but it rarely leads to meaningful or sustainable change.
Carl Rogers observed that individuals move toward growth not when they are pushed, but when they feel psychologically safe. Acceptance, particularly unconditional positive self-regard, creates the conditions in which people can explore themselves honestly, without fear of failure or rejection. In this space, defensiveness softens, self-awareness deepens, and natural growth becomes possible.
Paradoxically, it is often when individuals stop trying to change themselves that genuine growth begins. When worth is no longer contingent on performance, people can listen inwardly and respond to their real needs rather than imposed expectations. Change that emerges from acceptance is not forced or frantic, it is integrated, self-directed, and aligned.
5. Reclaiming growth without self-abandonment
A person-centred critique of hustle culture is not a rejection of development, ambition, or achievement. It is a rejection of the idea that growth must come at the expense of the self. When worth is tied to productivity and improvement becomes an obligation, growth loses its vitality and becomes another form of self-surveillance.
Reclaiming growth begins with a shift in authority from external standards to internal experience. From comparison to curiosity. From pressure to presence. The person-centred approach reminds us that individuals already possess an innate capacity for direction, meaning, and development when they are allowed to listen inwardly without judgement.
This kind of growth is quieter and less performative. It respects limits. It allows rest to be meaningful rather than strategic. It honours emotional truth rather than overriding it in the name of progress. Most importantly, it does not require individuals to fragment themselves in order to succeed.
In a culture that continually asks people to become someone else, reclaiming growth means choosing to become more fully oneself. Not faster. Not better. But more congruent, more alive, and more at home within.
That is not the end of growth, it is where it truly begins.
Note: This article draws on themes explored in greater depth in my book, “The Person-Centred Approach: A Modern Return to Carl Rogers’ Theory” exclusive on Amazon.
Read more from Aleksandra Tsenkova
Aleksandra Tsenkova, Psychotherapist, Author, Speaker
Aleksandra Tsenkova supports individuals on their healing journey by integrating Person-Centred therapy, coaching, and DBT. She helps people process emotional pain, recover from trauma, and rebuild inner trust to step into their confidence. With a deep belief in each person’s capacity for growth, she creates space for powerful self-discovery and lasting transformation. Her work is grounded in a passion for empowering others to reclaim their voice and unlock their potential. Through her writing, Aleksandra invites readers into meaningful conversations about healing, resilience, and personal freedom.
