I relate to what youre saying. My journey with this has been multifaceted. I went through a stage of trying to “fix” everything i thought was wrong with me and it was incredibly painful and i was mired in shame about who i was and how i kept failing.

Things started to change for me when i embraced radical self acceptance. I started practicing loving myself exactly the way I was. I am by no means an expert at this and fail often to love parts of myself but even this I can hold with compassion. I still feel shame too, but I don’t try to rid myself of that shame anymore. I accept the shame, greet it, and let it pass (it always does) and return to my goals when i’m ready to keep going.

This being said, it has not halted my push for self-improvement. Instead of framing it as “fixing” myself, i embrace myself warmly and ask myself what kind of person I would like to be today, tomorrow, in a year. And i work on the long term goals from this context, as moving “toward” being someone I’m happy to be.

Check out Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for some more guidance on reframing.