{"id":337589,"date":"2026-02-04T13:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monaco-tribune.com\/?p=337589"},"modified":"2026-02-04T13:30:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:30:11","slug":"why-wanting-to-feel-better-sometimes-prevents-us-from-feeling-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monaco-tribune.com\/en\/2026\/02\/why-wanting-to-feel-better-sometimes-prevents-us-from-feeling-good\/","title":{"rendered":"Why wanting to feel better sometimes prevents us from feeling good"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By constantly striving to feel better, we sometimes end up exhausting ourselves… In this article, transition coach Laurence Shukor reflects on the paradoxes of personal development and our contemporary relationship with well-being.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When feeling better becomes a silent injunction<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201c<\/em>Feeling better.\u201d<\/em> The expression seems obvious, almost universal. Who wouldn’t want to get better? And yet, this aspiration has gradually become an implicit norm. It’s no longer just a matter of getting through difficulties, but of overcoming them quickly, understanding them, and learning something positive from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manage your emotions better. Get organized better. Know yourself better. Live better. Gradually, well-being has become a goal to be achieved, an inner performance to be maintained. As philosopher Alain de Botton reminds us: \u201cWe are not required to be happy all the time.\u201d<\/em> This simple sentence serves as a salutary reminder: well-being is not a continuous state, nor is it a moral obligation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paradox of contemporary personal development<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Personal development promises greater awareness, greater freedom, greater alignment. But when approached as an injunction, it often produces the opposite effect. In our quest to improve ourselves, we monitor ourselves, we evaluate ourselves, we analyze ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Am I calm enough? Aligned enough? Fulfilled enough?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This inner hypervigilance creates a subtle but constant pressure. We no longer feel, we observe. We no longer experience, we measure. And in our desire to get better too quickly, we sometimes end up not allowing ourselves to feel bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When wanting to get better becomes exhausting<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What is tiring is not the desire for change itself, but its accumulation. An accumulation of methods, practices, readings, and advice supposed to guide us toward an improved version of ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For every discomfort, there is a solution.
For every difficulty, there is a tool.
For every drop in energy, there is a new injunction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it doesn’t work, a feeling of failure is added to the initial difficulty. Not only are we not feeling well, but we also feel like we don’t know how to \u201cdo\u201d the work on ourselves \u201cproperly.\u201d Personal development, which is supposed to be a relief, then becomes an additional burden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Pourquoi vos bonnes r\u00e9solutions ne survivront pas \u00e0 f\u00e9vrier (et comment enfin les tenir)<\/a><\/blockquote>