What If Your Best Self Isn’t What You Imagine?
Somewhere along the way, most of us absorbed a picture of our best self. It isn’t always fully formed or consciously held, but it’s there. A little lighter, probably. More in control around food. Less preoccupied. Someone who has it sorted in ways you don’t quite yet.
And almost everything, every diet started, every rule followed, every programme signed up for, has been quietly pointed at getting to that person.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, partly because of a conversation I had recently with someone who talked about wanting to become the best version of himself. It’s a phrase that gets used a lot, in wellness spaces, in self-help, in the kind of language we reach for when we’re trying to articulate wanting something more for ourselves. The intention behind it is usually genuine. The longing underneath it is real.
But I keep wondering what we actually mean when we say it. Because when I sit with people and we get underneath the surface of it, the best version tends to share some pretty consistent features. Thinner, or at least more comfortable in their body. Not struggling the way they struggle now. Arrived somewhere they can’t quite name.
And underneath that picture, almost always, is a quieter belief: that as they are right now, they are not quite enough.
What if that’s the problem? Not the wanting to grow or change, but the premise that you have to become someone else first before you’re allowed to be okay.
The destination that keeps moving
The trouble with imagining a future, better self is that this person functions as a destination. And destinations have a way of staying just out of reach. You lose the weight and something still feels unresolved. You follow the programme and the goalposts have moved. You get closer and realise that arriving doesn’t feel the way you expected.
This isn’t a personal failing. It’s just what destinations do. They exist in the future, which means they’re always somewhere you’re not.
And in the meantime, the version of you that exists right now, the one doing the living and the trying and the struggling, gets treated as a problem to be fixed rather than a life to be inhabited.
When not good enough is the starting point, every setback becomes confirmation. A difficult week around food, a body that isn’t changing the way you hoped, a moment of eating that felt out of control, all of it becomes evidence for the verdict you already passed on yourself. It keeps the cycle going, because you can’t build a peaceful relationship with your body from a place of fundamental self-rejection.
A different kind of best self
What if we reimagined it? Not the best self as a destination to reach, but as a way of moving through your own experience.
Someone who is curious rather than certain. Who is learning to pay attention to what their body is actually telling them, rather than overriding it with rules. Who treats their own inner life as territory worth exploring, not a defect to be corrected.
Not perfect. Not arrived. Not thinner or more controlled or finally sorted. Just more genuinely present to themselves than they were before.
There’s something in the idea of being a humble explorer of your own experience that I find quietly radical. It doesn’t require you to get anywhere. It asks instead that you get more honest about where you actually are, what’s actually happening, what you actually need. And it treats that as worthwhile in itself, not as a waypoint on the road to someone better.
Crucially, it starts from a different premise entirely. Not: I am not enough yet. But: I am someone worth understanding.
What this changes
When the goal is to understand yourself more honestly, difficult moments become information rather than failure. A week of chaotic eating isn’t proof that you can’t do this. It’s something to get curious about. What was happening? What were you carrying? What were you actually hungry for?
The people I work with who make the most lasting change are rarely the ones who finally arrive at some ideal. They’re the ones who become genuinely interested in themselves. That curiosity, over time, changes things in ways that no amount of discipline ever quite managed.
Your best self might not be thinner or more controlled. They might just be more at home in their own life. And they might already be a lot closer than you think.
If you’d like to explore what this kind of work could look like for you, I offer a free discovery call. You can book one here.
Hi, I'm Vania.
I'm passionate about helping you break free from the exhausting cycle of yo-yo dieting, body shame, overeating, bingeing, and emotional eating.
For decades, I was at war with my body and food. It wasn't until I found an approach which didn't involve strict rules, diets and a focus on weight, that my relationship with food and my body transformed into one of ease and peace. There’s a lightness in living when food no longer holds power over your thoughts. If you're seeking that kind of freedom — where food becomes simple and life feels full — I’d love to walk that journey with you.
Work With Me Online Courses