Why “Fixing Yourself” Might Be a Capitalist Trap

“To be fully alive, aware, and responsive is to be in a state of constant becoming,” wrote Erich Fromm in The Sane Society (1955). But somewhere along the way, “becoming” turned into “fixing.” 

Maybe you’ve felt it too, that persistent nudge to improve one more thing about yourself. A better morning routine. A sharper focus hack. A new system to regulate your emotions, journal your thoughts, or monitor your inner child. It sounds like healing. But is it? 

What if “fixing yourself” has become just another obligation on your to-do list? What if the issue isn’t that you haven’t fixed yourself yet, but that you were taught to see yourself as something that needs fixing? 

The Capitalist Invention of the “Broken Self” 

Once, being human meant being messy. Humans are just complex. Sometimes sad, sometimes chaotic, often uncertain. But under capitalism, messiness isn’t profitable. Optimisation is. 

Zeira (2021) argues that neoliberal capitalism doesn’t just shape how we work, it reshapes how we view ourselves. Productivity stops being an activity and becomes an identity. We begin to see productivity not as something we do, but as something we are. If you’re tired, anxious, burned out? Clearly, you are the problem that needs to be fixed. 

Decades ago, Fromm warned that this would happen. In a world where economic systems alienate us from our authentic selves, we stop being people and start becoming what he called “marketing characters” or performers who sell a version of ourselves that fits. 

In his book Capitalist Realism, Mark Fisher argues that even our internal worlds have become sites of productivity. And so the self becomes a project that never gets completed. It is always up for revision and investment. 

What Exactly Does This “Fixing yourself” Trap Look Like? 

It starts subtly, with small, seemingly helpful habits. At first, these tools feel empowering. But over time, healing shifts from something you feel into something you perform. 

This is the first layer of the trap, the shift from genuine care to curated control. We begin to “optimise” ourselves not out of self-compassion but to meet an unspoken standard of emotional competence. In his analysis of bestselling UK self-help books, Nehring (2024) identifies a recurring pattern: the construction of the “thin self.” This self is hyper-individualised, endlessly responsible for its own struggles, and disconnected from any wider social context. In these narratives, systemic pressures fade into the background. The spotlight is always on personal willpower and discipline.

This leads to the second layer, where guilt acts as a motivator. When healing becomes performance, every lapse feels like failure. You didn’t journal today? You’re not doing the work. You felt anxious? Maybe you’re not thinking positively enough. All these are framed as personal defects. 

Zeira (2021) builds on this idea by showing how emotional labour, the demand to manage and display “appropriate” emotions, has expanded from professional spaces into our personal lives. Under this logic, even sadness must be expressed neatly, with gratitude and grace. Healing becomes a kind of emotional compliance. In other words, a way to make ourselves easier for others to be around. 

The illusion of the ideal self

This brings us to the final layer of the trap: the illusion of the ideal self. Who are we trying to become through all this self-work to “fix ourselves”? Not necessarily a fuller or freer version of ourselves. Maybe just a more acceptable one. As Nehring (2024) shows, much of popular self-help promotes a narrow, neoliberal ideal, which involves being emotionally stable, self-disciplined, and always optimistic. But this isn’t authenticity, it’s aspirational conformity. As Fisher (2009) puts it, “The ‘freedom’ we are sold is the freedom to conform.” 

And so, healing becomes a personal branding project. Something we can display and prove and even monetize later. It is clear why this can become toxic for oneself. 

Radical Acceptance: The Anti-Capitalist Shift in Healing 

Our culture has so deeply embedded the idea that we need fixing, it’s hard to imagine an alternative. But stepping outside that framework reveals that maybe the goal was never to become more functional. 

Erich Fromm (1955) argues that “Mental health is not simply the absence of neurosis, but the presence of something more: the ability to love, to create, to share.” He offers a vision of healing that doesn’t begin with self-optimisation but with the ability to live authentically and relate deeply. Rather than being driven by the market’s demand for polished productivity, Fromm’s idea of a sane society values presence over performance. 

This shift is echoed by Zeira (2021), who critiques the individualisation of healing under neoliberal capitalism. Her work highlights how emotional distress is often pathologised without acknowledging the social conditions responsible for this, such as precarity, overwork, and isolation. Instead of treating anxiety or burnout as personal failures, Zeira pushes for models of care that address collective wounds and systemic pressures. 

Nehring (2024) similarly calls for a rethinking of self-help. His concept of “thin self”, where the self is encouraged to take full responsibility for its suffering, highlights how this model ignores structural inequalities. As a result, healing is seen as a personal task. It fails to account for the emotional cost of constantly performing wellness. 

Thus, many thinkers have challenged the idea that we are problems to be solved. They invite us to move away from the trap of endless self-improvement and toward something far more radical: acceptance, not as resignation, but as resistance. 

Conclusion

Accepting yourself in a culture that thrives on your dissatisfaction isn’t a passive act. It’s an active, conscious refusal to measure your worth by your productivity, your poise, or your progress. It’s a return to the idea that being human with all our “imperfections” is not something to be corrected but something to be accepted. 

As Mark Fisher reminds us, the system wants us to think there’s no alternative. But there is. It begins when we stop trying to fix ourselves, and start questioning why we thought we needed fixing in the first place. 

FAQs: 

1. Isn’t self-improvement a good thing? Why criticise it? 

Self-improvement isn’t inherently bad. The issue arises when guilt, comparison, or pressure to meet unrealistic standards drive it—and our market-driven wellness culture often promotes exactly that. The article critiques the motive behind self-improvement, not the practice itself. 

2. How does capitalism influence our emotions and mental health? 

Capitalism frames emotions like anxiety, burnout, and exhaustion as personal shortcomings, rather than recognizing them as rational responses to structural stressors such as overwork, isolation, and insecurity. This results in an internalised pressure to always be “better.” 

3. What does “radical acceptance” mean? 

Radical acceptance is the idea that we don’t need to be “fixed” to be worthy. It’s about embracing ourselves as we are and recognising that being human isn’t a problem to solve. This act of acceptance becomes a quiet form of resistance against systems that thrive on our self-doubt.