Photo by Zoshua Colah on Unsplash
To be a better person, stop trying so hard to look good and start letting yourself be known. Notice when you hurt someone, repair it plainly, and meet the part of you that wants to be better with kindness instead of punishment. Most people who type this question are already decent. What they’re feeling is shame.
Maybe you snapped at someone who didn’t deserve it. Maybe you caught yourself being petty, or jealous, or fake with a friend, and it kept you up. You lay there going over it and the thought arrived, the one you’d never say out loud: I don’t like who I am. I want to be better than this.
I know that thought well. For a long stretch of my life I had a protector I call the Seducer. Charm, humour, the shine, the patter. I was performing worth, and I was very good at it. People liked him. I liked being liked.
Then one day at Esalen, on a break in a dance session, I was doing the whole routine on an Italian belly dancer. She stopped, looked straight at me, and said, do you know you don’t have to talk like that. It pierced me. She’d seen the performance, and she’d seen the boy underneath it.
Years later, the day I failed my licensing exam was the day my wife Teale fell in love with me. Not the polished me. The lad who had no performance left. That’s when I learned it. You can’t be loved for the part of you that performs. You can only be loved for the part of you that trembles.
Before I explain any of it, try something. Read the next sentence slowly, let the out-breath go, and notice what happens in your body as you read it. You don’t have to be good. You just have to be human. Don’t argue with it and don’t agree with it. Just notice where it lands, the chest, the jaw, the stomach, and whether something in you relaxes or braces. Stay with that one more breath. That’s the place we’ll work from.
What’s really going on
If something in you relaxed, good. If something argued, “but I really have been awful,” that makes sense too. That’s a part of you that thinks punishing yourself is the same as getting better.
It isn’t. Under most “how do I become a better person” is one of two coins. One side says I’m too much: too angry, too needy, too selfish. The other side says I’m not enough: not kind enough, not generous, not good. You touch one side and the other is right there.
So we try to fix it by performing goodness. We get nicer, more agreeable, more helpful, more impressive. That’s a protector doing its job, and it’s not a bad part of you. It’s a scared one. But a protector can’t make you a better person. It can only make you look like one.
Rollo May had a name for the cheap version: pseudo innocence. Feeling like one of the good ones while risking nothing. Virtue achieved, nothing risked.
Here’s what I actually do in my office. I don’t ask anyone to become a better person before the work can begin. I never challenge a protector part. I accept people exactly as defended and scared as they really are, because you don’t have to be good. You just have to be human. The goodness people are looking for grows out of that, not out of trying harder.
And shame, the feeling that sent you here, isn’t proof you’re bad. It’s the feeling of a person who wants to belong and is afraid they don’t. Followed slowly, it leads home. You make sense.
Need to talk this through right now? Figlet is an AI coach that’s there at 2 in the morning, or right now. It runs this loop with you on the Self ground.
The loop, on your situation
Coaching is how we go from where you are now to where you want to go. We only address the past when it emerges in the present. So take the last moment you didn’t like yourself and walk it through this.
Get ground in your body first
Feet on the floor. One slow breath out, longer than the breath in. You can’t look at yourself honestly while you’re bracing for a verdict.
What happened
One plain sentence, no trial. “I cut my friend off mid sentence and made it about me.” Not “I’m a selfish person.” Just what happened.
Where it lands in the body
Heat in the face. A drop in the stomach. A tight jaw. Rest your attention there for a moment, with permission to stop any time. And now what do you notice?
Who’s driving
Which part was in charge in that moment? The one that needs to be impressive. The one that gets sharp when it feels small. And which part is in charge now, the one beating you up afterwards? Both are protectors. Thank them. They’re trying to keep you from feeling too much or not enough.
Trace it
Only as far as today needs. When did this part first learn to show up? Who did you have to be, as a kid, to be liked or left alone? That’s not an excuse. It’s the map.
Feel it and tell someone
Say the real feeling to someone safe. Not the case against yourself. “I was jealous of her and I hate that I was.” When the voice says this proves you’re bad, let the Friend answer, the part of you that knows you’re good underneath it: “You’re not bad. You were scared. What do you need right now?”
One creative action
Repair, small and real. Not a grand apology tour. One honest sentence to the person you hurt, then let them have their own reaction.
How to be a better person, honestly
The usual lists aren’t wrong. They’re just missing the ground underneath. Here’s how I’d hold each one.
Know what you’re backed by. Values matter, but ask a harder question: is this kindness backed by care, or by fear of being disliked? Same act, different backing.
Reflect without prosecuting. Trust your experience, but don’t believe every story it tells about you. “I was short with her” is useful. “I’m a terrible person” is a protector talking.
Own it and repair it. Accountability isn’t self-hatred. It’s going back. In my marriage we’re not trying to be good people who never hurt each other. We’re people who repair, over and over and over again.
Forgive yourself as you go. If you can’t, start with how to forgive yourself. A person drowning in shame has very little room left for anyone else.
Be kind where nobody’s watching. The belly dancer didn’t need my charm. She needed me to stop performing. Kindness that isn’t a show tends to be quieter and slower.
Begin again. You’ll slip. You’ll be petty again next week. Slipping back isn’t failure. Noticing it is the practice working.
One thing to do tonight
Think of one person you’ve been short with lately. Send them one plain sentence. “I was sharp with you yesterday. That was about me, not you. I’m sorry.” No essay, no explaining. Then put the phone down and notice what happens in your body. That’s what being a better person feels like from the inside. Small, and a bit wobbly.
Would therapy help with this?
If what you’re carrying is mostly the everyday stuff, snapping, comparing, going fake to be liked, coaching is often the right size of help.
But if “I want to be a better person” is really “I hate myself,” if you keep hurting people in the same way and can’t stop, or if drinking or something else is driving it, please talk to a licensed therapist where you live. That deserves a real room. If you’re thinking about hurting yourself, call or text 988.
The path
What I’ve just walked you through is the Empathi Method. For an individual, it’s built on my Proof of Work of Being Human protocol: building sovereign ground inside yourself. On the Self ground, that means being able to look at your worst moment without needing to perform your way out of it.
There are two ways to keep going. You can start now with Figlet, an AI coach that’s there at 2 in the morning, on the Self ground, the night the replay won’t stop. Or you can get on the list for the book and the live program with me, where we do this work together.
Figs O’SullivanFiglet Life Coaching
Get help now
Figlet is an AI coach, there at 2 in the morning or right now. It runs this loop with you on your actual situation, as often as you need. It’s coaching, not therapy. The list hears first about the book and the next live program with me.
Proof of Work, Greenleaf Book Group Press, February 2027. Not sure which ground is hurting? Take the two-minute Ground Check.
The Seducer still lives in me. He wants to rest now. He’s still welcome, but he doesn’t get the steering wheel.
I go deeper into this in my book, Proof of Work (Greenleaf Book Group Press, February 2027).
Common questions
What makes someone a good person?
Not never getting it wrong. A good person notices when they’ve hurt someone, takes responsibility without drowning in shame, and repairs it. Kindness that’s backed by care rather than fear of being disliked is the real thing.
How can I become a better person every day?
Pick one small practice: each evening, name one moment you didn’t like yourself, find where it sits in your body, and do one small repair. Daily repair changes a person more than any big resolution.
Is it too late to change who I am?
No. People change at every age. What changes isn’t your whole personality. It’s which part of you gets to drive, and that can shift starting tonight.
The Friend, and the idea of shame as a doorway home, come from the teaching of Aftab Omer at the Institute of Imaginal Studies, where I trained.
