Another week, another trend telling us how to get our sh*t together!

If you’ve been on TikTok recently, you might have seen The Monthly Curriculum – a viral idea where you dedicate each month to improving one specific area of your life. One month it’s finances, the next it’s fitness, then friendships, career growth, and so on.

As someone who normally loves a good self-improvement project, I can definitely see the appeal. Having a single focus can make things feel more achievable. It gives you a sense of structure and a little spark of motivation – and a feeling that you’re making progress without trying to fix everything at once.

But, like any personal development trend, it has its pitfalls. It’s all too easy for something designed to help us become another way to measure ourselves or pile on pressure. I’ve definitely fallen into that trap before – turning a “helpful” goal into something I stress about or beat myself up for not doing perfectly.

The reality is, most of these trends can be useful – if you take what works and ignore what doesn’t. The Monthly Curriculum might be just what you need to kickstart a new habit or bring a bit of focus to your routine. But if it’s leaving you feeling guilty, overwhelmed, or constantly behind, it’s OK to give it a miss.

Use tools like this for inspiration, not comparison. The point of self-development isn’t to perfect every area of your life, but to move towards feeling more balanced, confident, and content – in whatever way works for you.

I shared some more thoughts on this for a recent Marie Claire article if you’d like to have a read!

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