Managing Self Improvement

Answer

Thank you for your question. Unfortunately the feelings you are expressing are all too common. It is a little difficult to respond to your question with specific advice as I do not know exactly what it is your are trying to improve and specifically why you are losing hope and getting frustrated. However, I will try to offer you some general guidelines for how to approach self-improvement in the hopes that this will help guide you.

Many people feel that the goal of self-improvement is to completely conquer any or all bad middos (traits) they possess. They view success or failure through the simple prism of “Do I still have vestiges of this trait, or have I gotten rid of it entirely? If it is still present in some measure, I have failed. If it is gone entirely, I have succeeded.”

An approach such as this, even if not quite so extreme, is one that is doomed to frustration. It is also not what the Torah desires of us. As we are taught in Pirkei Avos (Ethics of Our Fathers) “It is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, yet you are not free to ignore it.” This dictum applies especially to self-improvement. The goal is not to achieve perfection. What G-d wants of us is to constantly strive to improve. The success or failure of that endeavor is beyond our control. It is up to G-d. We needn’t complete the task, but we must work at it.

The way you should measure yourself is solely by the efforts you are putting into your attempts at self-improvement. Are you looking at yourself honestly in your quest for improvement, or are you deluding yourself in some manner? Are the methods you are using in your attempts to improve valid methods, or just feel good approaches to convince yourself that you are doing something, while they are lacking in substance?
I hope this response has given you some direction as to how to deal with any frustration you may feel. G-d should continue to guide you along the path of becoming closer to Him by emulating his good traits.