You have to work on yourself. You have to become a better person.
But if a tzadik should say to you, “Let me bless you that you should be a better person. Let me lift you up so there will be less distance for you to reach.”
—Say thank you, but turn him down.
Because the point of working on yourself is not the better person you will become.
Neither is it the journey you will travel to get there.
The real point is that it was done by you.
And in that hard work, a mortal being became a partner with his Maker in his own creation. The rest is icing.
See Hayom Yom, 24 Tammuz.
As soon as I begin to think of myself as needing to become a better person, I become depressed. Actually when I am not plagued with these kinds of thoughts, and that is about half the time, I find that I am not at all a bad person, in fact the opposite, I am a good person and one that certainly does not need to be made any better. Is this attitude wrong?
Don't beat yourself up for past mistakes bc we make mistakes it shows a need for G-d and the Torah in our life.