I wish I didn’t have to correct my kids when they use “upgrade” instead of “improve” because it makes everything sound that much more dramatic.
I want to upgrade my skill level.
I want to upgrade increasingly toward my dream.
I know my school would want me to correct it because while it’s not necessarily grammatically incorrect, it’s confusing to a native speaker unaccustomed to this particular non-native phrasing, but I like it better this way.