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self-help.html
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<title>Self-help</title>
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<div style="max-width: 600px;">
<p><a href="/">Home</a></p>
<h1>Self-help</h1>
<p>I was on the plane the other day writing my blog post <a href="/when-to-stop">“When to Stop”</a> when I started to think about self-help.<br>
Why is it so popular?<br>
Why do we find it so useful?</p>
<p>The truth is, I find most self-help advice to be obvious.<br>
Rarely do I read a self-help book or post and find it revolutionary.<br>
I think this about my self-help posts too.</p>
<p>While writing, I often wonder if anyone will find my advice useful.<br>
I imagine myself as a reader thinking “Duh, obviously I shouldn’t overwork myself or watch too much TV”.</p>
<p>But the true power of self-help is learning new tactics to achieve these obvious goals in life.<br>
Gamification, mindset shifts, and experimentation are all the real fruits of self-help.<br>
And it’s awesome if you’re like me and love trying new self-help tactics because of all the content out there.</p>
<p>But there’s also a dangerous side to the abundance.</p>
<h2>Self-Help Addiction</h2>
<p>Caleb Schoep has a piece called <a href="https://calebschoepp.com/blog/2022/productivity-porn/">“Productivity Porn”</a>.<br>
I recommend reading it, but the TLDR is this:<br>
Consuming content about productive people or how to be productive can replace the need to actually be productive.<br>
The same applies to self-help.</p>
<p>I’ve seen myself fall into a trap that goes something like this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Finish reading a self-help book that has tons of great advice.</li>
<li>Feel that my life has already improved because it was so insightful.</li>
<li>Get the urge to experiment and implement the newly gained knowledge, but that requires work, so I’ll watch a YouTube video about someone doing it instead.</li>
<li>YouTuber validates how great everything is now, and I get so excited that I made the right choice to have read the book.</li>
<li>I wonder what other wonderful self-help advice there is, so I find recommendations and buy another book off Amazon to start the cycle over again.</li>
</ol>
<p>The problem is that life hasn’t changed since reading the book.<br>
I only temporarily feel better because of the exciting new knowledge, but after the high is gone, I still have the same life problems.</p>
<p>There’s some clear personal responsibility failure here, but I know I’m not the only one who does this, and there’s a reason for it.</p>
<h2>It’s a Business</h2>
<p>A big problem with self-help content is how they describe themselves and how much it hypes the reader.<br>
Look at the cover or back of any self-help book.<br>
You’ll quickly see exaggerated promises and highlighted reviews about how life-changing the content is.</p>
<p>For example, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck”’s website has some great snippets like the following:<br>
<i>Note: I chose this book because it was my, and many others, first book in the self-help genre.</i></p>
<p>“This breakout, mega bestseller is the self-help book for people who hate self-help. It’s as much a pat on the back as a slap in the face. It’s the first truly no BS guide to flourishing in a crazy, crazy world—a truly counterintuitive approach to living a good life.”</p>
<p>Wow. This sounds awesome! It’s not like the other self-help books. This is real and the others are just full of BS! (I’m not trying to be sarcastic, this is legitimately what I thought many years ago when I picked up the book).</p>
<p>Scroll down a bit, and you’ll find amazing reviews from notable people (funny enough most from other self-help authors).</p>
<img src="https://i.imgur.com/dmErccL.png" alt="image of reviews" style="max-width:600px;width:100%" />
<p>And the truth is, none of this is evil.<br>
The book is good - I’ve learned things from it.<br>
But as readers, we need to give ourselves a reality check.</p>
<p>Reading this book at best improved my life by 1-2%, which is great, but I wouldn’t say it matches the hype I got when I read about it.<br>
This letdown becomes really apparent after reading the 10th self-help book in a row described as life-changing.<br>
How can all these books promise life-changing results, but after reading them all I’m not a levitating life guru creating Nirvana on earth?</p>
<p>The reality is that the self-help industry is not a charity.<br>
Lots of people make lots of money off of this stuff, and that’s not a terrible thing (I wouldn’t mind making money off of my writing one day).<br>
But there is a bit of a conflict of interest.</p>
<p>If everyone wants you to buy their life-changing book or watch their eye-opening YouTube video, they need to make it as enticing as possible.<br>
The result is, as consumers, we don’t take the time to fully absorb what we learned since it’s so easy to get distracted by what’s next.</p>
<h2>A Confession</h2>
<p>To be honest, I feel slightly weird when I write self-help blog posts.<br>
Who am I to give advice?<br>
I’m just someone trying to live a fulfilling life, exactly like everyone else.<br>
And a lot of the “advice” I write about is myself exploring and sharing what is working at the time.<br>
Because of this, it isn’t unusual for me to look back on posts and think, “Oh right, I used to do/think that.”</p>
<p>But writing and sharing this stuff has been critical in improving my life.<br>
So in a sense, my “cosplaying” as a source of self-help for other people is really just myself practicing self-help.<br>
And if people get inspired to try something out by it, that makes it worth continuing despite my criticisms about self-help.<br>
In the end, there is value that can be had from consuming and producing self-help content, but we all need to be mindful of the realities of what it can and can’t do for us.</p>
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