Really Helping Yourself
The Self-help genre is a massive sub-industry of publishing. Spawning thousands of books promise to help you live up to your potential, get your dream job, lose that last bit of weight, etc. But for all the advice often we find that the books didn’t help reach our goals. So today, we will look at why they may not work and give some suggestions that should help you meet your goals.
Advice is Too Generic: When we read a self-help book, we usually read it to fix a specific problem. Unfortunately, however, much of the advice contained in the books is so generic and common sense that it doesn’t help with the situation at hand. Particular problems require particular solutions; after all, you need to understand your problems before you can fix them and take specific steps to fix them.
Advice is Impractical: How many times have you seen this in self-help books? If you hate your job, quit and follow your dreams. Sometimes that’s the extent of the advice, and as hard they can be, jobs can be meaningful. After all, we need money to live, and not everyone can live as a minimalist digital nomad. Significant changes like leaving a job require a lot of minor changes to build up to them. If you hate your job skill up, network, re-do your resume, or find a way to make your dreams something that can fund your lifestyle before making a giant leap.
The Law of Attraction: On a simple surface level the law attraction makes a certain amount sense. Positive outcomes come from Positive Thoughts, and Negative Outcomes from Negative Thoughts. The problem comes in when using this logic, which many self help books encourage you to do you push out all negative thoughts and narrow your vision on the potential of a positive outcome even to your own detriment. This is called Toxic Positivity and can be very damaging to many things in your life. The key to being happy and fulfilled is always in accepting the good and the bad that happens to us.
That’s all I have for you today. Do you have a favourite self-book that bucks this trend? Leave it in the comments. Until next time.