Fuck Self-Help… Help Yourself
Over the last few weeks, I’ve come to the realization that I have an addiction to self-help and self-development. The dopamine hit comes in many forms such as books, podcasts, audiobooks, and videos. The power behind the addiction is the thought that “If I’m not trying to improve myself through the consumption of self-development content, I’m not progressing.”
This is a multi-billion dollar industry with a herd of followers (including me) gorging on the delights and stories of the ultra-successful and rags to riches narratives.
It‘s masturbation of the mind. Fast food, too easy to consume and too easy to forget. You just become part of the herd.
You get hooked on the feeling that you are actually learning and moving forward, but what is really happening?
Self-help narratives usually base themselves on someone else's story, the hero's journey, the path through challenges, ending up as the victor or getting that elusive prize (success!). But is this realistic, how many people have been on the journey to find that the end never comes.
Even the word self-help reinforces that you are in need of help, that you are not at that place, the successful, happy place — whatever that is.
A quote from personal development speaker Julian Blanc
“If you’re someone who’s working on becoming confident, what are you constantly reinforcing? That you’re not confident to begin with. If you’re someone who’s working on self-improvement, what are you constantly reinforcing? That you need to be improved.”
The other issue I have with the behemoth of self-help is the backlash you can get for ‘not believing’ in someone's guide to success. Say a word against someone like Tony Robbins or against the Law of Attraction and it is like you have insulted God himself. The similarities to religion are quite astonishing — a dogmatic system that must be adhered too at all costs, and you’re shunned if you don't accept its power,
You get sucked in–you believe.
An example of this is the book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.
‘Positive thoughts (through your brains magnetism) will attract anything you want into your life’ is the mantra, think about something hard enough and it will appear. But this is based on a mongrel cross between religion and science where it prays on innocent believers, takes there money and then blames them if it doesn’t work.. sound familiar.
It uses the power of confirmation bias… you only see the positive and block out everything else — this is very dangerous.
What I can say though is that delving into a religious-like self-help journey can change your life, but it comes with a warning — don’t go too deep, don't get too reliant on self-help to make your dreams come true. Like alcohol or any other addictive drug, you can experiment and try out a few things, get a taste of it, but don’t get addicted, don't go from one high to another because at some stage you will find yourself drained of life, wondering where it all went…
Luckily I didn't get that far, and I do still dabble, a little whisky at night, a beer on a Friday…. but controlled. I now rely on myself to make change, not someone else.
What I’ve recently found empowering is my love of philosophy, opening up internal conversations and existential thoughts, trying to decipher consciousness, things that are harder understand — not saccharin Self Help, the easily digested, feel good drug.
Try to break from the herd of self-help crowds and the ‘sun is always shining’ mentality. Go within for a while and delve into true beauty, deeper thinking, and come to the realisation that it was never outside of you, it was in you all along.
