14 years of self-help . . .
. . . and what that did to me
“You are a multipotentialite, and that’s a good thing!”
“Focus on THE ONE THING!”
“Plan your time down to the last minute!”
“Just let it go!”
“Work hard, accomplish a lot!”
“Be happy with what you have!”
When I was 18, I read my first self-help guide.
It was “Refuse to Choose” by Barbara Sher.
I cried because I felt understood for the first time. And I could finally accept myself for who I was.
And if one self-help book could help me this much, why couldn’t more of them do twice that much or more?
I have always read a lot and also liked to plan and organize things, even before I read my first self-help book. I used a calendar and a notepad for to-dos and was okay with that.
I’ve always procrastinated too, but still got (almost) everything I planned done. But it wasn’t perfect, of course (what is?).
So I started reading self-help books on all sorts of topics. How to best plan your todos. How to sleep better. How to best manage your household. How to declutter your home and your life.
Before that, I had been rather … let’s call it “relaxed” when it came to cleaning and tidying up — but now everything had to be decluttered, sorted, and organized down to the smallest detail. But beware visitors would come! It had to be spotless.
Just like my to-do lists.
Before they were simple lists with the (daily) todos on a simple notepad, which were then checked off bit by bit, but the whole system became more and more elaborate.
For each project a separate notebook with exact templates. Every week a different system to find the perfect one.
I fell from one extreme to the other.
I took self-help books as bibles, self-help as religion. A good life wasn’t enough, it had to be a perfect life. Productive, focused, lean, financially independent.
And guess what? I became depressed.
And even then, when I should have had other worries, I took refuge in the world of self-help. It was practically an addiction.
Surely they would be able to help me find my way out of depression!
And they did. Partially.
But for the most part, they were just another stressor on how to live my life.
Yes, I blame myself for treating these books as ‘holy writings’.
After all, I could have just read them, used them as suggestions, and picked out what fits. Forget the rest.
I couldn’t.
Perfectionism played a huge role for me.
I planned so much and built it into my life, it should have been super and perfect. In the end, however, I was only lost because everyone wrote something different about the perfect system, the perfect life.
And now?
Do I have a perfect life now? The perfect body? Overcome depression with the Law of Attraction?
No.
Will I ever?
Probably not.
I’m still struggling with my place in the world or how I ‘function’ best.
If with strict plans or without.
Whether this (new) aversion to to-do lists is the depression or whether I’m just sick of it and don’t need it anymore.
Do I not want to do some things now just because of the depression or is it just really not for me?
At least the time for self-help books is over for me now.
Deep down, I already know all this.
That you have to do things. Start doing them. DO them. That you have to fail to learn. That it’s best to focus on just a few things. That you should know your limits. That you don’t need endless to-do lists if you have a functioning brain.
As a friend said to me yesterday so beautifully:
“Find a balanced mix of things that move you forward in a direction you have consciously chosen and things that make your heart sing. Neither desperate and forced doing ‘nothing’, nor busy-ness. I think it’s a lifetime of trial + error.”
I don’t know if I’ll ever get anywhere. Probably not. But that doesn’t matter anymore, either.
