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Self-mastery

The Difference Between Life Hacks and Self-mastery

A guide to distinguishing mental junk food from fundamental personal transformation

Trevor E Hudson
Better Humans
Published in
14 min readSep 22, 2022

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Self-help as a genre has been around for a pretty long time. I'm not going to play historian but the enduring appeal of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (published in 1936 and sold well over 30 million copies) suggests it's at least 100 years old.

I have previously written about some of the problems with self-help books but now there's another invader in the self-help world — lifehacks. These have been made even more popular by short-form articles and videos that want to convince you they can improve your life in three minutes or less, maybe by undermining the problem altogether (hence 'hack'). One other reason lifehacks have proliferated is they have much more instant 'ooh that's for me' appeal in an economy based on clicks, traffic, ads, and engagement.

It seems to me more recently I have to be more explicit with my coaching clients that my job is not to reel off a load of life hacks to 'fix' their productivity, confidence, or fear of public speaking. Yes, I have heard many of the “'”tips and tricks” and some might be useful for them. But my time is best served in getting underneath the surface issue, not helping them plug one hole in that dam, only for another one to appear.

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Better Humans
Better Humans

Published in Better Humans

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Trevor E Hudson
Trevor E Hudson

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