I’ve Got Problems with Self-Help
For starters, why do we have over 2 billion articles on how to be productive?
Typically, to justify why someone should read their article, a writer starts off by talking about their expertise. For example, “I’ve coached hundreds of clients.” “I was featured in the New York Times.” “I worked at Google, Facebook, and Amazon.”
I’d like to say that I’m an expert in self-help. That I’ve read, watched, and listened to everything about the topic. From interviews to motivational quotes to morning routine videos and even infographics. However, it’s more likely that no matter how much content I consume, even if I do my 10,000 hours, I won’t be an expert. I probably have only scratched the surface. That leads me to the first problem.
The search term “self-help” provides 7,430,000,000 results. (Without the hyphen, it’s 9,570,000,000 results). Thing is, most of those results say the exact same thing: get things done and optimize based on what works. Maybe add some structure, say a morning routine, and a few strategies, like rewards for when you get things done, and that’s most of self-help. Yet, for many of us, at least for myself, I continually read this content over and over. I would lose time, attention, focus, etc. There’s downsides to that already, but I think there’s more than just that.
I believe the reason so much content can exist is partly because of novelty. I won’t go into the neuroscience (mostly because I don’t understand it), but it’s known that we seek new things. Self-help capitalizes on this desire, constantly providing new content with new strategies and new tips. We’re continually reading the latest and newest article that talks about what to work on, how to work, and even why to work.
But for me, the novelty created a sense of dependency. I wanted, sometimes even needed, the next piece of advice to get things done. Whether than be one giant gold nugget of advice, or several small ones, I needed new advice, new motivation, new strategies, etc. I had to have that to solve the task at hand. There was always more to read. More to do, more things to work on, and more input to consider. I couldn’t just solve a problem independently and adjust if necessary. I ended up relying on my prior knowledge or even my common sense, a lot less. To me, that was the other downside. But although I still struggle with it, the numerous hours I spent reading self-help helped me realize this:
There’s plenty of content describing new things, new schedules, and new principles; but only sometimes is this content is insightful, and rarely does it provide value to the extent that it’s better to consume content on how to work, rather than actually working (or taking a break from working).
My other problem with self-help is with how it’s marketed.
In my eyes, much of self-help content relies on some form of novelty and/or convenience to provide “value” to readers. I’ve already talked about novelty, so I’ll touch on convenience. By convenience, I refer to the idea that instead of a viewer having to read 10 different articles, each with 1 insightful takeaway, a writer will compile these 10 takeaways into one article. This is where you get “The ultimate guide to morning routines,” “The complete guide to morning routines,” or of course, “10 things to improve your morning routine.”
However, often when an article relies on convenience to provide value, the article is not marketed as content that’s convenient, but novel. It’s not, “I’ve compiled all these tips on leadership from this expert” or “You may have read some of these tips before, but I’ve assembled them into one giant article.” Instead, the claims state something like “You’ve never heard of these tips,” or they take a subtler approach — “These 5 tips will revolutionize your productivity.” (The latter claim assumes that you’ve never heard of these tips, otherwise your productivity would have already been ‘revolutionized’). Forget coming down to the same principles of get work done and optimize, it’s likely that the reader is already knows most of these tips. As a result, self-help content often reads like filler.
In other cases, the convenience that a piece of content provides is monetized. This is typically in the format of a course, such as a course on productivity or leadership. Due to the fact that the course is relying on convenience (ie. compiling insights from various experts, articles, books, videos, etc.) to provide “value,” most of this information can be found online. That’s also known as, for free. There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to research, and instead purchasing a course. But these courses cost anywhere from $49 to $399 and even $3,499.
To be clear, I don’t have a problem with all online paid courses, including those that cost the same price as the VisionPro. Just, maybe 80–90% of them. I also acknowledge that much of this criticism sets a very high standard for self-help content, one that I myself have often not met when I published self-help content. I was considering saying something after that, like, “But I hope this can create change in self-help content” or “I hope you can use this to better your content.” I think instead though, that’s it. It’s a very high standard.
With that said, how you work with standards, if you like them, how high your standards are, that’s all up to you. I mean that with no shame or guilt. I’d like to add one more thing, but I’ll let the conclusion do that.
At the end of the article, writers are also supposed to provide a takeaway. Something of value. Something that the reader can take to improve their life. To be honest, I was kind of hoping that the analysis in this article would be enough.
It’s hard for me to suggest something without adding more advice to the never-ending pile of strategies and routines that is self-help. So, instead, I’m going try to sound cool with the advice that’s already out there, and I’m hoping it helps:
Find your own thing. Find what works best for you. Whether that’s regarding how much content you consume, the type of content you write, or something else. Find what works best for you. (And maybe don’t read 1,000 articles on how to find what works best for you).
