Gain Optimal Value from Self-Help Literature in 5 Practical Steps
#3. Don’t aim to read every page.
We live in unprecedented times. No other era has expressed this much disdain at books written to help people find fulfillment in their lives.
Known as the highest form of literature in Ancient Greece, self-help books employed sophisticated methods in teaching earlier civilizations how to love, build friendships, and find purpose in life.
Recent studies show that people have become skeptical about self-help literature. This is largely due to published pseudo-scientific crap with titles that appeal to our “quick fix” addiction.
Also, many people assume that life already comes with a manual containing advice on emotional education; that we have absolutely no need of reading a book on how to love.
But many people are simply unaware of how to perform the abstract things we take for granted.
This is why we have experts who dedicate their years to research and studies on how to increase people’s quality of living.
They are featured on TED talks, publish academic journals on the internet, and write books that are popularly known as “Self-help”.
The primary goals of self-help literature are:
- To prompt people to introspect deeply
- To teach personal growth
- To teach wisdom and knowledge of specialties
- To help people discover their identity
- To help people cope with stress
Learning efficient ways of reading will help you attain these goals. Below are six smart ways to make the most out of this (largely) underrated literature:
1. Be Mindful in Your Selection
Each year, the self-help industry publishes over a hundred thousand book titles ranging from weight loss to hygge living.
The truth is that most of these titles aren’t relevant to you, but as super-consumers, we tend to find some usefulness in each product that appeals to us.
Here’s how you can mindfully select a title:
- Search for a book that addresses a problem you are currently facing. Doing this will enable you to view the book as an investment. It would also give you a sense of progress. Picture yourself on the path to solving a problem and the right book would serve as a guide.
- Do some research on the author. It’s important to know if he’s an expert in his field. There are many authors that fill their books with bogus and repetitive content. Filtering them out may seem difficult, but the time spent reading authentic books by authors that have years of experience and academic research will make it worthwhile.
- Read reviews. Thanks to apps like Goodreads, book reviews are now easily accessible. Why is it necessary to read reviews before picking a book? First, it helps to tailor your expectations of what you can get from it. When you read how other people have been impacted by the book, you form a picture of what you stand to gain by the experience. Secondly, you can measure the overall success of the book by seeing the ratings and that would encourage you to go for it.
If you’re pleased with the results, then by all means purchase that book.
2. Rewrite, Don’t Highlight
We tend to highlight sentences that resonate deeply with us. We hope to come back to them to be inspired once again.
Highlighting is also done to distinguish relevant information to make them stand out for easy reference.
However, rewriting sentences instead has proved to do all the above and more.
Having a one-stop journal containing all the wise and inspirational words you’ve encountered saves you the stress of sifting through several books just to read a sentence.
To take it further, rewriting passages in your own words will make them belong to you as if it came from you. You begin to embrace them as yours, and perhaps, feel inspired to act on them.
3. Don’t Aim to Read Every Page
As much as I love to read, I often find myself skipping pages (and chapters!) when my interest in the book starts to wane.
I don’t believe that reading a book means completing every single page in it. A lot of self-help books contain scientific findings that I’m more than happy to skip.
Books like Atomic Habits include summarised points at the end of each chapter. I encourage you to go through the summarised points if a chapter doesn’t appeal to you.
One thing I do before starting a self-help book is to go through the table of contents and read the chapters that stand out to me first. If I like them well enough, I’ll definitely be reading more of the book.
I took a course on academic writing earlier this year and one of the things I learned has been a game-changer for me. The lesson was: a way to save time reading a textbook chapter is to read the first paragraph, the first sentence of subsequent paragraphs, and then the last paragraph.
This would give you a good idea of what the author is communicating.
4. Discuss What You Learn With People
Ideas from self-help books are good conversation starters. It’s a great way to rub minds with people and learn their views on your newly acquired ideas.
By sharing what you learn, you give the impression of being a resourceful and well-read individual. Healthy debates could arise and, through them, you learn the loopholes of your argument.
A friend may be struggling with a similar problem the book has answers for, so explaining the ideas in a conversational tone is a great way to cement the lessons in your mind.
You can also take it a step further by writing a blog post about the book or including lessons on your Substack newsletter.
5. Practice What You Learn
Knowledge necessitates action. Words on paper will have no impact on your life unless they’re practiced.
A lot of us experience this “life-changing” feeling after reading a great book, but this wears off quickly because we don’t consciously change our lives.
Here is a brief checklist of practicing new habits:
- Make sure you’re deliberate in your actions. Try as much as you can to link the action to the source (the book that inspired you). This will reinforce the lessons in your mind. For example, when you practice a new parenting skill, briefly acknowledge what part of the book you’ve just put into action.
- Focus on the outcome. We prefer to think that our current habits are good enough so we cover our eyes to the possibilities of what can occur by improving on them. When we choose to focus on who we “can” be not who we “are”, we become inspired to improve ourselves.
- Take baby steps. Many self-help authors won’t advise you to go all-in with what you learn from their books. On the contrary, they are big advocates of starting small on the early days and building up from there. Baby steps allow you to grow at a pace desirable to you. It’s not about how fast you’re going, what matters is that you’re moving.
The Takeaway
The digital space is filled with a lot of self-help resources, and we don’t know who to trust anymore for work and life advice that actually helps. That’s why it’s important to carefully curate the content we consume i.e books, videos, and podcasts.
Our problems are less unique than we think. Wiser and more experienced people have written books on how they dealt with life’s challenges.
So the next time you see a self-help book, don’t groan at how saturated the market is. Pick the books useful to you and follow the steps above; these are the first steps to a more fulfilling life.
