If Self-Help Stopped Working, You Might Be Ready For the Next Level
The next level: “forget the peripherals.”
--
My first self-help book promised me “wealth” and “happiness.” It’s been ten years (read: too late for a refund) and both are still on my to-do list.
Should I feel scammed?
Because, honestly, I don’t. Even though that book was filled with the overused, generic stuff: “set goals,” “manage your time,” “take care of your finances...” Sure, now they’re worth just a listicle — a Quora answer tops. But as a total beginner, those were cutting-edge mental models.
But we are not beginners anymore, aren’t we?
I bet your first try at self-help also felt like taking a pill of LSD (which in this family-friendly piece stands for “Liberating Self-Development”), but ten years of reading the genre are enough to notice the same principles being repackaged over and over.
We’ve covered the basics already. We need the advanced stuff, but you know what? We can’t get it from self-help.
Self-help is only for beginners (this is how I know).
It talks broadly.
My first book was Jim Rohn’s 7 Strategies for Wealth and Happiness. Go ahead and judge that book by the cover: it has “wealth” and “happiness” on the title, despite a slim width of only 176 pages.
So was Jim pretending to cover two of the amplest, most complex topics in human existence in 1/3 of what it takes Fifty Shades of Grey to climax? That tells Jim won’t be able to go past casual foreplay on either topic.
Instead, he’ll deploy self-help’s signature move: being generic.
Why? Because Tony Robbins could not sell out stadiums without some generic-ass, horoscope name like Unleash the Power Within that anyone can relate to. Being generic is the reason self-help sold its way to become a $13 billion industry.
So what’s wrong with talking broadly and being generic?
In any craft, “generic” is the equivalent of “beginner.”
I’ve been playing the piano for 15 years now, so I should know how to spot a pro from a beginner.
Here’s how to do it: play your Spotify list (or your Summer Hits ’06 mixtape, whatever’s in your glove box) and listen to people’s commentary. The beginners will rarely go as far as telling “sad music” from “upbeat music.”
The pros will notice the auto-tuned backup vocals, the circle of fifths in the harmony, the Picardy Cadence at the end of the chorus… Pros go beyond sad music, upbeat music — which is the generic equivalent of the “rich dad, poor dad” advice pestering the self-help genre.
Pros have an acute awareness of complex details and nuance. Beginners don’t.
To master any discipline, you need to go deeper.
Without an awareness of the details, you can’t take action. That’s why if you put me in front of a landscape, I could see the landscape, but I couldn’t paint it on a canvas.
A painter could do it because she has an awareness of texture, colour palettes, depth, contrast, and whatever else painters pay attention to.
Once you master the moves, you can stop thinking about the peripherals and focus on what you actually want to do.
So, to master something like “wealth,” you need to go deeper than “For every ten coins thou placest within thy purse take out for use but nine.” That might make you the richest man in Babylon — but in the real world, inflation eats your petty coins for breakfast.
How do you take your life to the next level?
Ugh. That sounds like something Tony Robbins would say to passive-aggressively upsell me into the next tier of his product suite.
But make no mistake. The next level is not “more self-help.” It’s “less self-help.” Because it makes sense that we pay less attention to the things we’ve already mastered.
When I learned to touch-type, I started with two clumsy index fingers and two eyes glued to the keyboard. I could’ve done a faster job by carving the paragraph in stone with a butter knife. But now I can sing along the Summer Hits ’06 (Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy never gets old) whilst typing at 100 WPM without looking down.
Once you master the moves, you can stop thinking about the peripherals and focus on what you actually want to do.
Self-help’s next level is “forget the peripherals.”
You know the peripherals of self-help already.
They are SMART goals, categorised to-do lists, and schedule spreadsheets. The convoluted weekly reviews, the accountability partners, the calendars and habit-tracking apps.
Right after finishing that Jim Rohn’s book, I went completely berserk with those.
Forget what you learned about making friends and go make them.
I even had a premium subscription to a Pomodoro app, which now sounds incredibly silly (what on Earth can justify a monthly fee to what is essentially a 25-minute countdown?). As a beginner, I needed that obsessive micro-management, looking at my productivity graphs like they had the significance of Wall Street’s entire stock market.
But I’m not a beginner anymore, and neither are you.
Instead, focus on the deeper details.
“Wealth” is too broad a word anyway.
How do you want to make your wealth exactly? By flipping houses? Pitching your summer mixtape startup on Shark Tank? Trading crypto? Be specific.
If you feel the urge to consume information, at least go deeper than self-help’s generic advice. “How to be happy” is also too broad. Instead, learn to paint, try a new language, work as a panda cuddler for the summer.
Or, you know, whatever makes you happy.
Forget what you learned about making friends and go make them. Forget what you learned about planning your day and go do stuff. Forget the peripherals.
The next level also requires dropping your resentment.
Sure, self-help promises over-the-top results and exploits addicting expectations. Maybe most of it sucks — maybe it deserves all the hate.
But let’s not forget self-help is an industry. Above all else, they want to sell copies and help themselves.
I wouldn’t go to the Coca Cola headquarters (which I presume is inside a refrigerated, supervillain-looking volcano lair) and go, “Oy! Your bottle said ‘Open Happiness’ but I opened mine and there was only carbonated liquid. Scammers!”
Coca Cola markets “happiness” but it sells glucose and we all understand that. I think we’re also capable of wrapping our heads around the fact that, whatever self-help markets, it will always sell info products.
Not happiness — but the watered-down, $13.99 eBook version of it. Which in large quantities is also bad for your health anyway.
Self-help is the best place to start — but the worst place to stay.
Someone who reads about “setting goals” for the first time will still be blown away. Buzzwords like “happiness” and “wealth” won’t sound naïve but like-minded.
Self-help will caress their pain points and tell them everything’s gonna be okay.
But you are not a beginner anymore. You don’t need an emotional cuddle. You need tools and skills and execution. You need to turn yourself into a pro. And pros don’t need self-help books.
They can help themselves.
