How Self-Help Has Created More Work For You
Seeking to improve yourself has become a much bigger hassle than ever.
One of the longest journeys that I’ve taken in self-help has been to achieve a fit body. It all started as a serious consideration in 2014 when I took a Paleo diet and saw some results. After that month long attempt, I went off Paleo (ironically due to the fact the diet was expensive despite a feature of it being “budget friendly”) and started to go to the gym at my university with a friend.
From that point on my attempts of going to the gym and exercising in general have been on and off. Although eating healthier has been on point.
The issue isn’t for a lack of knowledge or specific roadblocks. Usually it’s some kind of life event that gets in the way that makes it more ideal for me to do something else rather than hit the gym. Be it a pandemic, budget, no one texting me to see if I’m going to the gym and other things like that.
I don’t have the same accountability that I have for myself than I do for writing — something I’ve been able to do consistently and for longer than my “serious consideration” for becoming fit.
But beyond that, reaching those particular goals feels harder to achieve.
In the 1980s, you had aerobics tapes. In the 90s, I remember seeing an advertisement called Body Break and that oh so familiar song. Today we have a wealth of information through various apps.
But even though apps provide a wealth of information than we could ever need, the focus has shifted away from our bodies and instead make us obsess over data and how that correlates to ourselves. In essence, we’ve shifted from relying on our individual selves to know whether we’re feeling good to now an arbitrary third party mega corporation who made an app to affirm we are on the right track.
This doesn’t just happen with weight loss or being active. Whether it’s finding career success, de-stressing, raising a family, being a better partner, and making money, the common things we associate success, happiness and fulfilment in our lives feels harder to do these days.
Worse, the current self-help model isn’t exactly out there to help you out either. Here is why.
The Loop Saps The Fun Out Of It
The loop of self-help is designed to keep you working around in circles. To offer advice, followed by you attempting to use that advice, fail, and convince you you’re the problem and that the guru who generously told you the advice is in the right. For a good chunk of people, this is the case set before them.
But of course there are some who achieve success in certain scenarios. These are the overachievers. These are the people who still cling to some of the strategies but unknowingly shift some of the information they’re told to make it work for them. They avoid some of the common pitfalls that so many others fall into.
When you do find yourself into that space, you begin to realize something. If you somehow tap into that always hustling mindset the more you begin to realize that a goal to work on on the side somehow transforms into more work for yourself.
While a side business is great to have, maintaining it eventually starts becoming more of a chore. That habit of going out for a walk in the morning and night can easily become you obsessing over data as you start to track your pacing, breathing, and distance.
I’ve felt the same way too with my writing. I made it into a career by choice because I love it, but I recognized early on I had to overcome the fact if I obsess over the numbers, I would lose my own sense of style and voice on top of my interest.
Some of us want to start up meditation practices only to realize how half-baked and predatory it can be. Or that using the practice for yourself doesn’t yield any results, shaking your confidence to sell this as a viable solution to others.
Despite the fact there is money to be made in the industry.
The reality is that self-help solutions are not a one-size-fits-all thing. It requires more work with individuals to figure out the best path moving forward. That takes work to do and certain mindsets can make us feel that process is more of a chore rather than something engaging or fun.
Self-Improvement Has Become Less Improvement, More Addiction
The issue with apps on our phones, social media, and overall technology is that they have trained us to get quick dopamine hits. Wearables like FitBit or even my water bottle from HydrateSpark on the surface feel good on paper as they encourage certain behaviours.
My water bottle reminds me to drink more water. FitBit encourages you to move, get some cardio, and hit the gym.
The issue can arise though that due to life circumstances these can provide additional layers of guilt. If you had an overly busy day and not much chance to get your steps in, you have a higher chance of feeling guilty you didn’t reach your FitBit goal. In the case of my water bottle, I do feel a tinge guilty of it too and have reached a point where I’ve just stopped tracking on the app.
These additional pieces of technology create these sense of being controlled by the devices. And while that can be argued as a good thing for those hustle folk out there, it creates an additional layer of pressure. Pressure to perform.
And when we fail, it creates opportunities for us to criticize ourselves.
While getting that data can help, we have to remember that there is another side to it. That if we find a sub-optimal result, we will be fixated on it and ask how we can do better for next time. It creates this loop where we miss the point entirely in certain regards, or that the truth is hidden.
Growing up, I took swimming lessons for a time at the local aquatic center. They had various levels which you could proceed through only if you took their tests and passed them. For their tests, you were given ample time to prepare for them since you were being trained by an instructor in a group setting.
For a while I was proceeding through the levels with no issue at all. At least until I reached a certain point.
Month after month, I was told I didn’t pass because of something. The first time was my front dive was slightly off. The next time it was my breast stroke. There was always some minor issue even though I was doing everything correctly.
This went on for a few more months until my parents talked to staff.
The reality was I couldn’t proceed to any higher levels because I was too young for the next level and beyond.
We stopped going. But during that time, I was still obsessed with trying to get everything right. To have the perfect front dive. To have the perfect breast stroke.
As a kid I didn’t cling to those things as I was explained afterward about that whole situation. But it feels like the self-help industry is a lot like my swimming lesson experiences when I was a kid.
It’s an app or a guru that you vaguely know about. They condition you to look at the things you lack or are struggling in and create this cycle where you’re not really improving but creating these emotions of obsession that pull away from the joy of the experience.
The Real Improvements Are Gated To The Wealthy
I’ve been running into this issue with my online store and getting it off the ground. The issue is there isn’t enough traffic. And since there is no blog or additional content to rank the site, I’m reliant on ads through social media.
This store is a dropshipping store selling t-shirts. It has unique designs, but this isn’t different from the thousands of other stores like this. Youtubers, Twitch streamers, and online gurus all have t-shirt stores at this point and are putting money away into advertising.
Hundreds if not thousands are going into advertising these stores.
It’s made social media giants realize that while t-shirt dropshipping stores are lucrative, they can become gatekeepers to premium clients. Those who would actually buy, so long as the person running these stores is content with dropping way more money into advertising on their platform.
For small businesses with limited resources, I would have to operate at a loss for months before I get any traction if I went this route.
Self-help functions a lot of the same way these days. In 2017, Amy Larocca wrote an article titled The Wellness Epidemic where she argued that luxury meditation studios, and other peak wellness techniques are only available to the wealthy. She is quite on point with this as we can all relate to some extent to this practice.
We merely have to look at Tony Robbins who charges hundreds to thousands if you want the VIP experience for his seminars. His individual coaching though ranges from $5,000 to upwards of $18,000.
The question is, who has that kind of money casually lying around these days?
Even when you consider some of the lower priced stuff like juice cleanses and mindfulness classes, constant visits to these do add up over time. And when it’s fuelled by a culture where if there is anything wrong with you you need to fix it, it makes it clear that the actual help and relief is gated by those who can afford to pay these premium costs.
What this results in is people spending months or years saving up for these kinds of things and using these events as a sort of “treat” for having gone through with it. Instead of doing research, finding alternatives, or going back to basics, people create this scenario where Tony Robbins or some other guru is the only solution and you have to spend hundreds if not thousands to finally get the help that you’re looking for.
This phenomenon creates this divide and it goes back to the idea where self-help isn’t designed for marginalized people — who historically have less resources to work with. There has been this divide for a long time and it gets further reinforced by these luxury items that are gated by those who can afford it, but don’t really need it.
It makes getting to the solution all the more of a grind when it doesn’t really have to be. There can be budget options that are just as good if not better than the premium options available.
When you have systemic problems or the twisted form of capitalism that it is now where profit is more important than people, industries become a lesser version of what they were intended to be. Today, self-help is mired by a variety of issues and is disconnected from the people that they are trying to help. They care about people buying whatever they are selling only to buy more and never see the results they want.
The reality is there are so many opportunities for us to be growing ourselves and seeing results, but the current landscape makes it feel like it’s more of a slog. It’s also conditioned us to feel that way too. In an age where we have so much information and can rely on various studies, even the simple things like using cooking as mindfulness practice is not discussed much, but the act of doing so can be very difficult for people who aren’t used to cooking or baking or can afford to do so.
And it’s worse when you have rich self-help gurus or other people talk about how easy all of it is.
It really isn’t.
The solution is simple. But the process these days has become this complex maze filled with attacks on your self-confidence and self-image. It demands additional steps, different mindsets, and all kinds of additional strategies that weren’t really needed.
But that doesn’t mean you can never achieve results. All you have to do is understand their games and focus on the more simpler solutions. Ditch the apps, be stingier with your money, and focus on the things you know that gave you results.
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