Do Self-Help Books Make Any Real Impact On Our Happiness?

I unashamedly love self-help books.

When I was a little girl, my mother would read books for each phase of her life. Books with titles like, How To Understand Your Teenager, Unlocking Your Confidence In Public Speaking.

I remember teasing her, saying, “I just don’t know why you like to read so much!” as the books that were provided for us in school hadn’t interested me as much as she seemingly was.

Though I teased her out of my own curiosity, I appreciated the effort she was making to understand the teenage-aged me and the rest of the world around her.

Finally, one day my curiosity got the better of me, and I picked up a book on personal development, and a whole new world was opened up to me. I know that in the sometimes snobby world of intellects and braggarts, self-help books are seen as the literary version of reality TV shows like The Jersey Shore and The Bachelor, but I don’t see them like this!

I think that a lot of the information given in personal development books should even be taught in schools! I was amazed at the kind of information the books provided and how much better I felt after spending 30 minutes reading them.

Reading is one of the best things for my mental health. I feel so much more refreshed and with a firmer grasp on the world around me and my internal world when I’m incorporating even just a bit of reading into my daily habits.

Then, it happened! I moved out of the safe, warm nest my mother had created for our family and realized that a group of people exists in the real world called… Pessimists! The horror!

I remember being so surprised how quickly I would bring up a book on positive psychology; a wild pessimist would sometimes appear seemingly out of nowhere to remind me that books on personal development are all lies and fluff! I would explain to them that they help me tremendously when I struggled with my own personal mental health.

Still, to not prevail, I would receive the same reply. “The world is dark, these authors are liars, and we should accept the world for how dark it is.”

I’ve heard their outcries against books on personal development. Yet, I still feel like no matter how many times they told me the books don’t impact other people’s lives… that they made a huge one on mine.

So, instead of relying on optimism or pessimism, I decided that I would get more curious about why it doesn’t work for some people.

One of the biggest reasons is because reading a book feels like work, but the real work and change comes from what we do with the knowledge gained.

If we read a book without doing the work to implement the strategies provided, we can’t expect any change.

Reading the book is the first step.

Implementation is the next.

We should be incorporating small daily habits that will bring us closer to our goal. Whatever the book you have read, you must put in the extra work if you want to get something out of it!

Try this exercise.

Try to figure out the most important lesson you’d like to take from the book you’ve recently finished.

Next, figure out an action you can bring into your life that will lead you to this action. Be specific! Don’t have an action like “I will work out more.” This goal is not specific.

Next, commit to the action for a period of 30 days. I did this while I was learning French. I committed to trying to learn the language for 30 days! Just 30 days!

Well, after I had reached my goal of studying for 30 days, I had made a lot of progress and didn’t want to stop there! Now I’m fluent in French and am meeting new people I would never have been able to communicate with if I hadn’t dared to make a change.

The biggest problem with personal development books is that they can feel overwhelming!

Pessimists and small thinkers give up before even opening the book! They don’t even entertain the thought that they could get to their goals in a much simpler way.

The books are life-changing, but they also contain so so much information. They show us the path from people who have already succeeded and done what we wish to do!

It’s incredible the information they can contain, but it can definitely feel like a lot to take on at times! What has helped me is to decide what is the most important thing to me at that moment in my life and commit to it!

With consistency and a bit of positive thinking, you too are sure to see results!