Does self-improvement Overpromise and Underdeliver?
Am I scamming you?
I spent the whole day listening to videos and reading articles about how self-help is the worst thing ever.
It made me take a look in the mirror.
But here’s the deal, they all say the same thing.
They expected more
People feed themselves a false notion that waking up at 5 am puts you on the path to becoming the next Elon Musk. It doesn’t.
I heard someone talk about how she was encouraged to seek rejection therapy so she gets accustomed to being rejected.
Yeah, I know, it’s all over the place.
Just reading self-improvement books does nothing. There is nothing to hide there, but here is the problem.
People overpromise themselves
People get their hopes up way too much whilst making no effort.
Books like the 5 am club are not for everybody. People think the reason they are not successful/happy with their life is that they are not waking up early.
Waking up early will not solve any problem. Nothing will if you don’t do something about it.
Simply sitting and thinking about how great your life could have been not going to get you anywhere.
People think affirmations are magic
If you do nothing the whole day and keep repeating I am a billionaire when you’re broke, odds are you won’t get a wire transfer for a billion dollars.
Success takes time and effort, there is a reason it is hard to achieve.
People constantly look for shortcuts, why?
Just get on with the process and you’ll get there, don’t seek shortcuts.
The shortest path to success is the long one
Affirmations are supposed to get you in a mindset and be focused.
It is not a surprise that many successful people do it. You constantly remind yourself you are capable of what you want and you take action that further supports it.
That's the game you want to play.
People think meditation makes you prone to bad feelings and you start to control everything about yourself.
Meditation calms you, it allows you to ACCEPT yourself by embracing your thoughts.
Nothing good comes in an hour. Success is made on routines.
You have to love the process.
To all the bodybuilders out there, what does going to the gym for an hour do for you? Nothing.
No consistency no progress. No effort no progress.
You have to take action to support your affirmations, otherwise, you are just acting plainly deluded.
At a point, your mind says, ‘Who are you kidding?’
Self-improvement tells you there is something wrong with you
People talk about how they have read all the self-help books out there and made zero progress with their lives.
They’re no better off.
You have to choose the right pick. Self-improvement has no barrier to entry. Anyone could up and write a book about it.
Information overload is not a myth. It’s real.
Many books emphasise the importance of positive thinking. This doesn’t mean repeating ‘I am happy’ a thousand times a day will make you happy.
People rely too much on shortcuts.
If you are not happy, saying you are is not going to change anything.
Happiness is internal, it doesn’t spew from every word you say.
I heard someone sh*t on the law of attraction.
She confessed as to how she would say, “I am rich” while walking around her hotel rather than going to work.
Surprisingly enough (sarcasm) she never became rich. She was still broke.
I read an article where someone said she would never read self-improvement articles
I thought to myself, am I scamming people who read my articles?
Is it really that bad?
Well, the truth is, everything, in essence, is self-improvement. Anything you read, one way or another, is a person sharing his perspective.
Story reading makes you relay an intangible reward in your head. You take something away from it.
Whether it is blatant advice or whether it is open for interpretation is unimportant. In any case, it is self-improvement.
When people share their own experiences and tell people what they learnt from them, that is in essence self-improvement.
No one knows everything.
Look at me.
You could easily say, “Who are you to give advice?”
You would be perfectly right. I am no one.
I don’t preach myself as some life guru. I could never be that.
I toss my opinion out into the world. Their will be people for whom it makes sense, for others it won’t.
Perfectly okay.
You don’t have to agree with everything. I love discussions that come from you disagreeing with what I have to say.
People who write self-improvement articles are simply storytellers with an extractable piece of advice.
Books like Think and Grow Rich, aren’t going to make you rich if you JUST think. But people believe that and thus buy it.
Results are poor, they jump against the niche.
Titles can be misleading. It is not surprising.
People want you to buy their books. Who would’ve thought?
Books solely focused on self-improvement, consuming them over and over again does nothing. That is because what they are preaching is an actionable thing.
Inaction makes the book futile.
Self-improvement articles and books become useless when you pick the wrong book, or when you overpromise yourself.
No book is going to make you financially successful. It can, however, tell you how someone else did it. It can improve your chances, it can’t guarantee anything.
If it says it will, it is supposed to make you buy it. The book’s content may be useful, but promises in titles don’t generally hold.
Deception is good in this sense, it gives you a good piece of advice.
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