You Can Succeed Even if You Don’t Follow These 6 Self-Help Cliches

Escape the self-improvement echo chamber.

I got scammed by a self-help guru on Twitter. I’ve quit the platform because such preaching know-it-alls make me queasy. They all sing from the same hymn sheet, and most of them are a long way from their shiny online personas. They’re hypocrites.

The good news is you don’t have to do everything the “experts” tell you to live a happy and successful life. You can still be human, relax, waste time, and have lapses in judgment. Let’s break down some more egregious and parroted words of wisdom.

1. Just lift bro.

Unlike some others on this list, there’s no question that exercise has benefits. Everyone should work out to improve their life inside and out.

However, I’ve been out of action with Long Covid for the past two years. Getting from one room to another has been challenging, never mind working out like the Twitter Bros.

Have the last two years been unsuccessful for me? Hardly. I’ve used that time to discover my greatest passions in life — writing and investing.

I’ve built up six figures in the stock market, and I trade daily. I’ve written over 200 blog posts, made decent side hustle money, and had wonderful comments from people saying my writing has helped them.

I’ve processed the worst grief I was suffering after my dad died in 2019.

These have been some of my life's best and most productive years, and I didn’t work out a single time. Be careful how narrow you measure success.

2. Jumping jacks at 3 am.

It’s funny to see the productivity experts trying to outdo each other with how early they wake up. 6 am is now for amateurs.

Someone claimed a 3 am wake-up time the other day and holds the record. It won’t be long before someone says they don’t even go to bed.

3 am is a critical time because it’s when I go to bed. I get up at 11 am. I do my best work at night, and I hate early mornings. If I don’t get 8 hours of sleep, I feel like a zombie, and my mental health suffers.

It doesn’t matter when you get up or go to sleep. What matters is that you sleep enough and recognize what period of the day is your most productive.

I’m happy to leave the 3 am guy doing jumping jacks and burpees.

3. My favorite productivity tools — patent pending.

Everyone’s looking for the best apps to save them precious minutes of screen time. They have complicated filing systems and swipe files separated by social media type, date, etc.

Here are my favorite productivity tools:

• A word document
• Some paper
• A pen.

I write my ideas down on paper, use a Word document for my headlines, and “swipe file,” and it works just fine. I’ve written hundreds of articles and newsletter posts this way.

4. I quit and couldn’t be happier.

If you’re on Twitter for longer than a day, you’ll have seen dozens of accounts with pictures of tough alpha men on their profiles, telling you how they never quit.

Quitting has been one of the best things to ever happen to me.

As a police officer, I thought I’d be doing that job for life. Yet I was getting sick with PTSD, and my enthusiasm was at rock bottom. So I was medically retired, and I didn’t fight it. I had no idea what would happen next, so contrary to the black-and-white views of the gurus, I was brave to leave — giving up a secure life for uncertainty and doubt.

If I’d stayed in the police, I wouldn’t be a writer. I wouldn’t have as much money, and thus I wouldn’t be a trader in the stock market.

It’s good to quit if you know you’re banging your head against a wall, and deep inside, you know something’s not right for you.

Make space for new and exciting things to happen.

5. Twitter and 1950’s philosophy.

This is the one that makes me the sickest. Of all those alpha accounts on social media depicting big strong men on their profiles and giving you philosophical nuggets of wisdom pulled straight from the 1950s, I’ve seen a couple of the men behind the accounts.

We’re talking basement-dwelling teenagers.

Even in the blogosphere, some people make decent money by telling women they’re unhappy because they work and aren’t at home chained to the kitchen sink, pumping out a football team of children.

Guys that talk like this are compensating for something. We see you, and we laugh.

It shouldn't need saying, but it’s possible to respect women, recognize the struggle of minorities and still be successful. A man can cry and talk about his feelings without being weak.

If you’re a man reading this and are sensitive and kind, see those qualities as strengths. Before I got hardened to the world through police work, I used to cry over road kill.

6. This one word makes me shudder.

The very word “solopreneur” makes me gag. If you’re looking to start a side hustle or become a writer, you don’t have to pigeonhole yourself into this soulless pyramid scheme where you make products for other people making products.

We don’t need any more checklists, writing courses, cohorts, or articles about making money fast. You can make money writing about what you love. You can find a side hustle to match your interests.

Please, let's stop adding to the pyramid scheme.

There’s more than one way to the top.

The purpose of all this is to show you that you don’t have to fit someone else's definition of perfect to succeed. You can occasionally make mistakes, be lazy, let your standards slip, and still make it.

The definition of success is different for all of us, and so is the route to get there. My life is very far from perfect, yet I’ve done well for myself, and when I think of where I was compared to where I am, I’m amazed.

So let your unique identity shine through and stop forcing yourself into the mold of what others tell you is successful. There’s more than one way to happiness.

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