Why Self-Help Books Won't Work

There are thousands of books out there that tell you how you can improve your life. Some of them claim that positive affirmations will alter the space-time dimension to bend the universe to your will, others provide a step-by-step detailed plan for creating a single good habit. 

I’ve read a lot of them. I recommend a lot of them to friends, family, and my readers. 

 Here’s the thing, though; none of them are going to do a damn thing for you. 

 Nothing in your life will change just from reading self-development books. You actually have to take in that information and do something with it. It’s on you.

I am sorry to say this, because it rings true for me just as much as it is true for every single person in this world, but there is no easy way out. 

Let me repeat that for those in the back: THERE IS NO EASY WAY OUT. 

The sooner you accept this as truth, the sooner your life will change. 

You cannot cheat the universe. Even the law of attraction does not work this way; you have to take action. You have to do the work. You have to do the things the self-development books are actually telling you to do if you want to see actual results. Don’t believe me?

Let’s go about this another way: ever heard of physics? 

Every reaction will create an EQUAL and opposite reaction. Equal. Not greater than, not less than, equal. That reality really sucks. I cannot do one squat and expect extreme weight loss. I can not simply read one book and expect my life to change.

However, it is predictable.

I didn’t write this to depress you; I wrote this to wake you up. What you get out of your life is exactly proportionate to what you put into your life. 

I love self-development books, anything that challenges my mindset to better myself is a win to me really, and I highly recommend you read them to expand your own knowledge and personal understanding. But also, be realistic; it is going to take time, you are going to have to put in effort. However, when you do reach those goals and you do see improvement, it is going to be so much more worth it because of all the work you put in and the habits you build. 

And what’s even better, when you stop trying to take the easy way out, the things you learn and the experience you gain is so much more influential to others.

For instance, I am posting very openly about my financial situation and what I am doing to fix it through my financial journey posts (linked here), and all of the experience and things I learn I can share with all of you. That is something I would have never been able to do if I did not do the personal work and go through the things I have gone through. 

In addition to all of that, when you actually do the work in one area of your life, regardless of what you choose to focus on, it will trickle into every other aspect of your life, and it will be obvious. 

 You focus on your health and all the sudden you have the self-control to stop spending money recklessly.

You focus on your marriage and all the sudden your friendships are growing and glowing.

You focus on your career and education and all the sudden your overall happiness improves. 

The techniques you learn and use in one area of your life reflect in all areas, and all the sudden you’re like that teenager in the movie who ended one year unpopular and overweight only to come back the hottest person in school just in time for senior-year homecoming. 

Or, as social media has recently made mainstream, you “glowed up.” 

So what are the take-aways here? 

·      There is no easy way out.

·      You get what you put in.

·      Physics suck.

·      When you accept it, you own it, and you can transform.

As Rebecca Black once beautifully wrote in her book Light Is The New Black,

“Call off the search party, I was inside me all along.”

-T-