The Self Improvement Conundrum

The internet age has seen a lot of trends come and go with varying effects on people. Self improvement or self help culture is no different and is arguably the best thing that could happen to a generation that was not heading into the best of directions. Self help books instantly come to mind when thinking about how this culture got its kickstart, they have obviously made a huge part in more and more people taking themselves more seriously and trying to get out of the purgatory of addictions and procrastinations. NPD Group reports that sales of self-help books in the United States have increased annually by up to 18.6 million volumes, expanding by 11% between 2013 and 2019. Gone are the days when self help or self improvement used to be a part of a rare Ted Talk or one of those meditation sessions that people take. From ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ to ‘Atomic Habits’, there seems to be a self help book on every possible topic that can be helpful for people who genuinely want to seek that help. This is where the catch starts to creep in though. These books can only help people who are accountable enough to admit that they need that help, for everyone else it’s just like reading the textbook that they hated in school.

So what is self help or self improvement? It means bringing changes to one’s life in a holistic way, such as improving physical and mental health, maintaining work life balance, setting short term and long term goals and acting up on them in a much better way than before. A very simple way of approaching self improvement is to create a mindset of ‘delaying gratification’, which means sacrificing a bit of comfort in the present moment for the betterment of your future self. A person on self improvement uses his/her own methods or methods outlined in existing literature. The ways in which people can consume self help content have increased significantly. From Netflix documentaries to a countless amount of YouTube channels and even certain areas of the music industry, with popular hip-hop artists like Denzel Curry making an entire album about his self improvement journey, books should really start obsolete by this point. But that is far from the case, self help books still remain the backbone of this industry and more and more people are getting into them.

Are these books really helpful though? The answer is simple, they are helpful for those who are actually willing to take some accountability about their shortcomings and are committed to learning and implementing change into their everyday lives. These books often involve people sharing their own or someone else’s story to achieve the kind of life they had always envisioned. For instance, in the highly acclaimed ‘Deep Work’, author Cal Newport gives several examples of people like Bill Gates and J.K. Rowling. Ultra successful people who used the ‘deep workflow state’ to finish their tasks and accomplish greatness. The idea of J.K. Rowling checking into a 5-star hotel and continuing to live there to finish the last Harry Potter book seems cool but not everyone can afford to do so. Similarly, Robin Sharma’s ‘The 5 am Club’ offers a lot of good advice but it is not possible for every single person who reads it to wake up at 5 am everyday and follow a very rigid routine.

This brings us to the aforementioned ‘conundrum’ that self help books and the whole industry in general have inflicted upon people, especially young adults. You do not have to make one book your bible and follow every step instead the entire purpose of self learning is to take the steps out of each book that you feel suit your everyday life and will bring massive changes and improvements in it. The best book will force you into deep thinking and the worst one will force you into following each and every step as if it is the only thing you can do to bring hope back into your life. So choose wisely, do not get overly influenced by a particular book or a very specific set of beliefs. Think before you implement any piece of advice into your life, think about the actual benefits it can bring into your life. And the most important thing to do in regards to self help books, as has been mentioned so many times in this article, is to take action. Several things in these books are not easy to follow and some are completely impractical as well, but the reader can always use them to get a general idea about how people navigate through life and carve a pathway towards success. Picking up on ideas, practices and teaching that can have a genuine effect on a person’s life and are very easy to follow regularly should not be ignored.

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