18.6 million self-help books were sold in the United States in 2019. Americans spent roughly $1.24 billion on self-help books and audiobooks in 2018. The number of podcast downloads that relate to self-improvement number in the tens of thousands every week. Oh, and I know a guy who writes a blog that some would label as self-help, every Friday. I hear it’s pretty cool…
I’ll start with honesty, I bought more than one of those 18.6 million books, spent more than a few of the $1.24 billion, and downloaded my fair share of the podcasts in the self-help category. I’m also the guy that writes this blog which some label self-help. Truth is, I’m a fan of all of it. I find most of it helpful to living the kind of LIFE that I want, and I appreciate the chance to examine myself and my habits through the various lenses these works have to offer.
Last week, I put “the grind” on a polygraph and found that it lied in three big ways. This week, I had a conversation with a mentor of mine, Zach Mercurio, who made me do the same thing with self-help. I posted something about always leaning toward getting better and he replied that although that may be true, we also need to be careful of the self-indulgence often falsely labeled as self-help. He was worried that in our world of 18.6 million books on the topic, people can make self-improvement their own idol. They worship the idea of always improving and lose sight of more worthy subjects of their worship.
Zach is the kind of guy that when he talks, you listen and when he leaves, you think so it hit me hard. Without even knowing it, he was talking both to me and about me. I self-indulge on getting better and in creating the LIFE Council I’m afraid I got worse. To try and grow my audience, I stopped being authentic to my mission to help people and started aiming only at what would make the most popular content. I dove into the rabbit hole of self-improvement with an amazing swan dive that I think would be a solid 10 on the Olympic stage. No splash. No reflection. Just diving.
This weekend, I hope to add to your understanding of the self-help world so you can avoid the dive that I took. As people who read my work, I’ll guess that you also engage with authors, podcasts, and the like in the spaces that I do. I applaud you for it because the alternative isn’t better in this situation. A lack of self-awareness and movement toward betterment isn’t the path to a good life. Ignorance here, is absolutely not, bliss.
But how do we operate within the self-help world to make sure it does not become an idol? How do we ensure that it remains a tool for us, just like our ability to grind, but it doesn’t become the project itself?
I’m glad you asked. Here are some of my ideas and I look forward to any you might have as well.
- Use a cycle of consume, enact, reflect
Too many of us read self-help as if the reading is the useful part. Go to social media and you’ll see more than one post (especially toward the end of the year) with a picture of a stack of books and a caption such as, “28 books down this year. Cheers to always getting better.” I love to read and think that reading is the superpower to leading well, living better, and not being a complete arrogant jerk all the time. But I think we need to remember that reading is the beginning, not the end.
As an author myself, I never hope that reading my work is where you end your relationship with it. My aspiration is that my words may be reflected in your actions-that you take what I write and turn it into movement. Andy Frisella warns of the “success zombie” who reads all the books, goes to all the seminars but never acts on it. Guess how much success that person gets – yea, not much. Don’t be a success zombie.
Instead, here is a framework for how to use self-improvement work to well, improve:
- Consume. Read, listen to, and watch whatever it is you are taking in. Take notes in the margins or on notecards of things that stand out to you, make you question, and surprise you. At the end of each section or chapter, summarize it in 3 sentences or less.
- Enact. Here’s where most of us never go. Take the summaries and notes you made and create an “action list” of 3-7 things you can start to do from what you consumed. It can be things like, “write out my priorities each day” or “drink more water”. Then, do those things for a week.
- Reflect. Last, go back to your 3-7 action items at the end of the week and reflect on which were helpful and which were not. Choose the 1 or 2 that you honestly think you can sustain and incorporate them into the next.
Too many of us read a book then set it down, grab the next one to read, and so forth without thinking about or acting on it. To make sure self-help is a tool for you to be better, start using the cycle.
- Don’t try to be an empty vessel
When I was fresh out of college, my first job was teaching history to an awesome group of eighth-graders. I remember on my first day, my mentor told me, “just remember, these kiddos aren’t empty vessels.” At the time, I knew what she meant in theory – she was reminding me that each student came to class with previous knowledge, past experiences, and maybe prior trauma that influenced how they learned and interacted. However, in practice, I just did the same thing I would have anyway. I acted as if I carried some magic knowledge that if I could just fill them up with, they would be good to go. Well, that didn’t work and it won’t work for you either.
A downfall of most self-help is that it must be created in somewhat of a vacuum. The author takes their experiences, or some interviews, and gleans helpful information from it. We can’t expect an author to write for our specific life and context and yet we read self-help as if they did. News flash: when you read or listen you can question, disagree, and alter information to fit your own circumstances. You are not an empty vessel just waiting to be filled with the latest self-improvement work. You are a person with a personality, a history, and a knowledgebase that informs how meaningful any piece of work is. Use that history, don’t ignore it.
- Keep your purpose for improvement close to your heart and your eyes
Grab a sticky note. No, really go get one. Got it? On that sticky note, write out one purpose you have for wanting to get better. It could be as big as “be a better father” or as specific as “gain my next promotion”. I’m not a big believer in SMART goals so don’t worry about that. Now, take that sticky note and put it on your bathroom mirror, computer monitor, refrigerator door, or anywhere that you visit a lot. Feel free to even make a couple. You are literally putting your purpose close to your eyes.
As you consume self-improvement work, hold that purpose close to your heart. Think of it often, filter each chapter of the book through it. Remind yourself every time you pick up the book to read, why you are reading it.
By putting your purpose for improvement near your heart and your eyes, you can read self-improvement work as a means to an end and never as an end to itself. It helps you remember to be thankful for what you currently have and who you currently are because it honors your reasons for improvement instead of ignoring them.
Getting real about self-help is important because it is super popular right now to indulge in self-improvement as a goal. Just as we spoke about with the grind, self-improvement is not a goal. It is rather, a means to reach the bigger and much more important goals you have for your LIFE. Use the “consume, enact, reflect” cycle, build upon who you are already, and get some sticky notes to remind yourself of why you want to get better in the first place.
I hope that we can all start to use self-improvement for our LIFE improvement. Never allow the temptation of getting better take away your gratitude for being great. Some of the people who I think need this message the most are those who, to the rest of us, are incredible. The self-critics out there who always think about improvement but fail to see what the rest of do – they are already pretty darn awesome. If you’re a human being with other human beings around you that you love, be grateful for who you are right now. I want you to get better, I want you to consume self-improvement work, but I also want you to recognize that if improvement relies on a present state. You matter, right now, right where you are. Improvement is simply the way to level up for specific purposes.
Weekend Challenge
Not a lot of brainpower to figure this one out. I want you to try the three steps above, this weekend. If you are currently reading a book or listening to something focused on self-improvement, start these three right away. These points became very relevant to me while I completed Andy Frisella’s 75Hard program which requires 10 pages of reading every day. That program is popular right now and these reading tips are the way to elevate your outcomes. Use the “consume, enact, reflect” cycle on the next chapter and make some purpose sticky notes to add to the cover of the book, and wherever you’ll see it.
If you’re not currently consuming any kind of self-improvement work, then start fresh. Gather yourself a book, podcast, or audiobook and start these practices right from the get-go.
I’d love to see what you all are reading or listening to and hear about how you are using it instead of celebrating it. Share a picture of your purpose sticky note with us and use #LIFEcouncil and tag me (@life.enacted) so we can work through this sticky mess called LIFE, together.
Until next time. Best today. Better tomorrow.