If you find yourself consuming large amounts of self-help material without seeing the results you desire, you are not alone. I found myself in that exact position when I realized I had read more about meditation than I had actually meditated. The cause of this issue is not the self-help material itself, but rather the way we use it.
The good news is: there is a simple fix to this problem, one you can implement immediately. First, I will explain the root cause of this phenomenon, and then I will offer an alternative approach to self-improvement that maximizes results.
Self-help material is not meant to change your life. It is meant to encourage you to change it.
Two different people can read the same self-help book and experience totally different results. This indicates a profound problem, not with the book itself, but with how we implement the ideas it contains.
Those who consume self-help material seem to fall into one of two categories: those looking to improve their lives, and those looking for entertainment. It is easy to start out in the former category only to find yourself entangled in the latter after some period of time. But how do you even tell where you fall right now?
If you are addicted to the "epiphanies" experienced when consuming self-help material, your primary motive is probably entertainment.
That moment of sheer delight experienced when you come across a seemingly genius statement about how to improve your life or the nature of reality may seem like the very purpose of consuming self-help material in the first place, but I propose that these moments have the potential to do even more harm than good.
It is easy to fall into a pattern of "epiphany-seeking," whereby you use self-help more for the entertainment value of experiencing great insight and less as a tool of for enacting real change into your everyday life. It is easy to become more concerned with gaining knowledge than actually using that knowledge because of the immense thrill of learning.
If you still aren't sure where you fall on the spectrum, consider the host of incredible ideas you have read about in your lifetime. Now consider how many of those ideas you have actually implemented and experienced great results from. Only a fraction, right?
Take the statement below for example.
Noticing when negative thoughts arise and then replacing them with empowering, positive thoughts can actually rewire the brain to look at obstacles as opportunities.
This is a truly remarkable statement, one that has the potential to entirely change the way you view the world. You have probably also heard it already in some form or another.
Have you had good success implementing it into your life? If so, you probably instantly recognize this statement as an undeniable truth. Those of you, on the other hand, who were in no way impacted by this statement probably fall into the category of people who believe the power of positive thinking is complete hippy hogwash.
Clearly, it can't be both. It cannot be both complete nonsense and one of the most liberating ideas ever. It is easy to hide behind the notion that every experience is different, or it just doesn't work for me, but I propose to you that those statements are the true hippy hogwash.
What if the statement is true, but you can only experience the benefits if you really take the time to implement the concept into your life? What if the benefits to be had from an idea say less about the idea itself and more about the way the person tried to implement it? If so, what is the best way to implement a piece of advice like this?
The most effective method of self-improvement is 10% learning and 90% practice. The one-tenth principle.
Reading 50 self-help books with the intention of learning how to change your life is not nearly as effective as reading one book with the intention of actually changing your life. I know it seems like I'm nitpicking, but there is a profound difference here.
This leads to a general rule of thumb which I have appropriately termed the one-tenth principle. You should only be spending one-tenth of your personal growth time learning, that is consuming self-help material, and the rest of the time should be spent practicing and implementing what you have learned.
When you look at the nature of self-help and what you are actually trying to achieve, the validity of this principle becomes remarkably self-evident.
The advice about positive thinking earlier may represent one of many pieces of actionable advice in a well-written self-help book, and yet can take an enormous amount of time to implement. Just reading the words is not enough.
When you come across a piece of actionable advice, you should stop reading until you have at least attempted to implement the piece of advice in your life. If you don't use it, you lose it.
Naturally, this is a very scary idea for anyone who uses self-help as a form of entertainment. It is not easy to give up the illusion that somehow consuming more material is better than practicing what you already know, but I found doing so had a profound impact on my life.
Here is my personal self-improvement method.
- I sit down with the intention of reading one section of the book. This may be an entire chapter or just part of a chapter that ends when the author digresses.
- I use a pencil to mark any statements of great insight or actionable advice that jump out at me as I am reading the section.
- I return to the marked section with the intention of implementing it into my life before I begin reading again. Or, in the case of no actionable advice in the given section (parts of the book called filler or fluff), I may continue reading.
I would then close the book and begin the process of implementation.
- In the case of the positive thinking statement earlier in this article, I may start my implementation of the concept by writing the idea in my own words and identifying some of the negative thoughts I have had recently that could be replaced by positive ones.
- I might spend the rest of the day, perhaps even the next couple of days, with the intention of keeping this idea at the forefront of my mind and actually trying to replace negative thoughts as they appear throughout the day.
- I might set an alarm on my phone to remind me to recognize negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. The easiest way to lose a good idea is by forgetting to practice it, and this is an easy way to fix that.
Don't ask yourself how much you can learn today. Ask yourself how much you can change today.
The key to deep understanding and implementation is thinking critically about each good idea you come across. And whether it's something you read in a book, saw on steemit, or heard at church, you are bombarded with good ideas everywhere you look. Start putting these good ideas to work, because remember: if you don't use it, you lose it.
When you start to focus less on learning as much as you can and focus more on implementing as much as you can, you will find that you achieve much greater results with considerably less effort. You will read less and do more, and you will be better for it.
If you enjoyed this article on the nature of self-help and how to make it work for you, please consider following me @tylerkmwilliams. I write articles with the intention of helping my readers to live happier, healthier lives.