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Writer's pictureAvani Sood

Are self-help books really useful?

When people are seeking to improve their well-being, many usually turn to self-help books or videos. Recently, there has been a demand in the market for self-help books and podcasts, many promising to make people successful, and confident, and improve their skills in a certain subject. But do they work and how can you directly benefit from practicing self-help? When you know how to use self-help to your benefit, you will be able to get the most of your money. These are the pros and cons of practicing self-help in order to reach your full potential.


There are plenty of good reasons to take a self-care approach in order to improve yourself and address your problems and issues. For example, one reason is that it allows for a sense of responsibility. By adopting a self-help concept, you can allow yourself to have a bit more control of what happens in your life.


While learning along the self-help path you begin to develop many skills and methods that allow you to overcome many obstacles in your life through the use of journaling, podcasts about learning how to deal with anxiety and depression, or books about learning how to put past your differences with others. This is empowering because you are beginning to take control of certain aspects of your life. This is emotionally satisfying because you will see your own accomplishments and all your work pay off.


Another benefit of adopting self-help concepts is that it allows you to become wiser and better. When involving yourself in the concept of self-help, you are learning many different topics that you can apply in real-life situations. You begin by increasing your self-awareness of problems, and with your newfound knowledge, you’ll be able to stop them sometimes even before they occur. As you start to learn how to see things as they are rather than how you expect them to be, you become your best advisor. Diving into the self-help concept more, you will be able to make good decisions for yourself without too many complications.


However, with these benefits, there are also some disadvantages that come with adopting self-help concepts. One disadvantage is that the concept of self-help reinforces unrealistic expectations. The self-help industry promises to make anyone into a better and more successful person. For example, if you feel insecure and have been for a while, these problems won’t be fixed by listening to a simple podcast. The whole progress of getting over certain insecurities takes time, not just the timespan of a 25-minute video. The entire industry does not actually focus on helping a person to change but on creating an illusion of real change.


Lastly, if you don’t apply it in the correct way, it will not help you. When reading self-help literature, many people get stuck in a loop of continuously reading. This kind of literature does this by making you realize what you have to do, but you keep reading thinking there would be more insight into helping you improve into a better person. This leads to a person seeking more insight, without ever reaching success since they are not applying the solution.




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