On The Self-Help Industry
This piece is about the relentless search for personal satisfaction and begins with an inquisition as to whether or not the consumption of an industry’s “self-help” material is actually valuable to the human experience. Walking through any bookstore today, I come across titles like, “How to Not Give a Shit” and “Be the Best You! (In 7 Easy Steps)”. And I think to myself, first, why are these titles so aggressive? And, can there really only be 7 steps? There seems to be an endless array of content for every question and issue that arises, even if it’s insignificant. I believe this thinking, that one should never be satisfied with themselves, comes from our culture’s deeply embedded obsession with recognition and the pursuit of greatness at the cost of one’s true self. We are encouraged to buy and consume anything that will help us believe we’re becoming remarkable people, without actually understanding what it is we’re consuming or if it’s even helpful at all.
The Self-Help industry is booming with its market value being $9.9 billion in 2016 and is expected to grow to $13.2 billion by 2022. We, as a humanity, are evidently drawn to continuously improving ourselves. And I completely understand why – who wouldn’t want to become the best version of themselves? However, not all the books we’re reading, podcasts we’re listening to, YouTube videos we’re watching are actually helping. It comes down to asking questions like: who is the content producer? What do they want? There seems to be a blurred line between the passion to actually help people and the passion to make a lot of money. It also comes from knowing what one wants to attain from the content. Not every idea or method should be applied to one’s life just because it makes it sound worthwhile. Taking only what is needed has been a guiding force in my own life.
“Self-Help” is an interesting word in itself. It assumes that I know myself when I am still getting to know myself and still learning every day. How am I supposed to help someone I haven’t fully met yet? They push timelines and expectations when we all move at different paces. How am I supposed to develop a “self” when there are many selves? There is the self at school, the self with my friends, and the self that I am when I’m all alone.
Maybe I’m getting too specific and this is supposed to be looked at more generally, but I’ve always been one to overanalyze things and try to understand why things work the way they do.
I want to make it clear that I think there are self-help books and content out there created only with the purest intention to help people and not everything we’re consuming is misguided. In fact, anything that pushes oneself to change for themselves is praiseworthy. I think self-help content can be valuable if one doesn’t delude themselves into thinking that mindlessly consuming content until one reaches a state of information overload is beneficial. It is understanding what one needs and giving it to themselves, and at the same time avoiding the need to excessively search for new ways to become some sort of super-human.
I have read my fair share of self-improvement books recommended by random book lists and bought by family and friends especially near the New Year, the season of new beginnings and lists of resolutions, wherever the wind blows. A lot of these books have the same idea but different wording and packaging. Every voice is alike. Nonetheless, reading common sense brings a sense of comfort and it can feel satisfying to have it written out for us in a beautiful new book as a reminder to take action. Even with knowing that a lot of this self-help material echoes one another, I’m still drawn to it.
The eagerness to want to continuously improve oneself is a peculiarly compelling one and I suppose it begins or does not begin in childhood. Pep talks before games. Report cards brought home with a “you could do better” speech. Silent (or tearful) car rides home after auditions/basketball games/competitions. The push to always be the best. I have felt compelled to challenge myself ever since I was a little girl. This drive within me hasn’t gone away but I don’t feel any dissatisfaction with my life. The environment I grew up in has shaped me up to a certain point, but I consciously chose to develop myself further past the external circumstances. All of our experiences are different, which makes it very difficult for self-improvement content to acknowledge that, so it is crucial to take in only what is necessary and understand what is truly important. One has the ability to change, without entirely relying on outside sources. No self-help book is ever going to help one improve if there is no desire for improvement. And improving oneself is rarely, if ever, done in 7 easy steps, it’s a lifelong process that comes with learning every day and choosing to learn. It comes from observing oneself, studying oneself, catching onto bad habits and learning to let go.
Again, not to say that all self-help books are incapable of changing one for the better, because at the end of the day, we know what is best and only we’ll know how to give it to us and that could come from the content we consume. I’ve grown up to realize that while the self-help industry may want to capitalize on our insecurities and fears – self-improvement in itself is valuable when one takes action, absorbs only what is necessary from the content, is critical of what they consume and doesn’t take it too seriously.
*I use self-help/self-improvement interchangeably throughout!