What Self-Help Doesn’t Want You to Know

The hidden truth I discovered after more than a decade chasing hope, hustle, and happiness

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Welcome to Beyond Self Improvement issue #126. Every Wednesday, I share an essay with practical ideas on finding personal freedom in an unfree world.

I will be switching from a weekly to a bi-weekly schedule. The reason is twofold. First, I want to give you more complete essays, which require reflecting and simmering on ideas longer without feeling rushed. Second, I’m excited about some projects: building a content creation system, developing branding, rebuilding my website, and studying a writing course I bought last November but have yet to crack.

See you in two weeks.

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Dear Friend,

I remember when it all started. I was a skinny, insecure teen, and my parents’ bookcase was full of self-help books.

One book stood out above all: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I procrastinated for years before finally pulling it off the shelf, but once I began reading, I was hooked.

I started exercising and watching what I ate. I began scheduling my days. I started noticing how I interacted in social settings. I read one self-help book after another. I practiced affirmations, took cold showers, and visualized achieving my goals. The more I exercised and worked hard, the more my confidence grew. I felt more motivated than ever.

"This is it," I told myself. This is what my life had been missing. It felt like I was taking control of my life for the first time. At least that's what I wanted to believe.

The world of self-improvement had changed my outlook, but I wasn't yet aware of its shortcomings. If you're new to self-development or have been doing it for some time, join me as we dive into the dubious world of self-help.

I Just Wanted to Be Somebody

Are you seeking a better life? Do you want to find freedom? Do you long to be happier? Have more money? Be better liked? Be somebody? Do you want to prove people wrong, those who don’t believe you can achieve great things?

This is where it all begins. At least, this is how it started for me. I procrastinated reading Dale Carnegie’s book because I didn't feel the need. That was until I moved to a new high school halfway across the country, where I was bullied and struggled to fit in. Sure, I met people and made friends, but I still felt lonely like an outsider. I constantly worried about what people thought of me and was driven to be liked by everyone.

Eventually, I grew tired of feeling invisible and turned to self-help. Generally, people come to self-improvement because, like me, they are dissatisfied with their lives. This sentiment is not wrong. Wanting to improve your life because you’re unhappy makes sense.

However, such motivation leaves us vulnerable to a predatory industry. If you're longing to get out of a dark place, you're susceptible to promises of salvation, no matter how suspect. We want to believe what we're told is true, especially promises of hope and possibility.

Self-improvement is appealing. A world of people trying to become better versions of themselves through effort and discipline that makes you feel like you’re making progress, where you’re growing and bettering yourself.

You tell yourself, this is it. While everyone else is partying and indulging in immediate pleasures, I’m working on myself and investing in my future. That thought makes you feel better about yourself and your life, as if you're embarking on a secret journey.

Finally, there's the possibility of climbing out of the abyss and into the light. A new voice of hope has replaced the old voice of self-doubt. You’ve absorbed the messages and taken the bait.

And that is when you become blind to the trap in wait.

I Got Addicted to the Feeling of Progress

Each time I read a self-help book, I felt accomplished, like a character in a video game leveling up. I felt excited after reading a book, and I'd return to my parents’ bookcase and pull another one off the shelf.

The cycle continued for some time: grab a book, read it, feel a rush of motivation, and crack open another one. On and on it went. If you don't see the problem here, let's look at the addictive nature of dopamine.

Addiction is not about the thing itself, but what the thing does to your brain. Dopamine is a chemical that hooks you, which is why self-help is so addictive. Intentional or not, the self-help world fosters within you the illusion that you're making progress, even if you're not.

You read a book and feel like you've achieved something. You attend a seminar and feel like you've invested your time wisely. You watch a self-help video and feel one step closer to finding the key to lasting happiness. You feel productive. That motivation lingers, compelling you to buy the next book, attend the next seminar, and watch the next video.

It’s only when you pause and reflect that nothing about you or your life has fundamentally changed.

Confusing activity with productivity is a common mistake. We convince ourselves that doing anything means making progress, which comes in many disguises.

It may appear as tidying the living room when an important project is due, or creating a schedule, posting it to the wall, and calling it a day. It may be buying a yoga mat, but never practicing yoga. Or printing business cards, but never going out and cold-calling. It may be highlighting a book, but never acting on the ideas. It may be reading books on entrepreneurship, but never starting a business.

Getting unimportant things done is a lethal form of procrastination because you’re tricking yourself into believing that you’re doing something worthwhile and making progress when you're not.

As Steven Pressfield writes in Going Pro, "The repetitive nature of the shadow life and of addiction is what makes both so tedious. No traction is ever gained. No progress is made. We're stuck in the same endlessly repeating loop.

That's what makes addiction like hell.

All addictions share, among others, two primary qualities:

1. They embody repetition without progress.

2. They produce incapacity as a payoff."

You don’t need to read every self-help book, attend every seminar, buy every online course, or listen to every self-improvement podcast. Learning is vital, but we know when consuming without taking action. Consuming is easy; applying ideas is hard.

This is the first trap many people fall into that has significant consequences. All you have to show for your efforts is fleeting motivation and a gut-wrenching realization that you have yet to achieve anything except to lighten your wallet.

You haven’t made any progress. You only got better at convincing yourself that you did.

Behind your self-help addiction, ongoing purchases, and constantly chasing motivation is something even more sinister: someone is profiting from you.

The only question is who?

I Didn't Realize I Was Being Sold

Here’s something you might not know. According to Custom Market Insights, the self-help industry is a $45B market, with a CAGR of 7.9% [link:

To put it bluntly, people are making money off of your self-loathing. The sales of books, online courses, podcasts, seminars, blogs, coaching, and live speaking events are just a few of the things offered by the industry.

So why does this matter?

I was obsessed with self-improvement and spent money on books and products, and continued consuming with a smile on my face and that all-too-familiar feeling of motivation fueled by fantasy. I never questioned the sellers' motives because they were the experts, and I was a nobody.

Self-help felt like a secret community of individuals discovering the keys to living well. Sure, the self-help gurus made money, but they provided so much value in return. They were trying to make my life better, weren’t they?

In retrospect, I was naive. Why? Because I wanted to believe what I was told was true, that with the right understanding, I could be happy forever. But there's a reason the industry is worth tens of billions. I was more profitable staying discontented and constantly seeking more knowledge than if I were happy and fulfilled.

Remember how we discussed how dissatisfaction compels you to want to improve your life? The self-help industry knows this and depends on you feeling flawed and needing to be fixed to draw you in and keep you coming back. It causes us to blame ourselves when it’s not working, reinforcing the sense of deficiency that drove us to self-help in the first place.

Oh, and they’re aware of the addictive nature of self-help. A combination of your sense of 'not enough' and needing improvement, and feeling a small high every time you consume their content, ensures you keep returning for more books, videos, and seminars.

Many self-improvement gurus will continue to make products for their addicted fan base, knowing you will keep buying. They depend on you thinking the next book, podcast, or workshop will provide the one tip or trick that will finally unlock the meaning of life.

You're one idea away from the workout that will give you the body you've always wanted: The business idea that will provide financial freedom. The secret that will unlock your charismatic self. The yoga practice that will offer spiritual liberation. The one idea that will transform your life so you can live happily ever after. And on it goes.

As you continue consuming, you think, “This time it will be different." But the only thing you have to show for your months, years, or perhaps decades of effort is a shelf full of self-help books and workshop binders and a credit card balance.

The self-improvement industry thrives on one belief: that something is wrong with you. The more you believe that, the more you consume. The more you consume, the less clarity and adrift you are from your true self.

Even if you apply every self-help idea in the universe, your sense of well-being will never change to the degree you hope for. Why? Because self-help was never designed to transform your life. Its function is to offer quick, easy solutions to your complex human challenges.

So, question your favorite gurus. Question the value of the books you read, the courses you take, and the seminars you attend. Ask yourself: Do I need to be told to drink more water, eat more vegetables, and exercise more from ten different books in ten different ways by ten different 'experts?

Ask yourself: Have I consumed more from this industry than I have gained from all the time, money, and effort I've invested?

I Tried to Stay Positive Until I Couldn't

That first year of discovering self-help, I felt great. I was happier, more confident, and felt more in control. I could see the possibility for my life and was genuinely excited to be alive. I was looking forward, not backward.

I felt more empowered, as I had discovered a previously hidden world that promised to free me from my misery. I was learning a secret handshake nobody else knew. “I’m going to be successful,” I told myself. At that time, success was having an important career and becoming wealthy. Of course, reality rarely meets our expectations.

It sounds silly in retrospect, but at the time, it felt like I would learn to be happy forever, or at least in a constant state of motivation. Self-development is a bubble. You’re surrounded by positive messages. Everyone is telling everyone else, “You’re all going to be successful and live your best life.” One book talked about gaining control of my time and my life. Another spoke about the power of positive thinking.

But every bubble bursts eventually. Mine burst when I realized none of the self-help stuff had fundamentally changed me or my life. I was still the person I had always been with all my fears, confusion, and quirks.

I had mistaken stimulation with transformation.

In that moment, it seemed like my whole world had collapsed. I was destined to be successful, someone who had it all together. And now, as I began to question the entire premise of self-help, I felt disillusioned. If self-improvement wasn't the solution to my difficulties, what was? Yet I tried to convince myself that there was still hope. That I had everything in check, as I always had.

Why?

Because I wanted to believe. The self-help bubble offered me positive messages, and that negative thoughts about quitting were wrong. Worse, I felt like if I accepted those feelings of unhappiness, I would revert to the old version of me that was anxious, irritable, negative, judgmental, lonely, disempowered, and depressed.

It took a year of inner self-talk until I finally realized I had to come to terms with my situation and accept the truth that the world of self-development was trying to hide from me.

Life will never be all positive. There is no one secret to life. Happily ever after is just a fantasy. Thinking positively all the time is unnatural. Knowledge alone is not enough to transform your life. No matter how great your life is, pain, struggle, and sorrow will be a part of the human experience.

It’s okay not to be okay.

In the self-improvement world of only positive, hopeful, good-vibes messages, I realized that struggle gives our lives meaning. If life were always smooth and easy, we'd become bored.

I Worked Hard Climbing the Wrong Ladder

In the world of fake gurus, social media entrepreneurs, and humble bragging, a self-help subculture has evolved: hustle culture.

This idea of grinding, optimizing, and being productive every second of every day has become synonymous with self-help and entrepreneurship. To be clear, I’m not saying that working hard is bad. You must be willing to put in the effort to achieve anything worthwhile.

The problem with hustle culture is that it glamorizes working hard for the sake of working hard, even if you’re not achieving anything. Because hard work is romanticized, people can convince themselves they're hustling, even when they're not.

Those bragging online about working hard are often the same ones procrastinating much and producing little. Others spend every waking hour trying to create something for themselves because hustle culture taught them it's the right thing to do.

Hustle culture has two problems. The first is the risk of burnout, or emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion. The second is working hard at the wrong thing. Working hard is one piece of the puzzle. Working on the right thing is the other piece. It doesn't matter how high you climb the wrong ladder.

After reading The 4-Hour Work Week, you may have been inspired to start a nutrition supplement business. You worked on it nonstop, writing educational pieces and promoting your business via social media. Your product line was a hit, and you're making money. For a time, you felt satisfied, but eventually you realized that you were never really interested in nutrition. You did it for the money, and it was an empty experience.

If you had stopped hustling and reflected on what you wanted, you would have seen this sooner. But instead, you continued to grind, believing what you'd been told: that hard work and consistency were the key to success and happiness..

It isn't.

It’s a facade and only one piece of a complex puzzle.

The shadow side of the self-help industry relies on you believing in these illusions to keep you coming back for more and blaming yourself when you fail to change your life in any meaningful and lasting way.

I Don’t Want to Fix Myself Anymore

Self-help has many shortcomings, but we are responsible for our lives and how we spend our time and money. No one is making us do anything.

Not all self-improvement is bad. Skills like building good habits and breaking bad ones can improve the quality of your life. However, because self-improvement only addresses the content of our lives, its ability to improve our well-being is inherently limited.

The great failing of self-help is that it doesn’t speak to our humanity. It fails to satisfy the heart's longing.

Many people start with self-improvement and gravitate to spirituality. Spirituality picks up where self-improvement leaves off. Unlike self-improvement, spirituality is exponential, speaks to our heart, and offers unconditional freedom, meaning, and fulfillment.

If you're wondering what you should and shouldn't be doing and what advice to listen to, I can only speak from my experience. Of the hundreds of things I've experimented with, only a few have helped me live an exceptional life: movement, eating the right foods, going to bed earlier and waking up earlier, stretching, foam rolling, meaningful conversations with friends, drinking enough water, meditating, psychotherapy, group therapy, mindfulness, walking, journaling, gratitud-ing, loving-kindness, being in nature, and reading books and listening to talks on spirituality.

The books I've reread the most are The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry by Jack Kornfield, and Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chögyam Trungpa.

Whenever you learn anything, don't accept it as true. Test every idea against your experience to see what is true. Keep what works and discard what doesn't.

Lastly, nothing outside of you is going to save you. Freedom is an inside job. At first, you may be scared until you realize how empowering it is to turn inward. Radically accepting your life exactly as it is is the pathway to peace and meaningful personal change. Real transformation begins when you stop fixing and start feeling.

Should you delve into self-help, avoid the traps I fell into.

Keep questioning,

Ryan

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Bonsai and Simba lazing about.