Can a book truly change your life? Self-help books promise just that, but how often do they deliver?
Firstly, what is a self-help book? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, self-help is “designed to help people solve their problems for themselves, rather than depending on others for help”. Therefore, a self-help book is a book designed to help you help yourself. It could vary from being a good person to performing well at school or even figuring out your relationship!
Interestingly, although self-help books have only gained popularity recently, classics like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics could, in terms of terminology, be viewed as early forms of self-help literature. It teaches one how to live a virtuous life and become righteous! Unlike modern self-help books, these works do not offer quick fixes but inspire deep reflection and personal growth, encompassing philosophical insights on virtue, happiness, and the purpose of humanity, thus guiding individuals toward leading a virtuous and fulfilling life. Therefore, self-help literature is not recent; it has been consistent, evolving from ancient texts like Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics to the sage advice of gurus, monks, and priests throughout history. Similarly, one might also consider religious texts to be primarily self-help in nature, as they aim to persuade and guide individuals both socially and personally.
But the question remains: do self-help books actually help?
It depends.
It depends on the kind of book and its author. In 2020, over 45,300 self-help books were published worldwide, making it difficult to comment on whether they are helpful. I used to be a self-help book girlie. This phase occurred during my 11th and 12th-grade years; I was confused about my life and curious about the outside world. I sought out self-help books because I believed they would remedy most of the problems in my life.
When I struggled with making friends?
I turned to How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.
When was I searching for happiness?
I picked up The Happiness Project.
When focus and productivity eluded me?
I read Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen.
Still, I ended up in my senior year of high school with few new friends outside of school. I was still confused and unhappy with my academic life. And I was still brain-rotting whenever I had free time. However, I quickly recognised why self-help books didn’t help me. I overwhelmed myself with so many self-help books that they began to blur together. Sometimes, I couldn’t recall the specific takeaways or differentiate the advice from one book to another, mainly when they covered similar topics like boosting intelligence, making friends, or being a better person.
This realisation led me to a significant revelation: practical self-help books should not merely present advice; they ought to persuade and educate! Specifically, these books’ aims should be to provide context and explanations about the origins of social pathologies while offering actionable frameworks that individuals can implement into their lives to improve.
I already knew I should socialise more to make friends, but that was useless; I needed to comprehend how to do it effectively. Self-help books usually do not offer new or original advice. They often recycle familiar advice: be kind, take good notes, stay attentive, and network for career advancement. However, I have to admit that sometimes they say something new. For example, in the book Goodbye, Things: On Minimalist Living by Fumio Sasaki, he clapped me when saying: “You do not need as many things as you have thought!” It struck me out. At first, when buying the book, I did not think I would one day throw 99% of my belongings away and live minimalist, but I just wanted to live neater so my parents would stop complaining about me. Then he starts to point out multiple things I might forget exist, and I should stand up and clean them out of my life. “The more things you possess, the more your possessions possess your mind.” However, such revelations are rare in self-help books. Most of the time, self-help readers already know what to do for their lives.
The true gems in the self-help genre are those grounded in rigorous research and detailed explanations.
A prime example is James Clear’s Atomic Habits. In his work, James Clear thoroughly explains every scientific concept of why even a tiny habit change can change your life cumulatively and how you can start adopting a habit smoothly. To be more specific, what James Clear is famous for the most is how the environment impacts your behaviour, which overlaps with what Fumio Sasaki talked about in his minimalist lifestyle book. If you would love to sleep better, you should start to employ sleep only in bed. In other words, you should practice not reading or working on the bed but only sleeping on the bed. By doing that, the muscle memory when you are on the bed would push you to sleep better. Above that, he later, after publishing the book, developed the theory and method in his book and explained them further on his blog jamesclear.com, MasterClass, and even invented an app! This shows how dynamic and practical self-help can be when well executed.
As you navigate the crowded shelves of self-help books, ask yourself whether the book in your hand offers a mirror to your own experiences and a window to actionable change or if it merely echoes familiar platitudes.
Choose wisely, and the right book might not just change your life, but it could redefine it.