Is Self-Help a Scam?

By Author Denise Turney – chistell.com

Self-help is an industry that pulls in billions. And where there’s billions of dollars, there could be a scam. Hallmark of a scam is a confidence trick. After all, if you don’t believe in an idea, product or service, you probably won’t try it. Every sales pro knows this. The first step to a sale requires gaining a buyer’s confidence or trust.

Gain trust is something people in the self-help industry do well. In fact, the industry pulls in loads of revenue. In fact, Market Research reports that, in the United States alone, the self-help industry was worth $9.9 billion in 2016.

bird using self-help to reach object in tree
Beautiful colorful bird – Wikimedia Commons – Picture by Andrew Mercer

Self Help Industry Facts

Self-help products and services range from selfhelp books, life coaching, online self improvement courses and weight loss programs. In 2016, motivational speakers and personal or life coaches raked in $1 billion each. They were followed by selfhelp books ($800 million) and audiobooks ($769 million).

Those numbers alone are enough to entice a person to enter the self-help industry, including people with good intentions. But does self-help work? Who’s measuring self-help products and services for effectiveness?

A scam doesn’t do what it builds your confidence to believe that it does.

Measuring Self Improvement Products and Services

Is it possible to measure whether reading a self-improvement book or using a self-help app played a pivotal role in helping someone to lose and keep weight off, move away from an addiction or sleep better long term? Perhaps, and more importantly, can a constant focus on self-help prove tiring.

Also, if self-improvement products and services work, why do the same people keep turning to more of the products and services? It’s like going to the same surgeon for a knee replacement ten times. In this case, could it be that the surgeon’s work isn’t effective?

Downsides of Self-Help

Lack of effectiveness may be only one downside to self-help. Even more, it’s possible to start to feel as if you’re always spotting faults in yourself. It can start to feel as if you always need to “get better” or “be better”.

When I look back on the years when I read dozens and dozens of self-help books (I used to almost always buy a self-help book when I went book shopping), I appreciate the fact that I finally realized that I could read all the self-help books in the world and still think that I was coming up short somewhere. That shared, I must say that I did move forward with my finances and mind stillness after reading and completing exercises in some of those self-help books.

For me, the downside came when I started to believe that I needed to read “one more” self-help book. It was as if I was trying to work my way to a point where I believed that there was no other improvement needed because I had become perfect.

What Are You Really Searching For

Finally, I stopped buying self-improvement books in mass. Why? It had started to send the message that there would always be something wrong with me. All I had to do was “look”.

Will Storr shares in The New Yorker that, “People are suffering and dying under the torture of the fantasy self they’re failing to become.” Also, with self-help books, you’re often self-diagnosing. But what you think is your challenge may, in fact, only be a symptom.

And just how objective are you when it comes to eyeballing yourself? Even more, what are you really searching for when you reach for that next self-help book?

A Never Ending Journey

Change is inner work. But do you need to change, or do you just keep repeating that line to yourself? And if a self-help book, seminar or motivational speech doesn’t work, how will you know? After all, you could simply say that you’re the problem. You could just tell yourself that you just came up short again.

Perhaps, an answer is to allow your life to unfold all on its own. To accept that, regardless of what you do, think or read, you’re going to feel challenged, confused, certain, sad and happy from time to time. And that may not be because you’re flawed or because something is wrong with you.

Instead, you could be on a journey, a journey that calls for climbing at times, floating at times, resting, running, walking, stillness and movement. You could be on a journey that you can’t read your way through. In fact, you could be on a journey that you have no choice except to live through.

Resources

https://www.inc.com/matthew-jones/11-billion-reasons-self-help-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know-truth-about-happiness.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-power-prime/201104/personal-growth-is-the-self-help-industry-fraud

4 Easy Ways to Give Yourself the Chance to Win

African American woman smiling looking up with flowers on her head as she is giving herself a chance to win
African American Woman Smiling with Flowers – Wikimedia Commons, Picture by Autumn Goodman

Give yourself a chance to win if you want to fulfill your purpose. To start, let yourself nurture desires that come from your true Self. Signs that you’re giving yourself permission to get what you truly want include a clearer vision of what you want and expanding appreciation. Additionally, you’ll feel a sense of “Thank You” more frequently and perhaps even more intensely.

Get Clear Vision to Give Yourself a Chance to Win

To reach appreciation, you might have to forgive. Forgiveness may be required, because you might be holding errors that you committed against yourself. You might be holding yourself hostage, away from peace, joy and new levels of success, until you pay for past mistakes.

Do this and you might force yourself to live in isolation, enter destructive relationships or develop physical illnesses. You also might trip yourself up each time you start to succeed. For example, you might willfully break a law, company policy or argue until you push people to be against you.

Practice awareness and catch yourself if you try to sabotage your success. Keep in mind, sharpening self-awareness is one consistent action that you can take to get clear vision. Here are more actions that you could take to get clear vision and give yourself the chance to win.

Daily Inner Vision Sharpeners

Write in a journal. Writing in a journal is effective at releasing thoughts and emotions. Additionally, journal writing is also a good way to jog memories that may be sabotaging your success. When you write in a journal, you might also make room for new insights, subconscious thoughts or formerly hidden guidance to breakthrough.

Sleeping deeply and sufficiently is another action that can sharpen inner vision, giving you the chance to win. Prayer, meditation, walking in nature and sitting in a peaceful area like a back porch are other actions that you could engage in to sharpen your inner vision.

Keeping a dream journal may also help. Further, you might start to see one or more symbols show up in your dreams hours, days, weeks or months before you experience a major inner or external shift. Pay attention to your dreams. After all, your subconscious mind or your real Self might be trying to get a message through to you.

Follow Right Guidance

There’s a lot of guidance in the world. For instance, you could seek out the guidance of “experts”, people who have spent years doing what you want to start doing or you could listen to naysayers. Look back over your journey and you may find that you’ve listened to all three at different junctures in your physical experience.

What results did you get when you sought out and followed these people’s guidance? Were the results as “spot on” and rewarding as the results that you got when you followed guidance from your real Self?

Here’s a warning as you give yourself a chance to win. As you follow your real Self, you might invoke sharp criticism from people who believe their lives would be better, easier, happier, if you do what they say. In this case, avoiding these criticisms might require you to go against your real Self.

This is when your clear inner vision helps even more. Plainly put, let yourself want what you truly want, practice forgiveness and self-awareness and nothing may stop you from succeeding. This doesn’t mean that criticisms won’t sting. It means that you won’t stop.

Take Action

Giving yourself a chance to win calls for action. As you advance, don’t be surprised if necessary actions feel like risks. After all, you’re on a new road. There will be unexpected experiences. You may not like some of these unexpected experiences, let alone be able to control or change the events.

For instance, a parent or child may transition (this person’s physical experience may end). As another example, a job may end or change significantly. Even more, you might relocate, start or end a long-term relationship or change a thought pattern that you formerly sought comfort from.

To help yourself, practice patience and keep going. Give yourself time to adjust to changes that enter your life as you start to pursue what your real Self wants.

Follow hunches. Don’t stop yourself by only dreaming about what you want. Go after what your real Self wants. As an example, if a loving relationship is what you want, explore more. Visit places that your inner guidance leads you to.

Keep Going

Work on your communication skills. Also, focus on being flexible, open minded and non-controlling. Spot when you engage in projection as a way to avoid dealing with what you fear. Throughout the entire process, take full accountability and responsibility for your life.

Here’s another example. If you want to operate a successful event planning company, research prospects, discover best places to spread the word about your business and build your team. Also, follow inner guidance and take on small events to learn about decorating, photography, floral designs and meal planning.

Additionally, discover financial investments that you will make to achieve success. Get serious about your success investment. Sharpen your inner vision, consider journaling and dream logging and follow inner guidance. Take smart action. And keep going. After all, it is your life. You really should give yourself a chance to win.

It is my hope that Love Pour Over Me will help you as you work your way to the success you want, especially if you have inner challenges to progress through. Love Pour Over Me tells the fictionalized story of a talented athlete who was abandoned by his mother and left to be raised by an abusive father. Despite the challenges, his ended is marvelous.

Love and Success – See Yourself There Right Now

photo of woman standing on sunflower field with her arms up in love with success
Woman Celebrating Success Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Love and success are part of your natural DNA. Yet you have to be willing to receive these blessings. Fortunately, there is never a reason to delay receiving either. It’s worth noting that love and success are not in the past or in the future.

Receive Love and Success Now

They are just not there. Instead, they are in the present, where the point of power is. There is no past. There is no future. This instant is the only time where you can make a change. Now!

Don’t put off taking the actions that can bring you the change you want. This instant is the only time that you can bring change into your life. If you think about it, you’ll see – there really is no future. And you can’t go back to the past. You can change everything right now! Right now, you can see yourself where you want to be, having the amazing experiences that you want. Don’t see yourself there in the future – See yourself there RIGHT NOW!

That’s power! Why don’t you use that power to make the choices that insulate you in peace and joy! You can do it right now! Nothing anywhere can stop you! Seeking an example?

Mulukan accepted her point of power when she was six-years old. She walked away from the only safety that she knew, the people she had grown up with, the only people she had known.

Make History

That choice led her through arduous experiences, ones that found her contemplating quitting on her entire life. At the instant when all seemed lost, as if she would only fail, Mulukan received help from the most unlikely places.

Fortunately, for Mulukan, she was still at a place where it was easy for her to trust. Choice by choice in the point of power (this very instant), she made it from abject poverty into her marvelous destiny! She could have stayed where her physical eyes told her it was safe and ended up drowning in misery, boredom and complacency. That’s not what Mulukan chose. Her courageous choice saw her become the first woman president of a country in Africa.

Ready for love and success? Ready to see yourself there RIGHT NOW? Do this for 3 to 5 minutes a day – REALLY see yourself where you want to be and watch what happens!

You can read about Mulukan’s story in Long Walk Up