{"id":1160,"date":"2019-12-23T19:59:27","date_gmt":"2019-12-24T00:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chistell.com\/africanamericanfiction\/?p=1160"},"modified":"2022-10-29T22:12:08","modified_gmt":"2022-10-30T02:12:08","slug":"is-self-help-a-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chistell.com\/africanamericanfiction\/is-self-help-a-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Self-Help a Scam?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>By Author Denise Turney &#8211; chistell.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Self-help is an industry that pulls in billions. And where there&#8217;s billions of dollars, there could be a scam. Hallmark of a scam is a confidence trick. After all, if you don&#8217;t believe in an idea, product or service, you probably won&#8217;t try it. Every sales pro knows this. The first step to a sale requires gaining a buyer&#8217;s confidence or trust. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gain trust is something people in the self-help industry do well. In fact, the industry pulls in loads of revenue. In fact, <a aria-label=\"Market Research (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.marketresearch.com\/the-10-billion-self-improvement-market-adjusts-to-new-generation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Market Research<\/a> reports that, in the United States alone, the self-help industry was worth $9.9 billion in 2016. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"584\" height=\"389\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chistell.com\/africanamericanfiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/rainbow-bird-free-pictures.jpg?resize=584%2C389&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"bird using self-help to reach object in tree\" class=\"wp-image-1161\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chistell.com\/africanamericanfiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/rainbow-bird-free-pictures.jpg?w=800&amp;ssl=1 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chistell.com\/africanamericanfiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/rainbow-bird-free-pictures.jpg?resize=300%2C200&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chistell.com\/africanamericanfiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/rainbow-bird-free-pictures.jpg?resize=768%2C512&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chistell.com\/africanamericanfiction\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/rainbow-bird-free-pictures.jpg?resize=450%2C300&amp;ssl=1 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 584px) 100vw, 584px\" \/><figcaption>Beautiful colorful bird &#8211; Wikimedia Commons &#8211; Picture by Andrew Mercer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Self Help Industry Facts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Self-help\nproducts and services range from selfhelp books, life coaching, online self\nimprovement courses and weight loss programs. In 2016, motivational speakers\nand personal or life coaches raked in $1 billion each. They were followed by\nselfhelp books ($800 million) and audiobooks ($769 million). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;s measuring self-help products and services for effectiveness? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A scam doesn&#8217;t do what it builds your confidence to believe that it does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Measuring Self Improvement Products and Services<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>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, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chistell.com\/africanamericanfiction\/looking-for-real-self-help-stop-lying-to-yourself\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">can a constant focus on self-help prove tiring<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also, if self-improvement products and services work, why do the same people keep turning to more of the products and services? It&#8217;s like going to the same surgeon for a knee replacement ten times. In this case, could it be that the surgeon&#8217;s work isn&#8217;t effective?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Downsides of Self-Help <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Lack of\neffectiveness may be only one downside to self-help. Even more, it&#8217;s possible\nto start to feel as if you&#8217;re always spotting faults in yourself. It can start\nto feel as if you always need to &#8220;get better&#8221; or &#8220;be\nbetter&#8221;. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For me, the downside came when I started to believe that I needed to read &#8220;one more&#8221; 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>What Are You Really Searching For<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, I\nstopped buying self-improvement books in mass. Why? It had started to send the\nmessage that there would always be something wrong with me. All I had to do was\n&#8220;look&#8221;. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Will Storr shares in <em><a aria-label=\"The New Yorker (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2018\/01\/15\/improving-ourselves-to-death\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The New Yorker<\/a><\/em> that, \u201cPeople are suffering and dying under the torture of the fantasy self they\u2019re failing to become.\u201d Also, with self-help books, you&#8217;re often self-diagnosing. But what you think is your challenge may, in fact, only be a symptom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A Never Ending Journey<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;t work, how will you know? After all, you could simply say that you&#8217;re the problem. You could just tell yourself that you just came up short again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;re going to feel challenged, confused, certain, sad and happy from time to time. And that may not be because you&#8217;re flawed or because something is wrong with you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;t read your way through. In fact, you could be on a journey that you have no choice except to live through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.inc.com\/matthew-jones\/11-billion-reasons-self-help-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know-truth-about-happiness.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"https:\/\/www.inc.com\/matthew-jones\/11-billion-reasons-self-help-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know-truth-about-happiness.html (opens in a new tab)\">https:\/\/www.inc.com\/matthew-jones\/11-billion-reasons-self-help-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know-truth-about-happiness.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a aria-label=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/the-power-prime\/201104\/personal-growth-is-the-self-help-industry-fraud (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/the-power-prime\/201104\/personal-growth-is-the-self-help-industry-fraud\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/us\/blog\/the-power-prime\/201104\/personal-growth-is-the-self-help-industry-fraud<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-amazon wp-block-embed-amazon\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Long Walk Up: Childhood journey from tragedy to triumph\" type=\"text\/html\" width=\"584\" height=\"550\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen style=\"max-width:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/read.amazon.com\/kp\/card?preview=inline&#038;linkCode=kpd&#038;ref_=k4w_oembed_V4phr8kSmAgFSG&#038;asin=B09Z2BYQ87&#038;tag=kpembed-20\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Author Denise Turney &#8211; chistell.com Self-help is an industry that pulls in billions. And where there&#8217;s billions of dollars, there could be a scam. Hallmark of a scam is a confidence trick. After all, if you don&#8217;t believe in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chistell.com\/africanamericanfiction\/is-self-help-a-scam\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1009],"tags":[949,1046],"class_list":["post-1160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-self-help","tag-self-help-tips","tag-self-help-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Is Self-Help a Scam? - Real Life Stories, Books and Self Help<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Self-help is an industry that pulls in billions. 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