The Self-Help Trap: What 20 Years of "Optimizing" Has Taught Me

During time of peace, prosperity and ZIRP like phenomenon, self help takes on the form of Law of Attraction, The Secret etc.

During time of war and uncertainty, self help takes on the form of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.

We are conditioned beings, we respond to the macro environment and dynamics.

>> If I fix the things that aren’t OK, all will be well. If I improve myself enough, if I only work hard enough, I can finally eliminate my suffering.

>I hate to inform you, but this doesn’t work. I’m also thrilled to inform you that this doesn’t work. You can stop picking up a lot of boulders.

Really reminds me of Oliver Burkeman. Take https://www.oliverburkeman.com/never for a start:

I might be stuck with certain inner disturbances forever [...] It turns out my really big problem was thinking I might one day get rid of all my problems, when the truth is that there's no escaping the mucky, malodorous compost-heap of this reality. Which is OK, actually. Compost is the stuff that helps things grow.

> Self-help is dangerous precisely because it easily becomes self-fixation.

In my self-help journey I came across meditation which ultimately led me to altruistic-based practices. So can't relate.

> A focus on improving the self usually first requires finding problems with the self

Oh I got in there the other way around. I wanted a few things out of life socially speaking but society was blocking me somehow. So I went out to investigate why that is and then studied it all and then solved my own problem. In order to do that, I had to improve myself as I wasn't connecting well with the world. I'm much happier with how I do that nowadays.

Self-help books are based on first telling you you have a problem, then selling the solution. I get that some are actually correct, but the industry as a whole can only be sustained by inventing new problems and/or making sure newer generations learn about existing ones.

Ferris is a self-help book author, and while I kinda get where he's driving at, it also feels like he's just doing the same thing again, but meta - overconsumption of self-help book is like a dog chasing its tail (or a snake giving himself a BJ?), here's a solution. I'm somewhat surprised it's just an affiliate link blogpost instead of a whole book.

> The older I get, the more I think that self-help can be a trap. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. I say this after ~20 years of writing self-help and a lifetime of consuming it.

so, the self help didn't help and he passed the problem on his readers. Great!

Didn't realize who's blog I'm reading. I was intrigued by the title, being a fan of 'self help' books. I mostly read about productivity (i.e. Feel-Good Productivity is a good one IMO), health, living a balanced life etc. and was expecting to find some a-ha moments in this post. I didn't. It confused me more than anything often talking about 'relationships' as if this is the only self-help kind of book there is.

And I have learnt a ton of lessons from self help books like the one I mentioned above, Arete, "how to make friends and influence people", Atomic Habits and others, without looking to fix any unhappiness, flaws of myself or whatnot. Was just curious what other, more experience people have learned about life that I can learn without having to wait 20-30+ years.

I enjoy self improvement, but there is something deeply therapeutic about self non - improvement.

I don't say 'self acceptance' because that's often described as a necessary precursor to changing whatever we find difficult to accept about ourselves.

Lots of good points. Just want to point out that this can quickly become another self improvement project with its own sources of stress, insecurity and so forth.

In Tibetan Buddhism, there is a lojong slogan: "Self-liberate even the antidote". It refers to exactly this -- the practices we use to get away from bad habits may themselves become bad habits. Rather than embarking on an infinitely recursive run of trying to stop self-improving, just don't be black-and-white about things.

One source (of many): https://medium.com/kaitlynschatch/lojong-practice-journal-se...

Modern self-help is as much a sham as are management gurus, which is no surprise because they overlap. Who cannot recall "Start with why?" or the "7 habits of highly effective people"? They play on your insecurities and promise silver bullets. If they don't work it is because you are, of course, deficient. You need another self-help book or follow this guy on Insta. Indulging all this self-help stuff is just another form of procrastination, instead of doing it you talk and read about doing it. It's just like learning Org-mode (no offense) to be better organized instead of, you know, organizing.

My waking call was, ironically, another management book "The Management Myth" by Matthew Steward (I think), which just showed me the ridiculousness of it all.

    It’s the relationships, stupid

Maybe I have to climb Maslow’s pyramid to be compatible with those?

Hm - even an essay knocking down self-help has the same flaws that self-help itself. It tries to reduce everything to a couple of vague principles and clal it a day. It 100% reads like something written by someone who's been consuming self-help advice for 20 years. Useless.

I enjoy Tim's content and in the last couple of years he's definitely gone beyond his established "shtick". He's definitely done his own "dog-fooding", testing advice on himself and he's found some awesome people along the way.

I'm happy that he has gone beyond the "book / author of the week" format and this blog post is most welcomed.

Relationships are crucial, especially ones that help elevate yourself or, at least, keep you on a stable level instead of dragging you down.

> the point was never yourself.

> It was never the pyramid.

> It was never the optimization.

> It was the people around the fire.

okay this was very interesting "To continually improve yourself, you must continually locate the ways you are broken" haven't thought of it this way. Maybe I need to look into why i keep finding new books.

The "optimization" framing is where self-help tends to go wrong. Tyler Cowen has made a similar point that reading self-help books is often a form of procrastination disguised as productivity, because you're consuming meta-strategies rather than doing the actual work in whatever domain you care about.

Re: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:

A critical footnote got lost in the shuffle. In his later writings, especially notes compiled in The Farther Reaches of Human Nature from 1971, Maslow added a sixth level above self-actualization:

Self-transcendence

It means going beyond the self—seeking connection with something greater, such as service to others, nature, art, or the divine.

Why is it important? Well, for one thing, as Tony Robbins put it at an event long ago: “‘I, I, I, me, me, me’ gets to be a really fucking boring song.” But it’s not just a boring song; it’s dangerous to your health. Self-help [can be] dangerous precisely because it easily becomes self-fixation.

This post strikes me as immature. Ask an older person like your grandfather what they think about “self help”. And ask like you believe they are wiser than you, not some doddering fool from “another time”. Look, we’re all slaves to our childhood learnings. But you can change and learn to think in a new way—in a way that’s you. Just be you.

Agree with most of what he says. Fundamentally, we are relational and moral beings.

In Africa there is the concept of Ubuntu "I am because we are". Identity and personhood arises within community, rather than being constructed indivudually.

I think we need to differentiate between self-help in the modern sense, and viewing the self as a continuous process of engaging in meaningful activities, within community, with purpose that helps cultivate virtue. i.e "Becoming"

When self-help is treated as only individual optimisation, without any ultimate end it risk becoming self-referential.

Philosopher Charles Taylor describes a similar shift with modernity that he calls "Disengaged reason" [0]. Where reason is disconnected from moral frameworks, that once helped orient us.

The deeper issue may be Self-help/Improvement that is often not contained within these larger frameworks of meaning, that answer:

To what ultimate end?

[0] https://www.academia.edu/26548899/Disciplinarity_and_Islamic...

previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46743214

also here:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ismaildhorat_a-new-world-does...

Is it a style like his that LLMs have been copying lately?

"It was cold out, but none of us were cold."

"In that moment, there was nothing to do. Nothing to improve. Nothing to fix. It was perfect."

"We’ve all seen it. Clear as day, you can see the goal post at the top: self-actualization. LFG! It’s time to journal and 80/20 myself! Pass me a shaman and some modafinil. That’s the mission. That’s the point. Right? But hold on."

"Because at the end of the day—and at the end of a Montana night—the point was never yourself. It was never the pyramid. It was never the optimization. It was the people around the fire."

Poor Timmy. It’s hard when you spend two decades recycling the same crap-now we have to denounce said crap and gargle more “new” crap.

Self-help has never helped anyone. If it did, there wouldn’t be a massive industry waiting to prey on the people who are desperate for help.

Nonsense; This guy (and others of his ilk) is just a hustler.

People seem to lose all their common sense as soon as somebody trots out easy-sounding-without-effort-for-the-price-of-a-book soothing advice to solve all their problems.

Meanwhile the real "self-help" exists in plain sight in the domains of Philosophy and Psychology coupled with an understanding of Neuroscience/Biology.

People should checkout Hindu Philosophies of Samkhya and Yoga, Buddhist Philosophies of Japanese Zen and Tibetan Lojong, Greek/Roman Stoic Philosophies of Epictetus, Seneca, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius.

On the Psychology side checkout Self-Determination Theory, Applied Behavioural Analysis and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

On the Neuroscience/Biology front checkout the importance of circadian rhythms/diet/exercise/sleep along with needed essential minerals/vitamins/etc.

That will give you all the information you need to devise your own workable self-help regimen.

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