can the book help the self? ALSO point I forgot! Maybe I'll talk about this more clearly in another video but self help in general sometimes make you feel like you're not enough, or you're not awake enough and you're on this constant path of self optimisation and chasing a happiness yadayada and makes you feel guilty. It also makes you forget to live and focus on stuff outside of ourselves...
when I took a book marketing course in uni, the instructor (a book distribution company's marketing director) brought up self-help books as selling the idea that something is wrong with you (hence why you need to buy the book, to fix yourself) and not selling methods for you to fix your situation. he basically said that if self-help actually worked, there wouldn't be any new self-help books every year. that has been stuck in my brain since I took the course like 7 years ago.
I think you should read The Rudest Book Ever by Shewtabh Gangwar I do that that self help as problem as George Carlin had quote about joke about self improvement which make sense is good criticism of self improvement. I do think better idea then self improvement is reading philosophy and psychology I think that problem with teasing spirituality is that though even though they are good advise they are not controversial people like Osho for example who was surely cult leader I think maybe in spirituality read Thic Nhat Hahh
The introspective is important though, you mentioned in the video that you picked this whole thing up by hearing of it and seeing it got lots of hits. Selfhelp is unimportant if this is the only incentive to actually do it. Improving myself is not that important if i don't have actual issues that make me suffer or feel bad, it makes it even ineffective because i don't know what i am actually shooting for. So i would strongly advise to stay with yourself and make sure it is actually something you need, there is something you actually want to change. What many selfhelp books suggest which is simply not true, you will not change the world around you. The only thing that changes is yourself, which might, sometimes change your overall situation down the line. The actual reward is the change you make to yourself, not the different situation you get into afterwards. Without introspection to find out if the change is something you really need, there will also not be much of a reward. The impression you got to feel inferior or guilty for not doing enough by reading these books probably comes from the fact that people are already feeling this way, otherwise they would not read the book anyway. So it is basically a good idea as an author to assume readers are at a certain point and start from there.
if these books didn't help you, it doesn't mean it's not worth to read .... it give us the hope , correct our path and helped us to continue... please stop trying making anything _ you don't like _ not important 🙂
The “that girl” movement ties in so nicely with the ideas you present in this video. It’s definitely aestheticized and feeds into this weird space of trying to promote self care at the same time as making people feel worse for not perfectly practicing it or look good doing it
@@itsdivyag The Take did a video on it, though I wish they went more in-depth and mentioned how men also have their own version, what with all the “Billionaire grindset morning routine” videos
@@itsdivyag It is! I forget if they already did a video on it or if I just wanted them to, but I hope they do make one! I see a lot of that billionaire mindset stuff through reaction channels like Drew Gooden, Danny Gonzalez, and Savannah (q-word that youtube hates)Kiwi
On the subject of laziness, I really liked the book Laziness Does Not Exist. It's by a PhD and talks about how a lot of our ideas around laziness stems from how capitalism influences us. It felt like a self help book, but with sources and enough context from the real world to be accessible
Life is complex, but the self care movement often promotes ideas as if they are applicable to all. Some might actually lack motivation and just need to do it, but others have deeper problems and procrastination is just the symptom.
Every self help book boils down to either stay positive and optimistic or stay present and don't think about past and future lol or take action. There always are times when neither of these are possible and some suffer way deeper
I started unfollowing influencers last yr because it felt like their lifestyle makes me feel bad for not having that privilege. The breaking point is when there's a phase where the influencers in our country started buying and recommending self help books to people when we all know that they're just using it for taking pictures and aesthetics not actually reading it, I'm so so so deeply disgusted :')
I have a friend who is an "influencer" she buys everything second had, she takes pictures at the entrance of hotels, goes to the room to "check it" then take selfies, but 1 drink every Friday and posts that she is parting but she goes home right after the photo....all lies.
How do you know that its just "aesthetics" you dont even know these people?! I think the problem is that people are just living their lives and clearly YOU are triggered by someone you dont even know because thats a reflection of your own insecurities that have nothing to do with them. Yes some influencers are not sincere/genuine but to write them off into this category that your judgements created is essentially doing what youre accusing them of doing... If youre that pressed about them posting about their lives then dont watch. Its really that simple. Im sorry but Im sick of this fake pity party of depressed emotionally unstable people blaming everything on influencers and not just being authentic and honest about where they themselves are feeling incompetent. It seems like bashing the "influencer" is a scapegoat to deflect from the deeper issues that need to be addressed. I say this as someone who works in mental health, people dont want to be accountable for their lives and their own emotional states and resort to projecting. Its like there is a codependency to these self help books and resources. And although there is some validity to the statements being made in this video, there are two sides to everything. People are waiting for some sort of magical divine intervention to come down and be their saving grace and dont want to be told to "just do it" but no person, place or thing can absolve your negative feelings. YOU have to make choices to reprogram your subconscious. Its easier said than done but Im quite sure throwing a pity party isnt the answer either.
I've noticed I don't really like self-help books, but I really like informational books that somehow relate to me. So for example, Doing Harm by Maya Dusenbery is about medical bias against women, which really validated a lot of my own experiences and had some good and simple advice in there as the author explored a ton of research.
@@xx011 I’ve noticed that too that I end up picking up information books than Self Help books since there’re so generic and oversimplifies several things that could hinder something
this is a great video! gonna put my input here as a disabled person: i also don't like self-help books. they're always aimed towards abled people. self help books in my experience are always like "exercise! stop being lazy! just get out of bed!" and i literally cannot do those things. my disabilities definitely impact my mental health & make me feel horrible for not being able to do things with my friends or do my school work, and when these self help books demonize those negative emotions, it makes me feel even worse!
I feel like this self-help kind of "just do it!" mentality is even prominent in medical settings. I have had doctors tell me "just move more!". I constantly have physiotherapists telling me I "cannot wear a brace because your muscles just need to get stronger!". If my muscles could get stronger, they would have by now. I also gained extra self doubt and self hate from those kinds of "encouragements", because it just puts all the blame on you, the patient. It's telling you "your pain is your own fault" and that is such a toxic mindset. I have been searching for an explanation for why my body cannot do what other people my age, or even older people, can do. Feeling those limits of my own body has left me incredibly frustrated but the only answer I got from a medical setting was "you are just not doing enough". I guess it's easier for them to assume it's the patient's fault. I am not disabled, but I relate to not being able to do things others can. And I share your opinion on these self-help books. They make me feel shame and guilt and I hate it.
@@isyvd Hi, I’m so sorry you’ve felt unheard and unsupported through your pain. I’m obviously a stranger on the internet and don’t know your situation, but I just wanted to give some potential clarification on what your PT meant as a PT student. Typically, overly relying on braces and assistive device can lead to muscle atrophy and reduce or degrade whatever your current strength level is. HOWEVER, your quality of life should be the main focus. If you need a brace to be able to do the things you want/need to do then use one! The key is finding a balance. It’s also important to understand the things that are holding you back. I agree it’s a lot harder/more nuanced than “just do it”. If you can’t do the type of exercises your PT gave you to gain strength it’s your PT’s responsibility to work WITH you to find something that works for you. Establish a baseline for the type of movement you can accomplish and work up from there a little at a time. And if that doesn’t work, they should help you find the best way to move with your brace so that you maintain/improve your current level of function. Also, mental health and physical health are extremely intertwined. Seeing a mental health therapist in conjunction with PT can make a huge difference, but I know unfortunately not everyone has the resources to be able to do so. Healing is not linear, there are ups and downs and it can be a slow slough, but having support and a team that listens to you and your struggles makes all the difference. I hope you can find a PT that makes you feel heard. I wish you all the best 💚
@@lovelylittleleeches Thank you for your comment! I wrote my comment with my very specific experience in mind. And that's the experiences of having chronic knee pain since 2019 (Chondromalacia patellae grade 3 detected on scan in 2020) but it always being written off and being told "just get a hometrainer and exercise your knee more". (I'm in my early twenties btw) Eventually it kept getting worse in 2021 so I went to physical revalidation in the hospital. They prescribed me physiotherapy and I diligently did so for months. But instead of making progress, my ankle became instable as well as my knee and daily activities got harder to do. My PT (I really like her. We've come a long way together) kept saying I didn't need a brace and it was just a matter of time and practice. But another month went by and as I started to go on walks more often, I noticed that walking exhausted and hurt my leg more than anything. So eventually, I did end up wearing a flexible brace. It helped for a while, until the doctor at the hospital decided that it was still a matter of me not doing enough and had me do 12 intensive revalidation sessions at the hospital, with PT's who barely knew my file or barely cared when I told them I was in pain. I missed my regular PT so much during that time. Eventually none of it helped (and in my medical records I am now described as "patient with vulnerable muscles" and "signs of hypermobility") and I was sent to Ortho. They did a scan and saw that my knee had gone from grade 3 to grade 4, down to the bone. And they also checked my ankle and found OCD. So now I have surgery planned for my knee, and I'm glad because at the moment my knee is in the worst state it's ever been (pain and swollen due to constant cartilage irritation bc of walking). But knowing that I spent all those months diligently doing physio and now I will just have to rebuild everything after the surgery...that stings the most. Luckily I do have a therapist and most of my sessions revolve around this topic. Sorry for the long reply, but I thought I'd explain what happened up until now to show that in some cases, even the most well intended and careful physical therapy won't have the promised results if there's other problems present. Problems that were known from the start, like my knee, or discovered in the process, like my ankle. Once again, I hope this wasn't too annoying (it feels quite odd to be talking about my medical journey in youtube comments) 😅 I wish you the best in your studies and in your future!!
It's like when I ask people and read things about how to make friends and have a supportive social circle and they're all like "put yourself out there" "you just have to talk to more people" "be confident". Ma'am I am neurodivergent, this advice means nothing to me, I need specifics.
the only self help book i liked was the life changing magic of tidying up by marie kondo, bc it’s more of a practical guide than generic advice. i like to think of it as the tipping point which made me prioritize improving myself and slowly changing for the better over the last several years.
yo same, and I love how marie kondo doesnt set rigid rules like "you can only have X amount of this in your home" or "if you havent used it for X years, you must throw it away". she really respects that the decision must come from the person and her methods all come back to the principle that everything must spark joy, and she recognizes that this is different for everyone. which is what more self-help should be imo, it's not a one-size-fits-all thing :) glad to see someone with the same experience as me with marie kondo
I do not read self-help books but Mari’s focus on the importance of surrounding yourself with things that bring you joy really helped me treat my need to feel conformable in my space and genuinely prioritise it. Heck, Mari Kondo’s cleaning helped me more than therapy 🥲
i find it pretty weird how focused modern society is on becoming an objectively better person, as if that even exists, the intention may be positive but the more self help content there is the more it perpetuates the idea that we NEED drastic help all the time and i fr don't have the energy to be in a perpetual state of inner doom
Yeah modern society is weirdly focused on what I learned is called toxic positivity. We wanna min-max ourselves and our lives so badly we circle back to a dangerous and unhealthy mindset. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that… It’s like how in Buddhism, a big part of it is letting go and going with the flow. As someone with a lot of anxiety I love that. But this self-help sort of mindset says you gotta try your absolute hardest to “let go” or you’re never gonna reach inner peace… which sort of is the exact opposite of letting go.
@@DeathnoteBB completely, hyper-focus on anything makes it so much harder to live w imo, you go into such a zoomed version of life that everything else bypasses you and it's harder to see a way out, eg for the longest time I used to over plan my routines in an attempt to fix habits but it would never work for YEARS, only in the last year or so where I stopped preparing for the future and just lived in the present has my routine naturally flourished the way I had wanted it to all along, and with minimal effort on my part except letting life happen to me sometimes instead of convincing myself I can control every single aspect that comes my way, we aren't all powerful gods where we can micro manage everything flawlessly
additionally, it also makes us less open minded and more willing to demonise others rather than looking at their motivations. this also links back to cancel culture and how people think procrastination is laziness. self help books are great at identifying what, but not why you’re acting in a certain way
Self help is more of a market than a movement in my opinion, it also isn’t very nuanced in the circumstances that might stop people from “bettering themselves”
Personally i like self help. I feel inspired… i feel like i want to do something… anything meaningful and such books like Ego is the enemy or the Laws of human nature have transformed the way i think. So yeah doesn’t work for everyone probably overhyped but definitely works for me
Yeah I like those books too, for me personally If I dont read philosophical books for a while my mindset alters back to my old self. Books keep my blades sharp.
Same! I read, “the subtle art of not giving a f” when I was 20 and loved it at the time… because I always said YES and cared about peoples feelings instead of my own.
The one "self-help" book I would recommend (and I hesitate to even label it that, because I don't think the author considers it a self-help book, but it definitely helped me) is The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown. Brené Brown is a researcher, and the book is the result of research she did over several years, and is presented to you as a series of guide posts that all interconnect with one another. She absolutely does not demonise negative emotions, and the book is all about helping you to deal with negative emotions without putting blame on you for feeling them. I highly recommend it to everyone!
thanks for talking about this, it's really refreshing to see a more critical perspective on self-help! i agree with what you said - the way that a lot of self-help content attributes mental health issues to the failure of individuals rather than to the systems that shape all of our lives is problematic, to say the least.
The problem with self-help books are the author's overestimation of their experiences and worldviews as right by virtue of getting THEM out of their own ditch, and the readers high expectations of THIS being the one piece of literature to get them out of theirs. Every single time I pick up a self help book, I go in with the mentality that "a broken clock strikes right twice a day"; every book, no matter how bad, has a thing or two that might resonate positively. It also depends on the person, because if you are the type of person who gets inspired through example, then self-help books might be of more value, but if you go in with some serious depression and choose to read a book which puts all the weight of your depression on your (rightful) lack of energy by not rising at 6 AM to make the most of the day, then well, yeah... I believe it will just exacerbate your feelings of worthlessness.
this!! and also ignore how disability/mental illness influence peoples lives/motivation. i have adhd and started reading the subtle art of not giving a fuck and it felt.. lazy in its writing and also very arrogant. a lot of what he was saying just didn't apply to me and didn't seem particularly helpful for neurotypical people either since it really seemed like he was trying to shame people into 'helping' themselves which is not a healthy way to grow.
what I've learned from the 'self help' industry is that Inside Out is more helpful for the self than any of the self help books puked out by the whole industry. sadness is needed and healthy part of us :3
Here is my self help mantra : Read self help like you take medicine. We don't take medicine like we eat rice. Same here. Just read few standard books, but read them well. Then just move on with your life. Don't read 20 self help books a year. Just 2 will suffice. It works just fine (atleast for me)
This is the perfect timing cuz I’ve heard this thing about “You control your emotions, you choose to feel them” or smth and recently I’ve been feeling a lot of negative emotions (I may or may not have wrote two hate songs about how my friends piss me off and also I’m from Russia so every day is quite a struggle of not punching everyone in their face) and I felt guilty about being like this but also I understand that If people piss me off then I have all the right to be mad at them so yeah Idk what was the point I wanted to make but I guess it’s I needed this discussion about self help books and quotes and I got it thank u💞
Lol I have no desire to discover who I am, what my identity is and what purpose this life bears, cuz bish I don't care. I'm just trying to survive one day at a time, taking care of myself so I don't fall apart at the end of the day while maintaining work and relationship is hard enough. Ain't got no time to sit there and read a book that tells me how I need to go on this journey to discover this and that. I just hope that more people know that it's okay to not yet discover your identity or purpose in life. It ain't that serious keke
There is deffo a convo about how sometimes this obsession with self discovery comes to a point where it becomes detrimental hah and all consuming like you're not good enough and must continually strive to be better, know your boundaries etc etc. part of it is just navigating life. youre deffo right it does feel a pressure to discover yourself and stuff
first of all: love the hair so much. 🥰🥰🥰🥰 butt yeah i really hate how self help books just tell u that if u work hard enough anything is possible. though there is some merit to that, they rarely take into account any kind of nuance. and it teaches readers that people who dont have their life together deserve it because they didnt try hard enough. they give the same vibes as those motivational vids of millionaires or smth on youtube. and the subtle art of not giving a fck was terrible 😞 i couldnt even finish the audiobook 😒
When a self help book is bad.. it's BAD. They're deffo no replacement for actual professional help for specific problems but even in more general problems some statements have a very limited world view
I don't think you're really fit to judge a book you haven't finished. pretty much all self-help books are terrible but the subtle art of not giving a f*ck by mark mason is actually one self-help book that has decent advice in it, and not just rehashed fortune cookie messages. it's not for everybody, it's for a specific type of person (those who live on the fringes of society you could say, and don't follow the norm). but it's a real self-help book that works. i've had many recovering drug addict friends rave about it to me, and they are all healthy now. so it must've done something good.
I’m pretty happy to see a video about this. The self-help community can be confusing and intimidating to me at times🥴🥴also sidenote, you look stunning! I love your hair
I recently read 'How to be Sad' by Helen Russell and it wasn't like mainstream self help books at all - it's all about dealing with sadness by accepting it instead of running away from it. The writer talks about her own life as well as talking to other people so you get different perspectives and see all the research that went into the book. I felt like it helped me and I learned a lot too and I'd recommend it to everyone.
The quotes you read from 101 Essays are so unnuanced and rooted in the idea of meritocracy, as you said. I remember I had to watch a ted talk on the dark side of meritocracy for a uni course, and it seems like the author of this book watched it too and then decided to say the exact opposite. The ted talk I believe was Allain de Botton's "A Kinder Gentler Philiosophy of Success" and in it he called for stepping away from the absolute meritocratic ideal. Because in the eyes of meritocracy, everyone gets the same starting point, the same oportunities, and if you don't get anywhere in life, that's on you. It devides life into winners and losers. And people who are 'losers' deserve to be looked down on because, in the eyes of the meritocracy, it's just bc they aren't doing enough. Losers deserve no empathy. That is the kind of society we live in now, and the pressure it puts on people is insane. Because it completely denies the fact that there will be things in a person's life that simply cannot be controlled. Things like genetics, gender, race, familial circumstances, family income or status, educational opportunities, job opportunities, physical health issues, mental health issues, etc. are ALL things a person does not have a say in, but that can drastically change the 'starting line'. This inevitably leads to inequality, because the difference in starting lines is simply being ignored and "it's just their fault they can't catch up". A more empathic society would strive for equity to actually give people the same starting lines, and help them reach it if need be. The ted talk also links this to the ancient Greek tragedy, like Oedipus', and this is why I found it funny that the book even discussed whether or not a life is determined by fate as well. Saying that everything that happens in life is completely up to your choices, is simply not true. But neither is complete determinism. We need a middle ground where the shaping factors of a person's life and unforseen circumstances that are literally up to fate, are looked at with empathy. Our society drastically needs more understanding and empathy for those who struggle, for the "losers", instead of the mindset "it's their fault so I owe them nothing". And perhaps then people would be less hard on themselves internally and this could peraps lead to a change in the mindset of many. Because I feel like growing up and not having the same starting line as others but getting told "you just didn't do enough" or "it's all your own fault" over and over again, can severely impact a person's perception of themselves and even their mental health. Books that simply regurgitate a broken system like meritocracy like this infuriate me soooo much. As you can probably tell, I am very passionate about this, especially for (mental) health problems. Because the myth that you can avoid certain illnesses by "just living as healthy as possible" is just the version of meritocracy promoted by multi level marketings and middle aged facebook moms. And it is harmful. Because it leads to people judging others and deciding "well, it was your own fault. You should have lived healthier." It makes people "losers" when it comes to health, and emapthy is nowhere to be found.
101 Essays was pretty generic for me and like I found much more deeper stuff in other books than 101 essays it didn’t even change my life. And 101 Essays was more on random positivity things and meritocracy oh and I also prefer Alain de Bottom’s books than maybe the stuff of 101 Essays I’ve also read The Mountain within You by that same author and it wasn’t great
really interesting video, loved it! I feel like self-care online gets more and more performative, thus putting pressure to do self-care the "right" way; or that you actually need avocado mousse & minimalistic desk setup to improve and get things done lol
[i] don't read self help for personal fulfillment but working at a bookstore 've noticed, 'set boundaries, find peace' seems like a genuine diamond in the rough cave that is the self help genre
i barely touched these kind of books as in reading them myself, but i've witnessed how they are literally everywhere.. even translated (given i dont live in english speaking language country in the global south) but its pretty popular here and quite sought after as well, may also add as sub-phenomenon.. if that word even exists. personally, i've only ever experienced it myself in the form of the so called motivational podcasts which to me basically belong in the similar spectrum as these self help books and my impression of it wasn't great.. i felt rather suffocated, overwhelmed even, mostly with guilt. similar to you, the content of these self help materials in any mediums would've easily been.. and probably only limited.. to be followed by the like-minded people who are already sufficiently equipped with, again, similar privileges with the author. some of the messages are tone deaf as well, and pretty much contradict itself, opposing to what it promotes. mental wellness can not just be achieved through changed mindset, like how about marginalized people resulted from systemic failure? this are what i think they mostly ignore.. probably even foreign concept to fathom since they probably wrote the contents inside their air conditioned cozy mansion. sorry to litter your comment with a little rant but i just had a thought. beside your book covers design blurbs, i love these kind of videos of yours btw!!
In a world full of struggles there's so many spaces now where advice like this really gains a lot of popularity! But you're right if you're left feeling this wrack of guilt of not being enough for a reason or another and like you said sometimes the perspective this advice is coming from is narrow or following a certain view of the world that doesn't take those things into account.
I bought a self help book, and I have zero desire to read it 🙃 I have really low motivation that I'd like to work on and I'd like to be more confident but Idk how reading a book would help. I think it's more of a having to force yourself to change, like I was really shy as a kid, and I had to force myself to stop being that. Which was hard and took a long time. But I got over it. Eventually 😅
My problem with the self help movement is that people who are content/happy with their lives feel this obligation or responsibility to share their lives with everyone else (whether that be via book, TH-cam, Insta, etc). I think too many people are becoming so comfortable with sharing their lives online that there is an overwhelming amount of superficial self help content. It just ends up making the rest of us pale in comparison when our reality doesn't match up with the curated reality of people online. I don't wake up at 7am and eat a bowl of fruit then workout, attend meetings, walk my dog in my perfect neighbourhood, travel in my spare time, use the best quality skin products, etc, etc etc. Does that mean I'm not as happy or healthy? (no. i love waking up at 12pm and eating cheese and bread). Lifestyle influencers and these randos who write self help books feel some sort of superiority over well-being. They know the best way to life so just do what they do /s I'm kind of sick of it.
I went through a self help phase and came out of it with an eating disorder. The only book that really made a positive impact was the power of habit and honestly all you need to do is read the stuff before all the case studies and follow the flow chart
I read "Millionaire Mind" by T.Harv Eker and I learned about how we are conditioned to think a certain way about the various aspects in life by our upbringing and that we can change those thought patterns into ones that are beneficial to us. Just a couple of months after reading, I’ve been able to save way more money than I was doing before. Self-Control by Augusto Cury thought me how the mind creates anxiety and gave me the hope that I can re-work my mind to thinking more positively, which I’ve been slowly but surely being able to accomplish. Currently read The Laws of Success by Napoleon Hill and I’ve already been able to set a goal for my life, which I’d never been able to do before. Even if there’s a lot of fluff in these self-help books, there’s always some new information to take away if you have the positive mindset to accept new ideas and give them a try. Again, these self-help books don’t actually help you, you’re the one who has to help your self but the books do give you a lot of information to work with. I think the tools that have helped the most with my self-improvement journey are meditation, gratitude, journaling and working out.
My biggest issue with self-help (even newer ones written by psychologists w/ sources) is the profit motive intertwined with self-help industry. I can't mentally separate that and self-help books at some point that encroaches into my mind and ruins every self-help book for me.
I was an extremely regular viewer and somehow stopped watching your videos as they stopped showing up on my recommendations and now I'm back and this feels like home. ❤️
Great video. This is certainly a new perspective since I usually have loved self-help books, I imagined we would clash on many points but now I think you're really correct. We need to act on it and we need to treat it with nuance rather than cold-hard fact. Thank you for the perspective.
Also you're so right about how dangerous it can be to frame all negative emotions as a failure of the self, that can easily lead you toward alexithymia (inability to recognise and describe emotions in the self, and often in others too), especially if you're already at risk for it in having other mental health issues, neurodivergences and even isolating factors like living in a foreign environment etc. It's a real struggle to try and overcome, tbh it feels pretty Sisyphean at times even though I want to improve it. I like the way you phrased the Western pop-sci self care trends' focus on "shoring up happiness for the future" like yeah... so much of this stuff is really dangerous from an emotional disregulation perspective lol.
Absolutely love this (After i bought dozen of books to help me and realise this). I believe how much we learn interacting with the world and being streetsmart.. living a life, nothing surpasses that.
Love this look at self-help 🙌 Also, the one book I rec (including to my own kids LOL) is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Short, super practical, not necessarily groundbreaking anymore, but stuff we ABSOLUTELY need reminding about over and over and over.
I dated a guy who was obsessed with self help. I was always nervous to be myself around him because it felt like he was always calculating my every move and expression. Pretty self righteous and I almost fell into the same way of thinking. Naturally I have a bad taste towards self help books but I’m still interested in some to support arguments or agreements.
as for me, i started to be more open of self help book after reading i want to live as myself (?) bcs my idol was seen holding the book, i got curious. it's illustrated, so i quite enjoy reading it (so now it's more of illustrated-fun-self-help book, not the plain essay type of self-help book). i also noticed that the author incorporated lots of references in the book, so reading it doesn't really throw me off. as for my pov, i take the content of self help book as the source of validation? a lot of self help book coming from s. korea are talking abt positioning ourselves in the society, how to be more comfortable of being ourselves amid the way our society is constructed now, stuffs like that, which i found very fitting to my experience as a part of the society in my own country. so self help book seems to be as a source of knowledge and insight to help me making sense of others and life as a part of the community (as i myself find it hard to empathize with others, those books help in the way that i get to understand why ppl act specific way and stuffs😅). oftentimes, the messages are actually very ordinary and lowkey, yet i still find them fun to read as they're (1) illustrated, (2) insightful, as while reading it, i get to detach my self from the society and just take my time to reflect and walk closer to the answers i was looking for this whole time. i fully understand though why this genre can still be hard to process, based on the reasons you shared, as i myself can't blindly enjoy every self help book 😊
I’m so happy for you that you’ve found a positive experience with them! This sounds great I’ll be sure to check it out. Self help books deffo have value and a place in this world ofc 💕 ty for sharing
There's a term people use for that whole repressing and shaming of negative emotions and framing them as proof of inadequate faith or whatever - "spiritual bypassing". It seems to end up being a part of all major organised religion, and is SO counter-intuitive. And damaging, especially when taught to children, as a subsitute for self-expression and self-acceptance.
The only self-help book that I actually liked was Everything Is Fucked by Mark Manson. Honestly, he should be known for this book rather than TSAONGAF because this is more realistic, drawing from real-life incidents and historical essays and hope and nihilism and it's way better than a list of "things" that can change my life or whatever.
Self help is a very broad term. Within it is a wide range from toxic productivity, toxic positivity, and invalidating "just get over it", but also within it is life changing realizations of self empowerment and liberation, getting out of our heads and being more present, overcoming depression, healing trauma, ect. Perhaps we can just use discernment when sorting through the self help section instead of dragging down self help as a whole. For example, the concept of self compassion, which is an antidote to perfectionism, shame, and self loathing, is found in the self help section, and yet so are these much more toxic books and ideas. It bothers me personally to see self help dragged when it should really just be the toxic unhelpful forms of it.
north african immigrant here. my dad made me read rich dad poor dad when iw as 8 as well so i can learn the value of money and why its important not to waste it. my house was full of these kinds of money books because of my dad.
I despise self-help books. The only one I ever bought (and that's because the bright orange cover caught my eye) is The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck. Hardly got past the first few pages.
I feel like every time I've read a self-help type book, as I'm reading it I'm thinking "oh yeah, this makes sense, I can do this too" but then I just feel shitty about my life choices 😅 they're all a scam
Yessss, I had the exact thoughts about 101 Essays as well! thought I was the only one who expected a curated essay collection and that parts of it are contradicting :') i love this video bcs i read a number of self-help books and I feel the same way as you but I couldn't express the feeling and it's frustrating - so this is super helpful. Thank you Divya!!
I view them as advice books. I view them as me having a deep discussion with my friends and seeing how they would handle said problem. Sometimes I walk away with a different perspective, other times I just realized I wasted my money.
Right now I only would suggest Atomic Habits, Marie Kondo's books (if you have too much stuff/clutter), and Dr. Kristin Neff's books (if you beat up on yourself all the time)
The ONLY self help books I recommend are by researchers in the topic. Brene Brown has Daring Greatly, on shame resistance, and everything is backed up by studies. Highly recommended. Also books by Lindsay C Gibson about emotional immaturity. They're not books that tell you how to be a billionare or whatever, but rather to deal with tough areas of your life.
Speaking of emotions, I think there’s something wrong with me as I enjoy being sad. I don’t know why, I but I don’t need to make myself happier as the state of being sad somehow is my happiness. It’s odd does anyone else feel this way? But on a more related note, I agree with a lot of what you said in this video and I appreciate you talking about this topic.
Really good points well made! And I also aways think: Imagine how much you could learn about the world and the universe if you'd use all that time to read science books instead of all those kinda vapid self-help books...
I agree when you say that these authors only care about selling and that not all of us have the resources to go and do something, but I have read most of those books and I did like them
first time I've watched one of your videos. I agree with a lot of your points.. rather than self help, I feel like a subgenre with in self help is inspirational books, autobiographical stories of success , etc. . Also , personally, for example if I read a book such as 100 Things Successful People Do I can take something from it every time I read it. I take all the advice with a grain of salt, of course all suggestions cant be applied to every single persons life. But I will sometimes go back to the book a few months later and find some other piece of information that can help encourage me.
If you're in the mood for a self-help book that is actually about tools to help you, my therapist recommended 'Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?' by Dr. Julie Smith. And what I love about it is that A- it's very actionable and B- it's very sensible. None of the 'think positively and you'll solve your problems' nonsense, and she also often rightly points out how that thinking both ignores systemic issues and can even make the problem worse when you can't magically 'think' yourself out of depression/stress/anxiety. It also has some good exercises I plan to add to my toolkit.
God I have vivid memories of absolutely bombing a job interview at a bookstore once because i spent the whole hour beforehand wandering around the store and I got so lost in the terrifying alienating landscape of self-help books I ended up disassociating in the job interview lmao. These books are WILD, and having all of them bombard your eyeballs at once can be an Experience.
The timing of this with me discovering insta therapists like the holistic.psychologist and such are meant to be. The mindsets these books and insta therapists share are toxic in their teachings when they tell you your mindset had gotten where you are and you can help yourself out of your mental illness or negative emotions. It's such a greedy lie!
I definitely side eye people who read only self help books. Like, do you even get enjoyment from that? How much more do you wanna be productive? It speaks of toxic productivity to me. Some can be helpful of course, but a lot are just short talking points that are extended to reach book length. I read self help as well lol but I read way more fiction books than self help.
Or maybe you are condescending because YOU dont like them. I personally LOVE self help not to do everything it says in the book or even to agree but rather to awaken my mind to new ideas and learn about myself on a deeper level. Im able to hone in on my thoughts and feelings and perspectives on things that other genres dont allow me. Alot of you want to stay in this weak unempowered place of blaming everything/everyone and depending on things external to yourself to give you this proverbial "key to healing" and THAT speaks to the toxicity within you...
Your hair is so so prettyyyy omgggg! Love the video so much! You literally took all of the thoughts out of my head but at the same time at this point in my life I don’t have anything to loose so I have been reading a self help book and trying to shift my mindset to see if something happens.
I feel like a lot of people that hate self help miss this point. I mean that books only give you the tools and understanding. Some better some worse. It's still you that has to make the actual changes you need in your life. You still have to figure out what parts you want to apply in your life. Of course there's a bunch of BS in self-help books like in any other type of content. Don't expect one book to be the silver bullet for all your problems. Another thing. I think it's easy to fall into the trap of consuming too much self help content without applying anything. At this point it just becomes entertainment. No book or video will change anything if you are not willing to at least try and apply the things you learn.
One thing that I got from all these years of self help is the thought that I’m lacking. I didn’t really change much. I only started changing when I started observing my self and my environment, journaling, and setting the “change plan”. Don’t get me wrong, these IS good advice out there. There are moments of gasping and intense realisations, but if you think each book will give you that, or you keep living in the self help world and believe everything everyone is saying, expect a counter effect
Yeah my mom made me read two self help books as part of my homeschool curriculum ( A Million Little Ways by Emily P. Freeman, and a self help book disguised as a fictional story: The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews) (both of those books had strong ties to religion btw). They were okay. The only self help books I remember consuming with any enjoyment were those American Girl self help books for like 10 year olds 💀💀💀
Maybe that's because the self help offered by those American Girl self-help books is genuine. Generic in some ways, but genuine. Lie even if you don't follow everything you can still benefit from following a fraction of that advice. There really need to be adult self-help books that perform to at least that standard, if not higher. Even as it is, some of the advice in those books can be useful to adults (not all adults learn the type of basic conflict resolution and other such things covered in those books, especially not adults who were either spoiled or grew up in harsh authoritarian settings or both - which also happens).
I believe any form of self help can be useful if one is in the right head space, by this I mean being opened minded and critical since I do think a lot of this books can have toxic positivity and whilst it might be in fact enraging to be told YOU are in control of how you feel and there is no excuse to not be happy because YOU decide whether to be or not, I also think it IS possible that we all have issues to deal with that are preventing us from being if not happy all the time (which would be delusional), at inner peace and that I do think can be only achieved precisely throughout self help and reflection, for some people this may be a quick and easy journey but the majority of us might need some external help and we may find it in therapy or in a book. (Pardon me if my English is not perfect, it is not my first language).
My problem with many self improvement books is that too many of them are simply watered down philosophy or psychology that is better understand and learned about from the direct source. I think I can count on one hand the number of “self help” books that actually had something interesting and original to offer, with one in particular being “the War of Art”
Wow I cannot believe 101 essays book has only self help essays and not about science 💀💀💀 that title mislead me to drinking another glass of water to cure my depression (good thing I learned that before buying it thank u)
love love LOVED this video, since I've been interested in reading more self-help but you touched upon so many of the problems/struggles I have with the books haha. thank you for making this video Divya
agree with what u said about mainstream self-help books that are aimed to be as commercially viable as possible! im from southeast asia. the rise of individualisation from government policies together with how self-care is pushed by even our medical institutions like as if direct policies aren't the most effective ways to increase mental wellness is very off-putting. however, i can't just not leave this video without some leftist toolkit books that have genuinely helped me become more kinder & accepting of myself & my community. 1. the body is not an apology by sonya renee taylor (fat acceptance & actual reflection prompts) 2. care work: dreaming disability justice (toolkit for community building & self help for queer disabled people) 3. all about love by bell hooks (i don't agree with it 100% but i really enjoyed the book very much) 4. the body keeps the score - yes very popular on tiktok but helped me tremendously as someone who has C-PTSD keep doing ur vids divya! literally love anything u upload but this is the first time we've gotten to see u talk more about what ur personal opinions on current issues beyond books (while still relating to books) & honestly, i'm here for it!
I wrote a book recently, and I have had a problem categorizing it into a self-help book because I feel like a lot of self help books leave kind of a sour flavor in my mouth. But I can’t wait to see what your video has to say about this topic!
This was brilliant! I think in an attempt to reach the masses a lot of nuance is lost in a lot of the advice given. They many be a bit corny, but they have helped me get through times when I felt I had no else to talk to. That too might be why they are kind of insidious :(
This isn't a self help book necessarily. However, the Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey completely changed how I view the voices inside my head. If you're looking for a sports themed self help book that uses actual evidence to prove it's theory and message I'd 10/10 recommend.
In my opinion, it's way more important to figure/realise out what are the things that is holding us back. When it clicks that we lack this particular thing and that is what's hampering us from progressing in whatever aspect of life, can we actively start searching how to improve in that thing. So don't just read any random self-help that's being recommend online, because most likely that may not be of any "help" to you. For instance I've read the book "The Power of Habit". I've got some interesting insights into something I had no idea about (Marketing and how consumers are habituated to purchase something), however that book didn't help me improve in anyway. On the other hand this book named "Spark" did infact help me building a good habit of exercising. That's something I had been procrastinating on developing for a long time. The book made me realise that I had been thinking about exercise in the wrong way- "to stay healthy" was my goal. But it didn't connect with me as much as "I need to exercise so that my brain can function at its best" (I'm a student you see). So please try to read the back of the book or listen to a review to understand if you genuinely will get any value from it. PS. One doesn't need to read an entire book through and through. You could leave it half way through if it's served it's purpose in your life. You have ample opportunity to get back to it later when you feel like it
I've been reading self help books and articles for a long time now and i feel like it actually makes me feel worse. i feel like there's something wrong about me and something to change about how i live my life and that no matter how hard i try, it's not enough. some of them also contradicts each other and idk what to do and which one to believe.
only you truly have the power to self help or self aid, if you need it. otherwise just enjoy life. if you wanna read about specific things like discipline or philosophy or meditation you can, but self help books are mostly just watery marketing
At 5:35 I think what they're really talking about is a psychology term called locus of control. You can either have an external locus of control where you believe stuff like luck and fate controls your life- these people will think it was only luck that they passed a test or got a job and not because they're genuinely smart and deserve it. Or you can have an internal locus of control, where you believe you're in control of your own actions, so if you pass a test you'll think it's because you're smart and you studied hard. The book is trying to say that you should move from an external locus of control to an internal locus of control. I think this is dumb though because even though you absolutely can change your locus of control, just saying that you should won't really help you do that. People with an internal locus of control are more self confident and take responsibility for their own actions- it takes effort to get there. Yes I'm revising my A level psych, what of it.
It's the same cycle. Self-help goes trendy, then comes out the anti-self-help trend. Just like with makeup then, caked up look goes trendy, then came the "no makeup-makeup look trend" seriously just do what you think is good for you and what you feel happy and good in.
i love the way you talk and edit, I started watching the video and just assumed you would have at least like 200k+ subs. like damn. idk, this is super random but I just wanted to say you're doing a great job, like A+ youtubering right here lol
another thing to keep in mind that another essayist mentioned (mina lee in 'confidence is a cult') is that self-care largely resurfaced in 2020 within the black community as a reminder for black people to take time and strategies to process the blm movement and/or its precursors. society kind of took this idea that "there was so much negativity in current events that *they* needed to get away from" and ran with the self-care headline
Thank you so much for this video! You said it so good! Of course more could be said, cause there are a lot of issues with the SELF-CARE movement * cough cough* but you said everything perfect! Self help books are a tool. A person who might be depressed can’t just read a book and then all their worries goes away. The person might need guiding from a psychologist or someone to talk to. And sometimes it is a job that makes us unhappy or a relationship. Many “fail” to mention the social constructs and how lacking of basic human rights can cause so much stress and suffering. It isn’t always just negative thoughts that needs to be taken away. Also, ✨✨✨capitalism✨✨✨ It’s so much easier to sell you a pink and blue toned water bottle and tell their customers “you will get happy if you buy this. We can’t buy us out of happiness with excessive stuff… Again, such a good video and thank you for opening up for conversations!❤️
I think my version of a “self help book” (cuz I don’t really read a lot of them) is to research my mental health; why I’m feeling the way I feel. I read articles, I listen to psychologists and look at the statistics. It’s the boring route for a lot of people but idk, it makes me feel more secure than a self help book. It’s not so much about looking for people to tell me what to do (tho it can sometimes get there) but about understanding myself and knowing the info is built on many people who’ve felt the same as I have. Then I can start to slowly work on myself from there.
![เปิดบ้าน นาราเครปกระเทย 1 ไร่ ขายขาดทุนหลัก10ล้าน เอามาใช้หนี้!!! l [Nickynachat]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/0jz84VFWVP4/mqdefault.jpg)
can the book help the self?
ALSO point I forgot! Maybe I'll talk about this more clearly in another video but self help in general sometimes make you feel like you're not enough, or you're not awake enough and you're on this constant path of self optimisation and chasing a happiness yadayada and makes you feel guilty. It also makes you forget to live and focus on stuff outside of ourselves...
when I took a book marketing course in uni, the instructor (a book distribution company's marketing director) brought up self-help books as selling the idea that something is wrong with you (hence why you need to buy the book, to fix yourself) and not selling methods for you to fix your situation. he basically said that if self-help actually worked, there wouldn't be any new self-help books every year. that has been stuck in my brain since I took the course like 7 years ago.
I think you should read The Rudest Book Ever by Shewtabh Gangwar I do that that self help as problem as George Carlin had quote about joke about self improvement which make sense is good criticism of self improvement. I do think better idea then self improvement is reading philosophy and psychology I think that problem with teasing spirituality is that though even though they are good advise they are not controversial people like Osho for example who was surely cult leader I think maybe in spirituality read Thic Nhat Hahh
The introspective is important though, you mentioned in the video that you picked this whole thing up by hearing of it and seeing it got lots of hits. Selfhelp is unimportant if this is the only incentive to actually do it. Improving myself is not that important if i don't have actual issues that make me suffer or feel bad, it makes it even ineffective because i don't know what i am actually shooting for. So i would strongly advise to stay with yourself and make sure it is actually something you need, there is something you actually want to change.
What many selfhelp books suggest which is simply not true, you will not change the world around you. The only thing that changes is yourself, which might, sometimes change your overall situation down the line. The actual reward is the change you make to yourself, not the different situation you get into afterwards. Without introspection to find out if the change is something you really need, there will also not be much of a reward.
The impression you got to feel inferior or guilty for not doing enough by reading these books probably comes from the fact that people are already feeling this way, otherwise they would not read the book anyway. So it is basically a good idea as an author to assume readers are at a certain point and start from there.
yes.. the book helps the writer
if these books didn't help you, it doesn't mean it's not worth to read .... it give us the hope , correct our path and helped us to continue... please stop trying making anything _ you don't like _ not important 🙂
The “that girl” movement ties in so nicely with the ideas you present in this video. It’s definitely aestheticized and feeds into this weird space of trying to promote self care at the same time as making people feel worse for not perfectly practicing it or look good doing it
True
Ooo ! Didn't know there was a word for this ty will look it up!
@@itsdivyag The Take did a video on it, though I wish they went more in-depth and mentioned how men also have their own version, what with all the “Billionaire grindset morning routine” videos
@@DeathnoteBB omg the billionaire mindset is a whooole topic in itself
@@itsdivyag It is! I forget if they already did a video on it or if I just wanted them to, but I hope they do make one! I see a lot of that billionaire mindset stuff through reaction channels like Drew Gooden, Danny Gonzalez, and Savannah (q-word that youtube hates)Kiwi
On the subject of laziness, I really liked the book Laziness Does Not Exist. It's by a PhD and talks about how a lot of our ideas around laziness stems from how capitalism influences us. It felt like a self help book, but with sources and enough context from the real world to be accessible
Omg I’m looking that book up right now
this is acc super interesting ty for the rec friend
@@itsdivyag I listened to the audiobook. It’s really good.
oh hey I'm reading that right now!
Interesting, I might have to look this up later.
Life is complex, but the self care movement often promotes ideas as if they are applicable to all.
Some might actually lack motivation and just need to do it, but others have deeper problems and procrastination is just the symptom.
Yes! Most self-help gurus are average people who overcame common issues, achieved common goals, and now “teach” other average people how they did it.
Like, I wish I could live laugh love myself outta mental illness, lmao
Every self help book boils down to either stay positive and optimistic or stay present and don't think about past and future lol or take action. There always are times when neither of these are possible and some suffer way deeper
I started unfollowing influencers last yr because it felt like their lifestyle makes me feel bad for not having that privilege. The breaking point is when there's a phase where the influencers in our country started buying and recommending self help books to people when we all know that they're just using it for taking pictures and aesthetics not actually reading it, I'm so so so deeply disgusted :')
It's like a form of flexing fr! Glad you're taking those steps to free yourself from the wrath of social media comparison :)
I have a friend who is an "influencer" she buys everything second had, she takes pictures at the entrance of hotels, goes to the room to "check it" then take selfies, but 1 drink every Friday and posts that she is parting but she goes home right after the photo....all lies.
agree
@Abina Àine rented YSL high hills for photos then returned them
How do you know that its just "aesthetics" you dont even know these people?! I think the problem is that people are just living their lives and clearly YOU are triggered by someone you dont even know because thats a reflection of your own insecurities that have nothing to do with them. Yes some influencers are not sincere/genuine but to write them off into this category that your judgements created is essentially doing what youre accusing them of doing... If youre that pressed about them posting about their lives then dont watch. Its really that simple. Im sorry but Im sick of this fake pity party of depressed emotionally unstable people blaming everything on influencers and not just being authentic and honest about where they themselves are feeling incompetent. It seems like bashing the "influencer" is a scapegoat to deflect from the deeper issues that need to be addressed. I say this as someone who works in mental health, people dont want to be accountable for their lives and their own emotional states and resort to projecting. Its like there is a codependency to these self help books and resources. And although there is some validity to the statements being made in this video, there are two sides to everything. People are waiting for some sort of magical divine intervention to come down and be their saving grace and dont want to be told to "just do it" but no person, place or thing can absolve your negative feelings. YOU have to make choices to reprogram your subconscious. Its easier said than done but Im quite sure throwing a pity party isnt the answer either.
funnily, the advice I got most often when I was younger was that "life isn't fair"
this is prob one of the only true advice about life fr
I've noticed I don't really like self-help books, but I really like informational books that somehow relate to me. So for example, Doing Harm by Maya Dusenbery is about medical bias against women, which really validated a lot of my own experiences and had some good and simple advice in there as the author explored a ton of research.
@@xx011 I’ve noticed that too that I end up picking up information books than Self Help books since there’re so generic and oversimplifies several things that could hinder something
this is a great video! gonna put my input here as a disabled person: i also don't like self-help books. they're always aimed towards abled people. self help books in my experience are always like "exercise! stop being lazy! just get out of bed!" and i literally cannot do those things. my disabilities definitely impact my mental health & make me feel horrible for not being able to do things with my friends or do my school work, and when these self help books demonize those negative emotions, it makes me feel even worse!
I feel like this self-help kind of "just do it!" mentality is even prominent in medical settings. I have had doctors tell me "just move more!". I constantly have physiotherapists telling me I "cannot wear a brace because your muscles just need to get stronger!". If my muscles could get stronger, they would have by now. I also gained extra self doubt and self hate from those kinds of "encouragements", because it just puts all the blame on you, the patient. It's telling you "your pain is your own fault" and that is such a toxic mindset. I have been searching for an explanation for why my body cannot do what other people my age, or even older people, can do. Feeling those limits of my own body has left me incredibly frustrated but the only answer I got from a medical setting was "you are just not doing enough". I guess it's easier for them to assume it's the patient's fault. I am not disabled, but I relate to not being able to do things others can. And I share your opinion on these self-help books. They make me feel shame and guilt and I hate it.
@@isyvd Hi, I’m so sorry you’ve felt unheard and unsupported through your pain. I’m obviously a stranger on the internet and don’t know your situation, but I just wanted to give some potential clarification on what your PT meant as a PT student. Typically, overly relying on braces and assistive device can lead to muscle atrophy and reduce or degrade whatever your current strength level is. HOWEVER, your quality of life should be the main focus. If you need a brace to be able to do the things you want/need to do then use one! The key is finding a balance. It’s also important to understand the things that are holding you back. I agree it’s a lot harder/more nuanced than “just do it”. If you can’t do the type of exercises your PT gave you to gain strength it’s your PT’s responsibility to work WITH you to find something that works for you. Establish a baseline for the type of movement you can accomplish and work up from there a little at a time. And if that doesn’t work, they should help you find the best way to move with your brace so that you maintain/improve your current level of function. Also, mental health and physical health are extremely intertwined. Seeing a mental health therapist in conjunction with PT can make a huge difference, but I know unfortunately not everyone has the resources to be able to do so. Healing is not linear, there are ups and downs and it can be a slow slough, but having support and a team that listens to you and your struggles makes all the difference. I hope you can find a PT that makes you feel heard. I wish you all the best 💚
@@lovelylittleleeches Thank you for your comment! I wrote my comment with my very specific experience in mind. And that's the experiences of having chronic knee pain since 2019 (Chondromalacia patellae grade 3 detected on scan in 2020) but it always being written off and being told "just get a hometrainer and exercise your knee more". (I'm in my early twenties btw) Eventually it kept getting worse in 2021 so I went to physical revalidation in the hospital. They prescribed me physiotherapy and I diligently did so for months. But instead of making progress, my ankle became instable as well as my knee and daily activities got harder to do. My PT (I really like her. We've come a long way together) kept saying I didn't need a brace and it was just a matter of time and practice. But another month went by and as I started to go on walks more often, I noticed that walking exhausted and hurt my leg more than anything. So eventually, I did end up wearing a flexible brace. It helped for a while, until the doctor at the hospital decided that it was still a matter of me not doing enough and had me do 12 intensive revalidation sessions at the hospital, with PT's who barely knew my file or barely cared when I told them I was in pain. I missed my regular PT so much during that time. Eventually none of it helped (and in my medical records I am now described as "patient with vulnerable muscles" and "signs of hypermobility") and I was sent to Ortho. They did a scan and saw that my knee had gone from grade 3 to grade 4, down to the bone. And they also checked my ankle and found OCD. So now I have surgery planned for my knee, and I'm glad because at the moment my knee is in the worst state it's ever been (pain and swollen due to constant cartilage irritation bc of walking). But knowing that I spent all those months diligently doing physio and now I will just have to rebuild everything after the surgery...that stings the most. Luckily I do have a therapist and most of my sessions revolve around this topic.
Sorry for the long reply, but I thought I'd explain what happened up until now to show that in some cases, even the most well intended and careful physical therapy won't have the promised results if there's other problems present. Problems that were known from the start, like my knee, or discovered in the process, like my ankle.
Once again, I hope this wasn't too annoying (it feels quite odd to be talking about my medical journey in youtube comments) 😅
I wish you the best in your studies and in your future!!
It's like when I ask people and read things about how to make friends and have a supportive social circle and they're all like "put yourself out there" "you just have to talk to more people" "be confident". Ma'am I am neurodivergent, this advice means nothing to me, I need specifics.
@@isyvd Thank you for sharing, that's an interesting history
the only self help book i liked was the life changing magic of tidying up by marie kondo, bc it’s more of a practical guide than generic advice. i like to think of it as the tipping point which made me prioritize improving myself and slowly changing for the better over the last several years.
yo same, and I love how marie kondo doesnt set rigid rules like "you can only have X amount of this in your home" or "if you havent used it for X years, you must throw it away". she really respects that the decision must come from the person and her methods all come back to the principle that everything must spark joy, and she recognizes that this is different for everyone. which is what more self-help should be imo, it's not a one-size-fits-all thing :) glad to see someone with the same experience as me with marie kondo
Yeah Marie kondo does a good job focusing on mindset and less on “rules”
I do not read self-help books but Mari’s focus on the importance of surrounding yourself with things that bring you joy really helped me treat my need to feel conformable in my space and genuinely prioritise it. Heck, Mari Kondo’s cleaning helped me more than therapy 🥲
i find it pretty weird how focused modern society is on becoming an objectively better person, as if that even exists, the intention may be positive but the more self help content there is the more it perpetuates the idea that we NEED drastic help all the time and i fr don't have the energy to be in a perpetual state of inner doom
Yeah modern society is weirdly focused on what I learned is called toxic positivity. We wanna min-max ourselves and our lives so badly we circle back to a dangerous and unhealthy mindset. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that…
It’s like how in Buddhism, a big part of it is letting go and going with the flow. As someone with a lot of anxiety I love that. But this self-help sort of mindset says you gotta try your absolute hardest to “let go” or you’re never gonna reach inner peace… which sort of is the exact opposite of letting go.
@@DeathnoteBB completely, hyper-focus on anything makes it so much harder to live w imo, you go into such a zoomed version of life that everything else bypasses you and it's harder to see a way out, eg for the longest time I used to over plan my routines in an attempt to fix habits but it would never work for YEARS, only in the last year or so where I stopped preparing for the future and just lived in the present has my routine naturally flourished the way I had wanted it to all along, and with minimal effort on my part except letting life happen to me sometimes instead of convincing myself I can control every single aspect that comes my way, we aren't all powerful gods where we can micro manage everything flawlessly
I literally love that you found something that works for you!
Such interesting takes! It’s so true it’s like this pressure for constant growth and constant fixation on yourself is exhausting
additionally, it also makes us less open minded and more willing to demonise others rather than looking at their motivations. this also links back to cancel culture and how people think procrastination is laziness. self help books are great at identifying what, but not why you’re acting in a certain way
I swear the best thing for your mental health rather than reading a bunch of books is to write ur own self help book
How to help YOURSELF
🤯🤯🤯
I don’t have all the answers
Self help is more of a market than a movement in my opinion, it also isn’t very nuanced in the circumstances that might stop people from “bettering themselves”
Yess deffo! Some of the statements felt very limited in perspective
This is hitting along my problems with self-help. The market and economic dynamics around self-help really challenge the validity.
Personally i like self help. I feel inspired… i feel like i want to do something… anything meaningful and such books like Ego is the enemy or the Laws of human nature have transformed the way i think.
So yeah doesn’t work for everyone probably overhyped but definitely works for me
Yeah I like those books too, for me personally If I dont read philosophical books for a while my mindset alters back to my old self. Books keep my blades sharp.
@@NotGilmore yupp same here.. they're actually pretty good to me haha
Same! I read, “the subtle art of not giving a f” when I was 20 and loved it at the time… because I always said YES and cared about peoples feelings instead of my own.
Same, "How to win friends and influence people" has helped me out alot in life. It always a read once a year for me@@NotGilmore
The one "self-help" book I would recommend (and I hesitate to even label it that, because I don't think the author considers it a self-help book, but it definitely helped me) is The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown. Brené Brown is a researcher, and the book is the result of research she did over several years, and is presented to you as a series of guide posts that all interconnect with one another. She absolutely does not demonise negative emotions, and the book is all about helping you to deal with negative emotions without putting blame on you for feeling them. I highly recommend it to everyone!
Thank you for sharing this book recommendation!! I’m buying it right now because of you ☺️
Me too! I hope it’s good
I've read a little over than half of the books in this video and I'm just as much as an anxious, tired, broke and depressed mess as I was before lmao.
thanks for talking about this, it's really refreshing to see a more critical perspective on self-help! i agree with what you said - the way that a lot of self-help content attributes mental health issues to the failure of individuals rather than to the systems that shape all of our lives is problematic, to say the least.
The problem with self-help books are the author's overestimation of their experiences and worldviews as right by virtue of getting THEM out of their own ditch, and the readers high expectations of THIS being the one piece of literature to get them out of theirs. Every single time I pick up a self help book, I go in with the mentality that "a broken clock strikes right twice a day"; every book, no matter how bad, has a thing or two that might resonate positively. It also depends on the person, because if you are the type of person who gets inspired through example, then self-help books might be of more value, but if you go in with some serious depression and choose to read a book which puts all the weight of your depression on your (rightful) lack of energy by not rising at 6 AM to make the most of the day, then well, yeah... I believe it will just exacerbate your feelings of worthlessness.
love your longer content
im so glad thank you for the support!
A lot of self-help books completely ignore systemic oppression :)
It’s like when people online say to stop thinking about bigotry and to go outside. Like bruh not everyone has the luxury to just ignore oppression, I-
@@DeathnoteBB IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH 💀😂
THANK YOU
Because that's not what self-help books are for.
this!! and also ignore how disability/mental illness influence peoples lives/motivation.
i have adhd and started reading the subtle art of not giving a fuck and it felt.. lazy in its writing and also very arrogant.
a lot of what he was saying just didn't apply to me and didn't seem particularly helpful for neurotypical people either since it really seemed like he was trying to shame people into 'helping' themselves which is not a healthy way to grow.
what I've learned from the 'self help' industry is that Inside Out is more helpful for the self than any of the self help books puked out by the whole industry. sadness is needed and healthy part of us :3
I read and try to apply "how to talk to anyone" doesn't work if you're socially anxious.
Honestly talking is so difficult there's no tricks apart from practicing it and the mindset/negative thought bump is the hardest if your anxious
Here is my self help mantra :
Read self help like you take medicine. We don't take medicine like we eat rice. Same here. Just read few standard books, but read them well. Then just move on with your life. Don't read 20 self help books a year. Just 2 will suffice.
It works just fine (atleast for me)
perfect
I ordered 3 self help books from online shopping and I think 3 is enough.
This is the perfect timing cuz I’ve heard this thing about “You control your emotions, you choose to feel them” or smth and recently I’ve been feeling a lot of negative emotions (I may or may not have wrote two hate songs about how my friends piss me off and also I’m from Russia so every day is quite a struggle of not punching everyone in their face) and I felt guilty about being like this but also I understand that If people piss me off then I have all the right to be mad at them so yeah Idk what was the point I wanted to make but I guess it’s I needed this discussion about self help books and quotes and I got it thank u💞
Lol I have no desire to discover who I am, what my identity is and what purpose this life bears, cuz bish I don't care. I'm just trying to survive one day at a time, taking care of myself so I don't fall apart at the end of the day while maintaining work and relationship is hard enough. Ain't got no time to sit there and read a book that tells me how I need to go on this journey to discover this and that. I just hope that more people know that it's okay to not yet discover your identity or purpose in life. It ain't that serious keke
There is deffo a convo about how sometimes this obsession with self discovery comes to a point where it becomes detrimental hah and all consuming like you're not good enough and must continually strive to be better, know your boundaries etc etc. part of it is just navigating life. youre deffo right it does feel a pressure to discover yourself and stuff
first of all: love the hair so much. 🥰🥰🥰🥰
butt yeah i really hate how self help books just tell u that if u work hard enough anything is possible. though there is some merit to that, they rarely take into account any kind of nuance. and it teaches readers that people who dont have their life together deserve it because they didnt try hard enough. they give the same vibes as those motivational vids of millionaires or smth on youtube.
and the subtle art of not giving a fck was terrible 😞 i couldnt even finish the audiobook 😒
When a self help book is bad.. it's BAD. They're deffo no replacement for actual professional help for specific problems but even in more general problems some statements have a very limited world view
I don't think you're really fit to judge a book you haven't finished. pretty much all self-help books are terrible but the subtle art of not giving a f*ck by mark mason is actually one self-help book that has decent advice in it, and not just rehashed fortune cookie messages. it's not for everybody, it's for a specific type of person (those who live on the fringes of society you could say, and don't follow the norm). but it's a real self-help book that works. i've had many recovering drug addict friends rave about it to me, and they are all healthy now. so it must've done something good.
I’m pretty happy to see a video about this. The self-help community can be confusing and intimidating to me at times🥴🥴also sidenote, you look stunning! I love your hair
I recently read 'How to be Sad' by Helen Russell and it wasn't like mainstream self help books at all - it's all about dealing with sadness by accepting it instead of running away from it. The writer talks about her own life as well as talking to other people so you get different perspectives and see all the research that went into the book. I felt like it helped me and I learned a lot too and I'd recommend it to everyone.
Yeah Think like a monk by Jay Shetty is a good one and among the same wavelength,
The quotes you read from 101 Essays are so unnuanced and rooted in the idea of meritocracy, as you said. I remember I had to watch a ted talk on the dark side of meritocracy for a uni course, and it seems like the author of this book watched it too and then decided to say the exact opposite. The ted talk I believe was Allain de Botton's "A Kinder Gentler Philiosophy of Success" and in it he called for stepping away from the absolute meritocratic ideal. Because in the eyes of meritocracy, everyone gets the same starting point, the same oportunities, and if you don't get anywhere in life, that's on you. It devides life into winners and losers. And people who are 'losers' deserve to be looked down on because, in the eyes of the meritocracy, it's just bc they aren't doing enough. Losers deserve no empathy. That is the kind of society we live in now, and the pressure it puts on people is insane. Because it completely denies the fact that there will be things in a person's life that simply cannot be controlled. Things like genetics, gender, race, familial circumstances, family income or status, educational opportunities, job opportunities, physical health issues, mental health issues, etc. are ALL things a person does not have a say in, but that can drastically change the 'starting line'. This inevitably leads to inequality, because the difference in starting lines is simply being ignored and "it's just their fault they can't catch up". A more empathic society would strive for equity to actually give people the same starting lines, and help them reach it if need be. The ted talk also links this to the ancient Greek tragedy, like Oedipus', and this is why I found it funny that the book even discussed whether or not a life is determined by fate as well. Saying that everything that happens in life is completely up to your choices, is simply not true. But neither is complete determinism. We need a middle ground where the shaping factors of a person's life and unforseen circumstances that are literally up to fate, are looked at with empathy. Our society drastically needs more understanding and empathy for those who struggle, for the "losers", instead of the mindset "it's their fault so I owe them nothing". And perhaps then people would be less hard on themselves internally and this could peraps lead to a change in the mindset of many. Because I feel like growing up and not having the same starting line as others but getting told "you just didn't do enough" or "it's all your own fault" over and over again, can severely impact a person's perception of themselves and even their mental health. Books that simply regurgitate a broken system like meritocracy like this infuriate me soooo much. As you can probably tell, I am very passionate about this, especially for (mental) health problems. Because the myth that you can avoid certain illnesses by "just living as healthy as possible" is just the version of meritocracy promoted by multi level marketings and middle aged facebook moms. And it is harmful. Because it leads to people judging others and deciding "well, it was your own fault. You should have lived healthier." It makes people "losers" when it comes to health, and emapthy is nowhere to be found.
101 Essays was pretty generic for me and like I found much more deeper stuff in other books than 101 essays it didn’t even change my life. And 101 Essays was more on random positivity things and meritocracy oh and I also prefer Alain de Bottom’s books than maybe the stuff of 101 Essays I’ve also read The Mountain within You by that same author and it wasn’t great
really interesting video, loved it! I feel like self-care online gets more and more performative, thus putting pressure to do self-care the "right" way; or that you actually need avocado mousse & minimalistic desk setup to improve and get things done lol
the "rich dad poor dad poor asian immigrant" experience is absolutely a Thing, my dad was obsessed
[i] don't read self help for personal fulfillment but working at a bookstore 've noticed, 'set boundaries, find peace' seems like a genuine diamond in the rough cave that is the self help genre
i barely touched these kind of books as in reading them myself, but i've witnessed how they are literally everywhere.. even translated (given i dont live in english speaking language country in the global south) but its pretty popular here and quite sought after as well, may also add as sub-phenomenon.. if that word even exists. personally, i've only ever experienced it myself in the form of the so called motivational podcasts which to me basically belong in the similar spectrum as these self help books and my impression of it wasn't great.. i felt rather suffocated, overwhelmed even, mostly with guilt. similar to you, the content of these self help materials in any mediums would've easily been.. and probably only limited.. to be followed by the like-minded people who are already sufficiently equipped with, again, similar privileges with the author. some of the messages are tone deaf as well, and pretty much contradict itself, opposing to what it promotes. mental wellness can not just be achieved through changed mindset, like how about marginalized people resulted from systemic failure? this are what i think they mostly ignore.. probably even foreign concept to fathom since they probably wrote the contents inside their air conditioned cozy mansion.
sorry to litter your comment with a little rant but i just had a thought. beside your book covers design blurbs, i love these kind of videos of yours btw!!
In a world full of struggles there's so many spaces now where advice like this really gains a lot of popularity! But you're right if you're left feeling this wrack of guilt of not being enough for a reason or another and like you said sometimes the perspective this advice is coming from is narrow or following a certain view of the world that doesn't take those things into account.
I bought a self help book, and I have zero desire to read it 🙃 I have really low motivation that I'd like to work on and I'd like to be more confident but Idk how reading a book would help. I think it's more of a having to force yourself to change, like I was really shy as a kid, and I had to force myself to stop being that. Which was hard and took a long time. But I got over it. Eventually 😅
Novels and poetry are enough to help a person. When a book explicitly sets out to help it adds an artificial layer of expectation.
It is also way way more interesting to see emotions processed in a story form!!
I got an ad for a self-help book about the best way to learn things... Seemed fitting
good thing now you won't be influenced as easily hah :p
My problem with the self help movement is that people who are content/happy with their lives feel this obligation or responsibility to share their lives with everyone else (whether that be via book, TH-cam, Insta, etc). I think too many people are becoming so comfortable with sharing their lives online that there is an overwhelming amount of superficial self help content. It just ends up making the rest of us pale in comparison when our reality doesn't match up with the curated reality of people online. I don't wake up at 7am and eat a bowl of fruit then workout, attend meetings, walk my dog in my perfect neighbourhood, travel in my spare time, use the best quality skin products, etc, etc etc. Does that mean I'm not as happy or healthy? (no. i love waking up at 12pm and eating cheese and bread). Lifestyle influencers and these randos who write self help books feel some sort of superiority over well-being. They know the best way to life so just do what they do /s
I'm kind of sick of it.
I went through a self help phase and came out of it with an eating disorder. The only book that really made a positive impact was the power of habit and honestly all you need to do is read the stuff before all the case studies and follow the flow chart
I feel like people who write self help books are detached from reality
Not all, there are definitely a couple writers that exposes reality.
I love the hugs at the end 😭
I read "Millionaire Mind" by T.Harv Eker and I learned about how we are conditioned to think a certain way about the various aspects in life by our upbringing and that we can change those thought patterns into ones that are beneficial to us. Just a couple of months after reading, I’ve been able to save way more money than I was doing before.
Self-Control by Augusto Cury thought me how the mind creates anxiety and gave me the hope that I can re-work my mind to thinking more positively, which I’ve been slowly but surely being able to accomplish.
Currently read The Laws of Success by Napoleon Hill and I’ve already been able to set a goal for my life, which I’d never been able to do before.
Even if there’s a lot of fluff in these self-help books, there’s always some new information to take away if you have the positive mindset to accept new ideas and give them a try.
Again, these self-help books don’t actually help you, you’re the one who has to help your self but the books do give you a lot of information to work with.
I think the tools that have helped the most with my self-improvement journey are meditation, gratitude, journaling and working out.
HOLYYYYY i was just recommended The Mountain Is You (“it changed my life”) TODAY, the timing of this video
The power of now actualy helped me quite a bit as a young person :) but like with any resource, of course not everyone is going to connect with it.
My biggest issue with self-help (even newer ones written by psychologists w/ sources) is the profit motive intertwined with self-help industry. I can't mentally separate that and self-help books at some point that encroaches into my mind and ruins every self-help book for me.
I was an extremely regular viewer and somehow stopped watching your videos as they stopped showing up on my recommendations and now I'm back and this feels like home. ❤️
Welcome back 💕🫰
@@itsdivyag you're the best 😭❤️
Great video. This is certainly a new perspective since I usually have loved self-help books, I imagined we would clash on many points but now I think you're really correct. We need to act on it and we need to treat it with nuance rather than cold-hard fact. Thank you for the perspective.
Also you're so right about how dangerous it can be to frame all negative emotions as a failure of the self, that can easily lead you toward alexithymia (inability to recognise and describe emotions in the self, and often in others too), especially if you're already at risk for it in having other mental health issues, neurodivergences and even isolating factors like living in a foreign environment etc. It's a real struggle to try and overcome, tbh it feels pretty Sisyphean at times even though I want to improve it.
I like the way you phrased the Western pop-sci self care trends' focus on "shoring up happiness for the future" like yeah... so much of this stuff is really dangerous from an emotional disregulation perspective lol.
Absolutely love this
(After i bought dozen of books to help me and realise this). I believe how much we learn interacting with the world and being streetsmart.. living a life, nothing surpasses that.
Love this look at self-help 🙌 Also, the one book I rec (including to my own kids LOL) is The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Short, super practical, not necessarily groundbreaking anymore, but stuff we ABSOLUTELY need reminding about over and over and over.
I dated a guy who was obsessed with self help. I was always nervous to be myself around him because it felt like he was always calculating my every move and expression. Pretty self righteous and I almost fell into the same way of thinking. Naturally I have a bad taste towards self help books but I’m still interested in some to support arguments or agreements.
as for me, i started to be more open of self help book after reading i want to live as myself (?) bcs my idol was seen holding the book, i got curious. it's illustrated, so i quite enjoy reading it (so now it's more of illustrated-fun-self-help book, not the plain essay type of self-help book). i also noticed that the author incorporated lots of references in the book, so reading it doesn't really throw me off. as for my pov, i take the content of self help book as the source of validation? a lot of self help book coming from s. korea are talking abt positioning ourselves in the society, how to be more comfortable of being ourselves amid the way our society is constructed now, stuffs like that, which i found very fitting to my experience as a part of the society in my own country. so self help book seems to be as a source of knowledge and insight to help me making sense of others and life as a part of the community (as i myself find it hard to empathize with others, those books help in the way that i get to understand why ppl act specific way and stuffs😅). oftentimes, the messages are actually very ordinary and lowkey, yet i still find them fun to read as they're (1) illustrated, (2) insightful, as while reading it, i get to detach my self from the society and just take my time to reflect and walk closer to the answers i was looking for this whole time. i fully understand though why this genre can still be hard to process, based on the reasons you shared, as i myself can't blindly enjoy every self help book 😊
I’m so happy for you that you’ve found a positive experience with them! This sounds great I’ll be sure to check it out. Self help books deffo have value and a place in this world ofc 💕 ty for sharing
There's a term people use for that whole repressing and shaming of negative emotions and framing them as proof of inadequate faith or whatever - "spiritual bypassing". It seems to end up being a part of all major organised religion, and is SO counter-intuitive. And damaging, especially when taught to children, as a subsitute for self-expression and self-acceptance.
The only self-help book that I actually liked was Everything Is Fucked by Mark Manson. Honestly, he should be known for this book rather than TSAONGAF because this is more realistic, drawing from real-life incidents and historical essays and hope and nihilism and it's way better than a list of "things" that can change my life or whatever.
@Abina Àine it’s helped me a lot because I’m terribly shy, I’m still shy but it helps with my thought process
@@adrienne2838 cringe
@@mauricioarrieta4622 respete los gustos!!!!!!
Self help is a very broad term. Within it is a wide range from toxic productivity, toxic positivity, and invalidating "just get over it", but also within it is life changing realizations of self empowerment and liberation, getting out of our heads and being more present, overcoming depression, healing trauma, ect. Perhaps we can just use discernment when sorting through the self help section instead of dragging down self help as a whole. For example, the concept of self compassion, which is an antidote to perfectionism, shame, and self loathing, is found in the self help section, and yet so are these much more toxic books and ideas. It bothers me personally to see self help dragged when it should really just be the toxic unhelpful forms of it.
right there are self help books that help of course dont read the obvious fluff books
north african immigrant here. my dad made me read rich dad poor dad when iw as 8 as well so i can learn the value of money and why its important not to waste it. my house was full of these kinds of money books because of my dad.
Omg a universal experience
I despise self-help books. The only one I ever bought (and that's because the bright orange cover caught my eye) is The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck.
Hardly got past the first few pages.
same
Congrats on 100k! Thanks for getting me through high school and uni and hopefully being the reason I pass my publishing class final
I feel like every time I've read a self-help type book, as I'm reading it I'm thinking "oh yeah, this makes sense, I can do this too" but then I just feel shitty about my life choices 😅 they're all a scam
Yessss, I had the exact thoughts about 101 Essays as well! thought I was the only one who expected a curated essay collection and that parts of it are contradicting :') i love this video bcs i read a number of self-help books and I feel the same way as you but I couldn't express the feeling and it's frustrating - so this is super helpful. Thank you Divya!!
I view them as advice books. I view them as me having a deep discussion with my friends and seeing how they would handle said problem. Sometimes I walk away with a different perspective, other times I just realized I wasted my money.
It's unbelievable to me that someone so young can be so perspicacious and piercingly insightful. I especially enjoyed the Tolle takedown.
What a compliment! I'm so glad you got something out of this video. I appreciate the comment truly thank you :)
You're such a sweet soul. Thank you for your service!
Right now I only would suggest Atomic Habits, Marie Kondo's books (if you have too much stuff/clutter), and Dr. Kristin Neff's books (if you beat up on yourself all the time)
The ONLY self help books I recommend are by researchers in the topic. Brene Brown has Daring Greatly, on shame resistance, and everything is backed up by studies. Highly recommended. Also books by Lindsay C Gibson about emotional immaturity. They're not books that tell you how to be a billionare or whatever, but rather to deal with tough areas of your life.
Speaking of emotions, I think there’s something wrong with me as I enjoy being sad. I don’t know why, I but I don’t need to make myself happier as the state of being sad somehow is my happiness. It’s odd does anyone else feel this way?
But on a more related note, I agree with a lot of what you said in this video and I appreciate you talking about this topic.
Really good points well made! And I also aways think: Imagine how much you could learn about the world and the universe if you'd use all that time to read science books instead of all those kinda vapid self-help books...
I agree when you say that these authors only care about selling and that not all of us have the resources to go and do something, but I have read most of those books and I did like them
first time I've watched one of your videos. I agree with a lot of your points.. rather than self help, I feel like a subgenre with in self help is inspirational books, autobiographical stories of success , etc. . Also , personally, for example if I read a book such as 100 Things Successful People Do I can take something from it every time I read it. I take all the advice with a grain of salt, of course all suggestions cant be applied to every single persons life. But I will sometimes go back to the book a few months later and find some other piece of information that can help encourage me.
If you're in the mood for a self-help book that is actually about tools to help you, my therapist recommended 'Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?' by Dr. Julie Smith. And what I love about it is that A- it's very actionable and B- it's very sensible. None of the 'think positively and you'll solve your problems' nonsense, and she also often rightly points out how that thinking both ignores systemic issues and can even make the problem worse when you can't magically 'think' yourself out of depression/stress/anxiety. It also has some good exercises I plan to add to my toolkit.
God I have vivid memories of absolutely bombing a job interview at a bookstore once because i spent the whole hour beforehand wandering around the store and I got so lost in the terrifying alienating landscape of self-help books I ended up disassociating in the job interview lmao. These books are WILD, and having all of them bombard your eyeballs at once can be an Experience.
Lol i just prefer fantasy over non-fiction. Makes me feel at peace rather than at work
The timing of this with me discovering insta therapists like the holistic.psychologist and such are meant to be. The mindsets these books and insta therapists share are toxic in their teachings when they tell you your mindset had gotten where you are and you can help yourself out of your mental illness or negative emotions. It's such a greedy lie!
As someone with mental health issues, it always bugged me. My issues stem from both external sources and also just being how my brain is.
I definitely side eye people who read only self help books. Like, do you even get enjoyment from that? How much more do you wanna be productive? It speaks of toxic productivity to me. Some can be helpful of course, but a lot are just short talking points that are extended to reach book length. I read self help as well lol but I read way more fiction books than self help.
Or maybe you are condescending because YOU dont like them. I personally LOVE self help not to do everything it says in the book or even to agree but rather to awaken my mind to new ideas and learn about myself on a deeper level. Im able to hone in on my thoughts and feelings and perspectives on things that other genres dont allow me. Alot of you want to stay in this weak unempowered place of blaming everything/everyone and depending on things external to yourself to give you this proverbial "key to healing" and THAT speaks to the toxicity within you...
Your hair is so so prettyyyy omgggg! Love the video so much! You literally took all of the thoughts out of my head but at the same time at this point in my life I don’t have anything to loose so I have been reading a self help book and trying to shift my mindset to see if something happens.
omg not even one minute into the video and I have to subscribe. your mood, your voice - I'm hooked
I feel like a lot of people that hate self help miss this point. I mean that books only give you the tools and understanding. Some better some worse. It's still you that has to make the actual changes you need in your life. You still have to figure out what parts you want to apply in your life. Of course there's a bunch of BS in self-help books like in any other type of content. Don't expect one book to be the silver bullet for all your problems.
Another thing. I think it's easy to fall into the trap of consuming too much self help content without applying anything. At this point it just becomes entertainment. No book or video will change anything if you are not willing to at least try and apply the things you learn.
One thing that I got from all these years of self help is the thought that I’m lacking. I didn’t really change much. I only started changing when I started observing my self and my environment, journaling, and setting the “change plan”.
Don’t get me wrong, these IS good advice out there. There are moments of gasping and intense realisations, but if you think each book will give you that, or you keep living in the self help world and believe everything everyone is saying, expect a counter effect
“Action Faking” phrase I learnt from this video x
"Relax" THIS actually cured my depression ;)
Yeah my mom made me read two self help books as part of my homeschool curriculum ( A Million Little Ways by Emily P. Freeman, and a self help book disguised as a fictional story: The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews) (both of those books had strong ties to religion btw). They were okay. The only self help books I remember consuming with any enjoyment were those American Girl self help books for like 10 year olds 💀💀💀
Maybe that's because the self help offered by those American Girl self-help books is genuine. Generic in some ways, but genuine. Lie even if you don't follow everything you can still benefit from following a fraction of that advice. There really need to be adult self-help books that perform to at least that standard, if not higher. Even as it is, some of the advice in those books can be useful to adults (not all adults learn the type of basic conflict resolution and other such things covered in those books, especially not adults who were either spoiled or grew up in harsh authoritarian settings or both - which also happens).
I believe any form of self help can be useful if one is in the right head space, by this I mean being opened minded and critical since I do think a lot of this books can have toxic positivity and whilst it might be in fact enraging to be told YOU are in control of how you feel and there is no excuse to not be happy because YOU decide whether to be or not, I also think it IS possible that we all have issues to deal with that are preventing us from being if not happy all the time (which would be delusional), at inner peace and that I do think can be only achieved precisely throughout self help and reflection, for some people this may be a quick and easy journey but the majority of us might need some external help and we may find it in therapy or in a book.
(Pardon me if my English is not perfect, it is not my first language).
gorlll the hair? the snake earrings? THE WHOLE LOOK? love it
My problem with many self improvement books is that too many of them are simply watered down philosophy or psychology that is better understand and learned about from the direct source.
I think I can count on one hand the number of “self help” books that actually had something interesting and original to offer, with one in particular being “the War of Art”
Wow I cannot believe 101 essays book has only self help essays and not about science 💀💀💀 that title mislead me to drinking another glass of water to cure my depression (good thing I learned that before buying it thank u)
Yeah when I hear essays I think like, academic paper! I also didn’t expect a lot of paragraphs of musings on why we feel sad when we could just not.
This is legit why I bought it in the first place. Note to self: read blurb
love love LOVED this video, since I've been interested in reading more self-help but you touched upon so many of the problems/struggles I have with the books haha. thank you for making this video Divya
Man this video was so good! I felt so freaking understood!! I thought that something was wrong with me even though i was trying my best
agree with what u said about mainstream self-help books that are aimed to be as commercially viable as possible! im from southeast asia. the rise of individualisation from government policies together with how self-care is pushed by even our medical institutions like as if direct policies aren't the most effective ways to increase mental wellness is very off-putting. however, i can't just not leave this video without some leftist toolkit books that have genuinely helped me become more kinder & accepting of myself & my community.
1. the body is not an apology by sonya renee taylor (fat acceptance & actual reflection prompts)
2. care work: dreaming disability justice (toolkit for community building & self help for queer disabled people)
3. all about love by bell hooks (i don't agree with it 100% but i really enjoyed the book very much)
4. the body keeps the score - yes very popular on tiktok but helped me tremendously as someone who has C-PTSD
keep doing ur vids divya! literally love anything u upload but this is the first time we've gotten to see u talk more about what ur personal opinions on current issues beyond books (while still relating to books) & honestly, i'm here for it!
Thank you for this list of books you enjoyed 💕 I haven’t heard of them before and will try to check them out. I’m glad you enjoyed this type of stuff
I wrote a book recently, and I have had a problem categorizing it into a self-help book because I feel like a lot of self help books leave kind of a sour flavor in my mouth. But I can’t wait to see what your video has to say about this topic!
This was brilliant! I think in an attempt to reach the masses a lot of nuance is lost in a lot of the advice given. They many be a bit corny, but they have helped me get through times when I felt I had no else to talk to. That too might be why they are kind of insidious :(
This isn't a self help book necessarily. However, the Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey completely changed how I view the voices inside my head. If you're looking for a sports themed self help book that uses actual evidence to prove it's theory and message I'd 10/10 recommend.
I just have to say I LOVE YOUR STYLE HERE! That hair and outfit 😍
In my opinion, it's way more important to figure/realise out what are the things that is holding us back. When it clicks that we lack this particular thing and that is what's hampering us from progressing in whatever aspect of life, can we actively start searching how to improve in that thing. So don't just read any random self-help that's being recommend online, because most likely that may not be of any "help" to you.
For instance I've read the book "The Power of Habit". I've got some interesting insights into something I had no idea about (Marketing and how consumers are habituated to purchase something), however that book didn't help me improve in anyway. On the other hand this book named "Spark" did infact help me building a good habit of exercising. That's something I had been procrastinating on developing for a long time. The book made me realise that I had been thinking about exercise in the wrong way- "to stay healthy" was my goal. But it didn't connect with me as much as "I need to exercise so that my brain can function at its best" (I'm a student you see).
So please try to read the back of the book or listen to a review to understand if you genuinely will get any value from it.
PS. One doesn't need to read an entire book through and through. You could leave it half way through if it's served it's purpose in your life. You have ample opportunity to get back to it later when you feel like it
I've been reading self help books and articles for a long time now and i feel like it actually makes me feel worse. i feel like there's something wrong about me and something to change about how i live my life and that no matter how hard i try, it's not enough. some of them also contradicts each other and idk what to do and which one to believe.
If you feel this way about them why have you been reading them for so long lol
@@Becksnnc idk lol
only you truly have the power to self help or self aid, if you need it. otherwise just enjoy life. if you wanna read about specific things like discipline or philosophy or meditation you can, but self help books are mostly just watery marketing
love your editing girl!
At 5:35 I think what they're really talking about is a psychology term called locus of control. You can either have an external locus of control where you believe stuff like luck and fate controls your life- these people will think it was only luck that they passed a test or got a job and not because they're genuinely smart and deserve it. Or you can have an internal locus of control, where you believe you're in control of your own actions, so if you pass a test you'll think it's because you're smart and you studied hard. The book is trying to say that you should move from an external locus of control to an internal locus of control. I think this is dumb though because even though you absolutely can change your locus of control, just saying that you should won't really help you do that. People with an internal locus of control are more self confident and take responsibility for their own actions- it takes effort to get there. Yes I'm revising my A level psych, what of it.
It's the same cycle. Self-help goes trendy, then comes out the anti-self-help trend. Just like with makeup then, caked up look goes trendy, then came the "no makeup-makeup look trend" seriously just do what you think is good for you and what you feel happy and good in.
bingo this, have self awareness and work on the things YOU you need to work on
i love the way you talk and edit, I started watching the video and just assumed you would have at least like 200k+ subs. like damn. idk, this is super random but I just wanted to say you're doing a great job, like A+ youtubering right here lol
Haha, the TH-cam ad I got after this video was that of an „life coach“ 😄
youtube ad algorithms not self aware enough yet
another thing to keep in mind that another essayist mentioned (mina lee in 'confidence is a cult') is that self-care largely resurfaced in 2020 within the black community as a reminder for black people to take time and strategies to process the blm movement and/or its precursors. society kind of took this idea that "there was so much negativity in current events that *they* needed to get away from" and ran with the self-care headline
Thank you so much for this video! You said it so good! Of course more could be said, cause there are a lot of issues with the SELF-CARE movement * cough cough* but you said everything perfect! Self help books are a tool. A person who might be depressed can’t just read a book and then all their worries goes away. The person might need guiding from a psychologist or someone to talk to. And sometimes it is a job that makes us unhappy or a relationship. Many “fail” to mention the social constructs and how lacking of basic human rights can cause so much stress and suffering. It isn’t always just negative thoughts that needs to be taken away. Also, ✨✨✨capitalism✨✨✨ It’s so much easier to sell you a pink and blue toned water bottle and tell their customers “you will get happy if you buy this. We can’t buy us out of happiness with excessive stuff… Again, such a good video and thank you for opening up for conversations!❤️
What helps more then self helps books is knowing psychology.
I think my version of a “self help book” (cuz I don’t really read a lot of them) is to research my mental health; why I’m feeling the way I feel. I read articles, I listen to psychologists and look at the statistics. It’s the boring route for a lot of people but idk, it makes me feel more secure than a self help book. It’s not so much about looking for people to tell me what to do (tho it can sometimes get there) but about understanding myself and knowing the info is built on many people who’ve felt the same as I have. Then I can start to slowly work on myself from there.
I’m so happy you found something that helps you feel secure ty for sharing :)