andrés ignacio torres

Why I don't bother with self-help books

A few days ago, as I was cooking (and mindlessly watching YouTube in the background), a book recommendation video caught my eye. A YouTuber was describing her experience reading "The Dip" (Seth Godin, 2007), and how the message behind this book had pushed her into accomplishing several milestones in her path as a content creator and businesswoman.

I've never been fond of self-help books, but I gave "The Dip" a try. It was a quick read, I read it in one sitting during a lunch break.

And it reminded me of why I don't really like self-help books.

Now, I know that 1) no two books are the same, even if they're sold / promoted as part of the same genre, and 2) no two readers are the same, so what doesn't work for me can potentially work for someone else and that's alright.

However, if you ask me, self-help books fail to reach me because:

  1. They're usually overly simplistic. Self-help authors tend to reduce problems and situations into one box with a fixed outcome. Everything tends to be black or white.
  2. They're deterministic. The authors ignore that everyone's circumstances are different and aim to provide a rigid formula for success (in business, in love, in finances, you name it). Do what they say and you'll succeed. Don't, and you'll fail.
  3. They're pompous common sense. Most of the messages and guidance are very basic, rarely new advice, and they're inflated with fancy words, terms, charts to make it look like they're new or revolutionary. Granted, common sense isn't actually common and sometimes a reminder is fine, but still...

Maybe this has to do with the tendency to attempt to turn "success" into a process on extremely subjective areas. We want to have an easy-to-follow guide, a "follow these steps and you'll do it without fail", but life doesn't usually work that way.

This being said, "The Dip"'s message (that can be shortened from 80-pages to one or two lines) was a curious, albeit simplistic, premise. I'm not sure if it'll change what I do or how I act, but I don't regret reading it.

At least I got a blog post out of it ;)