[bmcleod]

It seems to me that people that don't read self-help books lump a lot more books into the genre and that causes them to miss a number of books they should read.

Earlier this year I recommended Bargaining for Advantage to someone and they responded that they don't really read self-help books. There are a number of books like this that deal with particular topics inside of the broader self-help genre, many of them going to a much more useful level of depth.

In bookstores I regularly find very good books on particular areas of business mixed in with self-help in the more populist style.

Reading a number of these expert titles is very valuable. From the popular group often only one book is enough to cover the common sense side of things, for instance I recommend that all my friends read "how to Win friends and influence people".

[itmag]

People who don't want to read self-help books boggle my mind.

Self-help to me means seeing life as an MMORPG with infinite possibility: levelling up your player character, meeting cool guild mates, acquiring lots of loot, exploring new areas, etc. Who the hell doesn't want that?

Then again, most people probably think of the most egregious examples of cheesy New Age stuff when they think about self-help. What I advocate is more like "muscular self-help", ie everything that levels up life and leads to more winning! (heh). I will read anything that gives me a shot at that.

I even founded a magazine because of my belief in muscular self help: http://www.interestingtimesmagazine.com (shameless plug, I know).

[rubergly]

The point is: would you rather spend your time playing the game, or reading someone's stab in the dark on the mechanics of the game based on his/her personal experience and questionable expertise?

[whatusername]

It's much easier to get the Sword of Awesomeness +10 when you follow the walkthrough.

[itmag]

I would rather do both, actually.

I can find out a lot of stuff on my own, but it never helps to read what someone else has figured out.

Analogy: I can figure out design patterns of programming on my own, but I can speed up the process if I read a book on it. Same with design patterns for happiness and success.

There are lots of things I consider possibilities now that were not even on my map before I read self-help books.

EDIT: s/never helps/never hurts/

[rubergly]

Personally, I agree (although I haven't actually read any books yet, but I'm interested). But I would much rather spend 100% of my time playing the game and 0% learning mechanics than I would spend 50% of my time playing and 50% learning mechanics. I imagine the anti-self-help attitude comes from looking at the 50/50 (or more extreme) people.

[itmag]

Isn't that what most people do, though? And most people are not living the optimal version of their lives, or anywhere close (optimal being defined as the life one wishes one had).

Before I started reading self-help materials, I was intellectually gifted but I was a mess in terms of communication with others, emotional stability, self-limiting beliefs, knowledge of possibilities in life, luminosity aka self-insight, strategicness aka getting shit done with a plan, etc.

Studying self-help materials for the past 5 years is the most important thing I've done in my life (a quite dramatic statement perhaps, but that's how it feels to me).

That's why I get a bit upset and argumentative when people slam self-help: it's a bit like saying I shouldn't have wasted my time reading all those things, and instead should have just plodded on in darkness.

[127]

Got any good book recommendations?

[vijayr]

My guess about the people who don't want to read self-help books would be this - they read a few, the ones that they read, turn out to be useless (they pick the wrong ones). so they pretty much give up the entire genre. Trust me, for every good self-help book out there, there are dozens of insanely useless ones - it is not easy to pick the good ones on one's own. self-help books are a big industry - even those who never read anything in their life, would give a few minutes of their attention to self-help books, because ultimately, everyone wants to become better at something

I just wish there were some good ways to quickly separate junk from good books.

[naner]

I think most peoples' distaste with the self-help genre is that the books often feel more like a distraction or a tease than a source of change and improvement. People read the books and start to feel productive and like the solution to their problems is within their grasp. Then when the book is finished, almost no change in behavior or thinking result and you quickly lose the "high" you had while consuming the book.

Psychological and behavioral problems are highly individualistic and can be quite complex. Say you have a problem with procrastination. Maybe you have ADD? Maybe you are depressed? Maybe you are tired? Maybe you are afraid of failure? Maybe you hate your work? Maybe your mind is focused on other problems you need to address? Maybe your work is too difficult? Etc. We could go on listing hundreds of possible causes. Well, using a tomato timer or implementing GTD isn't going to fix any of those problems.

I think that the few well written and researched self-help books that are out there can give people useful strategies if they already have their shit together, but for most people they end up as a dud. That is if these people even finish the books to begin with.

[billpatrianakos]

I see what you're saying so maybe we should clarify things because there are essentially two types of self help out there from what I see.

The first kind is the in-your-face, "this book will change your life and teach you to be happy", it comes with a charming spokesman too, type of self help. This kind is often cheesy, not scientific, and is often more likely to be eventually seen as a disingenuous money making scam later on.

The second type is self-help that isn't marketed as self help. It's essentially a book on how to master a subject or art form. A book on Buddhism and Buddhist practices would qualify. Books on how to meditate fall into this too. They're teaching how to do something and they may talk about the positive effects they have but they're not the kind of things that we normally think of as lame self help.

Now that I'm thinking along these lines I think theres a third type. This type falls in between. You can spot it by its firm basis in scientific research. It's the kind of thing backed by science and it explains the subject by telling you about the research but at the same time also telling you how to specifically apply the research to help you improve some aspect of your life. The book "Feeling Good" co,es to mind in this category. The author studied the subject of depression and then takes the findings and applies them to helping people with depression. It's a book widely held to be actually useful the majority of the time. It's not a "hey, I'll teach you to be happy" book nor is it just a narrative explaining experiments and the results.

I think what I'm talking about speaks directly to your point about people that lump the books into one genre. So when we talk about self help most immediately think of the cheesy kind. If we broadened out definition of self help to include types 2 and 3 that I mentioned then maybe people wouldn't feel such disdain for the genre and be more apt to read more helpful books. It's a shame that often times the wrong people get into writing self help and spoil the genre for everyone.