Whenever I interact with my fellow book lovers and friends about non fiction books the thread of self help book and its effectiveness is discussed on. Baring a few who swear by them a majority of us including me, tend to have quite a skeptical opinion regarding them. Often we say that fiction is actually more effective in impacting our life. While I have never been on extreme ends of opinions regarding self-help books and read them, their effectiveness was something I was not very sure about.
Recently I met a colleague at work whom I often saw reading books. I was elated to see this and immediately struck a conversation with him. I realized that the majority of the books he read were self-help and he spoke quite highly regarding them. While I was still skeptical regarding them I thought well let me observe and interact with him and understand why he feels self help books have had a greater impact on his life.
Below are some of the reasons I identified which highlights that maybe we are reading the self help books in the wrong way which is why they don’t work.
- Mindset with which we approach the book is pivotal. Very often even before we start reading the book we make opinions about it. I have often realized that I smirk just by reading the title of the book at times. So when our mind is already clouded with doubt regarding the book it can never work. Reading self help books requires going into the book with a clean slate and no prior notions. Still they are some books that well are not quite so good and we should be cautious about the tall claims they make. One trick I use while selecting self help books are I never get books that claim to make you become something else in a short duration. These books are like youtube click bait. They are hollow from within.
- Interact with the books content. While one needs to have an unbiased mindset one needs to have a communication with the book. Certain principles and methods given in the book one may not agree with it. Highlight them and question them and ponder on them. Self-help books require a two way communication to realize its impact. I guess this is the reason why a lot of self-help books have worksheets after each chapter.
A page from “Eat that book by Brian Tracy”. I have added notes in the book.
- A majority of us say that self-help books are boring as they keep on repeating the same concepts. I was of the same opinion. Lately as I read them with no bias I realized considering the nature of the book the repetition is essential for reinforcement. To drill the ideas in our head the authors reinforces the ideas. As readers we often do not read deeply and get distracted so this reinforcement is actually beneficial for us.
- Practice Practice!! You cannot read a self-help book to achieve your goodreads goal. Give time to them. Read maybe one self-help book over a period of a year but ensure that you are actually putting into practice the principles the book envisages in real life. For example I saw my colleague use techniques like time blocking and he had charts pinned up in his cubicle dealing with some principles or practices he was using. Organization was an area he said he wanted to work on and truth be told in the 6 months that I have observed him there has been such a drastic improvement in his organization skills.
- Be selective of the books you read. Not all self-help books can be helpful. Recognize the areas where you are weak or want to improve on and then select book dealing with these topics. For example for me financial planning and time management where my weak areas so I selected the books Rice Dad, Poor dad and Eat that frog and these books have really helped me.
These are some tips to take into consideration while reading self-help books which I have identified and which worked for me. Let me know if these were helpful for you.
In my next edition of blog post I will provide some hacks on how to choose a self-help book.
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