The Problem with Self Help

My understanding of self help and inspirational books and what they lack.

I have read and studied many self help books, and they all seem to lack a crucial element. Where is the section on actual help, how to get your life started, what skills are necessary to learn? They simply state the old adage, 'follow your dreams', without a full or useful explanation. They should write less about dreaming, and more about laying the groundwork to reach those dreams. A good example would be to remind the audience to start early, gather work history and simple effective assets. I mean, there is no section on starting to build your life from high school, or college. It may just be me, but i think books called self-help should include practical practices to help build to your dream. actualization needs to be tempered with realism, simply telling them to dream and strive is all well and good, and they shouldn't give up, but they also need to know that negative criticism and rejection are common, and a great learning tool. I apologize to anyone who actually learns and applies the lessons from self help books, or those who write them and believes in their message. In my personal opinion, there pretty useless without real world applications. Telling people to just do it, or make your dream a reality, need to add realistic and practical solutions to help improve their standing and make their dreams and wishes more attainable. These missing sections of self improvement leave the reader with a positive attitude but no practical ways of applying it. This leads to these bursts of optimism followed by despair and anger. My advice, enjoy the positive message from your beloved self improvement reading, but temper it with realistic goals and practical understanding. Learn what is really necessary to advance in society to advance your dreams. Also, have realistic expectations, you cant get rich quick, you cant fix your problems in one day, it takes time. The best skill to learn is how to be assertive but patient. After all the tortoise beat the hare through perseverance, not some quick fix. Hopefully I have explained my position well, and whether you agree or not, can entertain my opinion. Thank you for the time you spent reading this, have a wonderful and productive day! 

Author's Note

be honest, I can take it

Reviews

[Maria]

In all honesty, I can say this. I believe that each human being, is unique in his or her own way, and no other human being will be an exact replica of one or the other. As such, we each face different trials in life, some from birth and others mainly from childhood onwards. Depending on the level of maturity, I believe that we each have our own ways of surviving or overcoming a trial, and in the end, we each gain good and bad, from each ones experience. Parents are the base of forming their children to give something to society once they are at their peak age. Yet, society has ways of destroying values and morals, and end up regretting the youth of their time. Self help in itself, can be helpful to an extent, but only if the author has experienced first hand the horrors, of abuse, or abandonment, and the such, in order to understand where each person stands upon such thing, yet I believe as well, that in order to find healing, each person, will have a different road to travel upon in order to do so as well. I applaud your openness to such subject as this. And appreciate your writing.