Here's the real reason why the stuff you read in self-help books just doesn't stick.
The stuff you read in self-help books works—but only for those primed to implement advice consistently over the long-term. That's not you; at least not yet.
On the surface, your life looks ok.
You have a roof over your head and you get to eat. You go to work or school, you do the bare minimum to get by, usually at the last second. You play some of this and watch some of that. You go to bed and repeat.
On a deeper level, you know ‘OK’ is nowhere near good enough. There’s something missing. You want more out of life. You yearn to break out of your routines and habits; out of your rut.
This is normal. This is good.
So you seek some inspiration and perhaps a few tactics or a method to follow. You find a post on social media that recommends a self-help book.
The book ends up providing amazing new ways of seeing things, along with smart tactics to break bad habits and cajole you into starting up good habits.
You feel inspired and optimistic. You go a day without engaging in your vices. Then two. You manage to work for a few hours on your project, despite a lot of mental resistance. You even manage to go to the gym and cook a healthy meal.
But, well… eventually… inevitably… understandably, your resolves softens a bit.
I should have a little reward. I deserve it. Look. 5 minutes on Reddit, check what’s new, get it out of my system, then we can get back to work.
So you give in a bit. It’s fine. The content is fresh; quite good actually. No harm, no foul.
As the hours go on however, you find yourself using more and more of those mini excuses. You rationalize that you simply need breaks and rewards to help make it through the struggles of living this new life of effort, sacrifices and discipline… of delaying gratification for some distant long-term goals.
Before you know it though, somehow, it spirals out of control. By the end, you wind up spending an entire weekend binging on Netflix, YouTube and junk food. You’re back to being stressed and anxious and, naturally, you come down hard on yourself.
Eventually you pick yourself back up, you dust yourself off, then you start over with another book.
Around and around you go. For weeks, months and now years.
I call this the Self-Help Cycle.
I wish we all had twins to serve as a control, but I’d bet we’d all be better off if we never bothered trying to get better.
I actually have a theory as to why this happens to us. I call it the “Spaceship Analogy”
So it takes a lot of the fuel to get a spaceship to reach its destination—100s of thousands of gallons.
Yet, as you probably know, most of the fuel is actually consumed at lift off; at getting the giant metal thing to accelerate from 0 to 11 km per second (!) while pushing against gravity and the dense friction of the atmosphere.
Once out there in vast nothingness of space, the ship’s inertia and lack of things pulling it in or slowing it down keeps it moving with hardly any fuel. If it needs to go a bit faster or course correct, a quick boost from a side thruster can make it happen.
Now, the stuff you read online or in self-help and productivity books is just like that thruster. If in your life you are already out in space—as in you are moving in some way, consistently… say you exercise regularly, you eat well and have good basic work and lifestyle habits—then all it takes is a slight nudge from new insightful advice for you to change course, go a bit faster, go a bit smarter, and reap the promised benefits of that wisdom.
But, activate that same thruster on a spaceship parked on earth and it won't budge.
If you are grounded in life…
If you are stuck in a rut, struggling with being consistent on the commitments you make… struggling with basic things like controlling how much time you spend on TikTok or playing video games… struggling with eating well or exercising consistently…
If you are routinely procrastinating on your school or work obligations, let alone on the side project that’ll get you to your dream life…
Then any principle; any line of advice or program; any philosophy; any beneficial thing to start doing, no matter how enlightened it is, just won’t move you.
Good advice always requires you to do.
It says, do this thing for a while, do it over and over, keep doing it, and eventually you’ll get that result. But if you’re not already moving, if you can’t bring yourself to do the thing, again and again over a long enough period of time; if the gravity and friction of your bad habits and lack of self-control keep you from being consistent, then it doesn’t matter how ‘good’ the advice is. You’ll always stay grounded, or worst, you’ll lift off a bit, only to come back down in a crash of self-contempt.
Now, I’m not advocating against conventional self-help and productivity advice. I’m not against having a vision of a dream life and setting big goals and mapping out a process to achieve them.
That stuff is good. It’s great and it’s necessary. I’m just saying, first… first… you need to get out to space.
And to get out to space, you need something different.
You process that’s hyper focused specifically on and only on defeating the gravity of cravings, compulsions and rationalizations—which, like gravity, stems from somewhere deep beneath the surface.
It goes without saying that help can be essential for this. Professionals know to dig deep; to get to the core of your issues and to begin the healing and growth from in the inside out.
From there and with that support, I encourage you to carve your own path towards this identity change.
Through the guidance of a caring social worker, I found my way to a mindfulness practice. This helped me better manage my depression. Mindfulness enabled me to just sit with the inner pain and discomfort I so often felt, rather than reflexively reach for the quick relief of a vice, that just ended up making things worst.
I also found my way to alternate and unconventional view-points, my favorites being memoirs written by ex-alcoholics, which I found to be brutally honest, relatable, and surprisingly useful, if only on the self-compassion front.
As you go, keep in mind the Spaceship Analogy, if only to allow yourself to be compassionate with yourself when you fail. Patience and understanding is essential; what you are trying to do is tough—like sending a dang rocket to the moon tough—but it can be done; it has been done; you just need to be smart about it.
And being kind and patient with yourself is the smartest thing you can do.
Your suffering has abundant meaning—finding that meaning should be your life's mission. It's there for you to grow, and grow strong.
Steel is forged in fire. And they make spaceships out of steel.
-Simon ㋛
BTW… if you want to join a small group of people looking to apply the Habit Reframe Method in real time and with my support, then you should register for the free Group Accountability Program (HRMxGAP) on Discord. We start February 11 and it goes for 30 days.
Last time I ran it, pretty much everyone saw tangible improvements in terms of dealing with procrastination and starting up on good lifestyle habits. Check out some reviews here.