Self-help books that aren't actually sh*t

okay so i've always had a bit of a difficult relationship with self-help books in the sense that i absolutely despised them and flat out refused to read them for the longest time but over the last two years things have slightly changed and i've gotten to the point where there's a few that i would genuinely recommend that people read so in this video i wanted to go through a deep dive of number one why i absolutely hate most self-help books and still do number two how i approach them now and how my mind has slightly changed about this and number three i'm just going to go through five self-help books that i would actually recommend that people read there's going to be a long rant in the beginning of the video so if you just want to skip ahead to the books you can do so everything will be time stamped below otherwise let's get straight into it so when i refer to self-help books what i'm going to be referring to in this video are books that are explicitly written with a goal of improving one's life making you more productive making you happier improving your relationship creating habits and things like that these are not the fiction books that unintentionally do this because i love fiction self-help books which means that books that are not written explicitly for this reason but make me feel this way i'm talking about those kind of like pop psychology books that are written to improve your life now the reasons why i absolutely think they're awful is firstly because i think that they are overwritten most of helpbooks can fit into a blog post in my opinion literally no reason for them to be a whole book i feel as though in a way they're just expanded on further and further to reach the quota of making a book because i feel as though they're making the same point 15 different times written in almost the exact same way again and again and again in the book there is so much fluff in them and given that the way that they are written is usually not very creative and not very great it doesn't feel as though there's a reason for things to be this way so for example if i read some fiction i never feel as though there's too many words it's a joyful experience everything is beautiful i'm happy to read very very long books however sometimes when i read pop like psychology and when i read kind of self-help books very very often i get the feeling of why are you wasting my time and i feel so disrespected as a reader because i'm being told the same thing the exact same way a hundred different times so this is one of the reasons that i feel very strongly that they are kind of a very inefficient way to get information the next thing i feel kind of strongly about is the way that they interpret science i feel as though the interpretations of scientific studies and scientific literature is quite sus so it's quite suspicious in these pop psychology books i feel as though if you look at the actual resources very often or the same study will be interpreted in so many different ways by different writers that it doesn't make any sense almost they come to conclusions that are not explicitly said in the study itself and that are kind of bending reason and the truth to some extent that it feels a bit dubious and also a lot of the studies that they are relying on themselves are not that reliable to start with and then you can write a whole book based on three or four scientific studies that are suspicious to begin with that doesn't make for great work of literature so that's one thing that i also don't like a lot the other thing i don't like about self-help books is that i feel as though in a way they are not being honest with me as a reader and what i mean by this is that for example when i read a philosophy book the philosopher very often has a very very strong stand so a philosopher might say we no one is alive or trauma doesn't exist and they take a very extreme extreme stand somewhere but they are admitting that this is just their opinion and it's kind of an intellectual exercise of okay say this was true why would it be true or let's explore it even further or let's find all the arguments that can support this claim so it's kind of a intellectual game in a way between me and the philosopher and this is why most philosophers i think stand on very very extreme states and extreme positions it's it's fun it's entertaining we all know that this is just one argument or just one way to view the picture or just one end of the scale however what i often see in self-help books is the same kind of behavior but it's disguised as being science so the author will just write about their experience or like how they improve their life and then they're going to bend five studies that will show and support this and then say oh but this is the truth this is the science this is what actually happens when this isn't necessarily the case so i feel as though if self-help books were a bit more open in saying hey this is what worked for me and obviously this might not work for you that would be a lot more helpful than kind of going out there and saying this is the truth this is the study that supports that everyone should be doing this so i feel as though this lack of communication and understanding between me and the way the writers often pitch these self-help books kind of makes me a bit uncomfortable in a way that i'm not with even more strong positions when they are held in philosophy another huge issue i have with these books is that very often they go into the realm of toxic positivity or on the other side of kind of really thriving and embracing trauma and not really wanting to change it sometimes so i don't like either of these stands i don't think that you know once you finish the book there is this notion of now you can always be perfectly happy and things will be fine and you know you're solved you're fixed just do these things and your life will be perfect or on the other end saying oh you know obviously you've been through so much trauma and you should just embrace this and this is your strength and all these different different ways that i think are just at least with me don't resonate with the way that i see the world and the way that i see my life so i find these kind of a bit frustrating when i read them and see them in books i feel as though very often rigid formulas that guarantee success in a certain way when they're not applicable to you can't end up making you feel almost worse in a way or just make the book pointless so i feel as though this is a big issue that i have with these books in general and to boil these all down for me i think my issue with self-help books in principle is that they are teaching me what to think rather than how to think and i think this is a very important distinction that i make in books in general when i read kind of the summary of a book or when i read the first few pages i'm very attuned to the tone of the author is it telling me what to think and what to do or is it telling me how to think and how to view my life and how to view things in general because i will always go for a book that will teach me how to think very often these tend to be fiction books these are not self-help books but sometimes there are some health self-help books that will teach me how to think rather than what i should be doing and what i should be thinking which i think is just very pointless i don't agree with this in general now while i still very much hold all of these opinions very strongly i have some views on how self-help books can actually be helpful in some situations the first reason is that well-written self-help books will give me clarity and understanding of that kind of mess and state of being that is my inside that i sometimes don't have access to and this is especially important when it comes to conversations with other people i think self-help books that are written very well with effective frameworks can give language and terms and names to things that i don't know how to describe otherwise i think we are so limited in the amount of language insight and understanding and vocabulary that we are given growing up in terms of our internal state of being i have so many words to describe the world around me the objects around me when it comes to myself i just have a very limited amount of things i can say i'm sad or happy or hurt or distressed or anxious but these are very vague and non-specific to different situations however when you read a self-help book it really provides you good language so for example instead of telling someone in my life that oh i'm just feeling really bad or this is making me very anxious i can say actually what you just did triggered some anxious attachment on my end and we will both immediately know what is going on in my state in a way that captures it so so well and is so specific and it's just incredible i often imagine what it would be like if i had to describe everything in my life the way i need to describe my emotions so if i just had to go every time i need to talk about a saucepan i would be you know that round thing that you put on a stove and you put things inside it that's actually quite deep and sometimes has a handle that would be so difficult to go around life having to describe everything this way and yet when it comes to our emotions every time i need to say something i need to have a safe space and a safe situation and a lot of time and someone's full attention to be able to elaborate exactly what i'm feeling while with self-help books very often once they give you these frameworks it's very easy to say immediately this is what i'm feeling this is what's being triggered and we immediately know what's going on both me on my end for my internal state and also the other person for understanding my eternal state so i think this is just brilliant brilliant brilliant when it comes to self-help books and the second thing i love about them and i have to accept this is that at the end of the day they're just trying to do a good thing like these authors are out there trying to make people happier trying to make people feel better so that's something i can obviously get on board with and i should not get so um frustrated around in the first place so i think this is definitely something that i love so it's for sure a plus point on this topic so let's go into the books number one is the book attached and i read this very recently i've been avoiding this book for a while because i thought well you know i know what it says i'm very interested in kind of child development and child psychology so i knew about the attachment theory in babies but reading this book it really helped it was the exact same thing but as applied to adults this is a book that i would basically recommend to anyone who has ever been wants to be or is or is interested in romantic relationships because it really really really really really helps with giving you a framework of approaching your own internal state and the behaviors of your partner potentially so what this book does is that it divides people into three groups secure attached and avoidant it has a lot of questions and descriptions around each of these different types so you can identify with which one you resonate the most now or with which one you've potentially resonated most in the past and also it describes the interactions between them which ones are healthier and unhealthier and what sort of maladaptive behaviors can be triggered when different combinations or situations happen so it is a bit of a rigid framework which again i would take with a pinch of salt because of course we're all different we all vary between these different types and there's no such formula as to what kind of person you are or personality you are in my opinion but i think that it's very very helpful in giving that language and framework for understanding each other and especially analyzing yourself and perhaps the very irrational ways that you may have behaved in the past in your relationships so 100 would recommend this book the next book i would definitely recommend is rip it up and on the surface i'm going to describe this book it literally sounds like one of the books that i would have absolutely hated before but honestly it's very very well written basically i would recommend this book to anyone who feels slightly anxious or introverted or kind of too complicated and as though they can't fit in with others and they're as though they're not as happy and lighthearted as everyone else is around them because it really really really really helps for that the main premise of the book is the as-if principle which basically means that it's not our feelings that guide our actions but our actions that guide our feelings which means that we do things and then we interpret that as a feeling rather than we feel something and that's the truth and then we behave a certain way it talks about small things that you can do for example how laughter can make your day feel a lot better rather than a gratitude journal or things like this so it gives you small tips about life but also it really shows you how fluid things like confidence and love and happiness and self-respect are and how much these things can actually change and be influenced by things around us which on one hand can sound scary but on the other hand also means that they're not set in stone so wherever you feel right now does not need to be the state that you have to be in forever and there are small changes and small shifts in your perspective that you can do to really create a huge difference in your life so i would really really really recommend this one the next book i would really recommend to anyone who like me in the past strongly hated self-help books because this is borderline philosophy and very little self-help but it's really really good the book is called a new earth and i don't know if you know alan watts but it's very similar to his sort of philosophy gives me a strong sense of a heavy influence of eastern philosophy in it and basically what this book can give you is a sense of immediate peace i would definitely recommend it if you are anxious or worried about your life or where you stand it won't tell you how to change anything but it will make you it will shift but it will make you shift your whole perspective on where you stand and what things around you look like it is so so beautiful it's a very gentle book that helps you navigate your inner world while taking into consideration those around you which i think is quite rare in this sort of genre it also helps you let go of your ego and deal with the surrounding pressures of the world which i think are so acute in this day and age it feels almost like an antidote to the modern world of consumerism of stress of pressure of desire of needs and wants that are constantly shoved at us from every direction and it kind of helps you let the world and life flow through you rather than frantically grasping at things around you which can lead to a lot of anxiety so i would definitely recommend this one so much the next book is my love hate book the courage to be disliked hate how it's written hates a lot of parts about it but having said that it is a bit of a philosophical book so in that sense it does take an extreme position which i can appreciate but this book really really helps shift your perspective on your life and your interactions with other people and the main thing that i got from this book is the distinction between my task and other people's tasks or in a less nice way my problem and other people's problem in recognizing that the person who will get the effect of whatever is happening is the person whose task this thing is what that means for example is that someone else's opinion on me is their problem because their opinion on me will not change anything about me and my life i'm just continuing to do my thing but it will change their internal experience and their emotions and their thoughts so it's their problem and i think it just goes into so many details about where your problems and the things you can influence and the things you should be worried and concerned and thinking about and and where those of other people begin because i feel that this line between my task and someone else's task is so so blurred and especially if you're a people pleaser like me it gets really pushed on the other end of me taking on so much pointless responsibilities about others state of being when rather there is absolutely no need this is almost futile and unnecessary and support and help and love does not come in the form of me trying to control other people's internal states of being and rather i should be concerned with myself and extend my help to others when i am calm and able to do that which i will be able to do much more often if i'm a bit more in control or oh not controlled but if i'm a bit more at peace with where i am so 100 would recommend this book it's really really great the last book is personality isn't permanent and this is a really great one it kind of treads the line slightly onto toxic positivity but with a grain of salt i think that is acceptable and fine given the kind of results that the book gives the book talks a lot about your personality not being set in stone and the small things about you will change are changing and have changed again and again and again no matter your age no matter your stage in life and it kind of gives you this empowering acceptance around the fact that no matter who you think you are you will be changing with your life so you might as well be slightly intentional in the direction that your life goes for example the people you're surrounded by the challenges you choose to accept the growth that you let happen or the growth that you seek by yourself and you might as well be a bit more intentional about these things because we're all going to change anyway we might as well go in a direction that we want to go in so i think this book is just kind of an antidote for that sad thought of oh this is who i am i don't like the person i am but rather thinking you know we can make small tweaks and changes to this i'm absolutely fine but i can make myself feel a bit better or a bit more at peace with where i stand if you are like me and you're actually quite picky about the validity and the resources of different studies that you are seeing mentioned in books a great way to put you in a position of being very empowered and properly approaching these is to have a strong foundation of mathematics and science and the best way that i love to learn this as an adult who is no longer getting this in any sort of formal education is by using brilliant which are very kindly sponsoring this video brilliant is a stem sciences educational app and there's so much you can learn on it but the thing that i am laser focused on in the moment is the probability and statistics section which i still haven't finished but i'm going through and enjoying every moment of i cannot rave enough about how easy the games make studying these sort of topics it's super helpful in re-establishing and also helping you apply different sort of mathematical skills and settings that are genuinely useful in real life so if you want to join me on this journey i'll have a 20 discount code link to my description or you can just click the link to get a trial and see what i am raving about because it is really really helpful so yes those are five books that were explicitly written with a goal of improving my life that actually did feel did improve my life so yeah i hope this video was helpful in any shape or form i would love to know any self-help books that you like or even better any sort of fiction books that you like that end up being self-help i might do a video on that actually why fiction books are so much better than self-help books because there's so many more fiction books that i think have given me um a lot of learning in life and a lot of pleasure so if you made it to the end of this video thank you you fellow nerd and i hope you have a wonderful rest of your day because yourself and others and don't believe everything you think thanks bye

Channel: Elizabeth Filips

Views: 371,319

Keywords: self-help books, self help, self help books, reading, books, book recommendations, bookshelf tour, book recommendations 2022, self help book recommendations, change your life, book reviews

Id: nJhuWAzJ3Jo

Length: 16min 40sec (1000 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 08 2022