Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Self Help Books

So this was quite a bit more of a self-help book than I thought it would be. I wasn’t expecting so many introspective questions to ask ourselves and little worksheets and activities. I was actually pretty embarrassed about reading this one and tried not to let people see what I was reading. I feel bad for making others read it because it is a little embarrassing to read a self-help book. Do people think you need help if you’re reading one? Is it socially acceptable? Today people were joking about the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, which I haven’t read, as if everybody knew self-help books were a joke. Little did they know that I had one stashed in my backpack right under their very noses – of course, I was happy that they didn’t know.

I have read a few self-help books in the past and wanted to get everyone’s take on self-help books as a genre before we dive into this specific little gem. I actually read the book “The Secret”. (Not recommended – my dad is really weird and gifted both the book and the audio-book to all of his children, with STRONG encouragement to read it.) I also recently read “The Automatic Millionaire”, so apparently I like self-help books. What do you all think of this type of book in general? Do you like to read them? Is it embarrassing to read them? Do we actually become better people if we do read them?

3 comments:

cassidy said...

I have never really had a desire to read self help books. I think it's because I have little motivation to change based on something that I read. Maybe if I felt like I was struggling in a particular area of my life I would be more motivated to read a specific self help book, but so far that hasn't really happened.

I think these books are kind of becoming more main stream (like The Secret) so I wasn't as embarrassed as Sam seemed to be, but I was a tiny bit embarrassed when I called the library to renew my book. I didn't want the lady at the library to think that my life needs help.

On a somewhat unrelated note, am I the only one who was totally surprised at how business management - oriented this book was? It was kind of hard to apply the habits to my life becauase most of his examples were in business settings.

Sam said...

I was surprised that it was so business-oriented at first, but then I remembered that's why it was such a popular book. I guess I had forgotten that aspect of self-help books. But seeing as how I'm now in the big corporate world, I didn't mind the business-y stuff.

Marci said...

Well, even though I've only read parts of the book I'm going to respond anyway. I hope you guys don't mind. :)

This book actually came at an interesting time for me. I'm in grad school (part-time) and my emphasis is in business and entrepreneurial nutrition. And the course I'm currently taking is basically prepping us for the world of running your own nutrition business. And the thing that has really surprised me is how often my professor advocates reading self-help books! I always thought they were embarassing and cheezy and assumed they weren't all that helpful.

So in answer to your question, yes, I do find it embarassing to read them. But I've come to appreciate that they can do us some good. I think one of the biggest benefits is that they tend to help us evaluate where we are in life and what we need to do in order to help us accomplish the things we want most.

There is a reason people hire life coaches and personal trainers (yes, I do know from personal experience) and I think it's similar to why self help books are beneficial. We need some outside help to reach our goals. We have these natural human tendencies which slow us down, so getting the insight and support we need can be very beneficial.