If You Feel Exhausted by Self-Help, This is for You.
No matter how much self-help you read, you will still have problems.
Sometimes I wonder if writer’s block comes from over-saturation of the mind.
I haven’t written anything for weeks. It isn’t because I don’t want to. I simply lost the spark. I scrolled through too many “inspirational” headlines, read too many listicles, and I started to feel like the only way to make it as a writer was to talk about all my tricks or share all the ways I’ve figured out how to live the smartest, the most organized, or the most productive life.
I can’t do that. I can’t even pretend to do that. I don’t have anything totally figured out. I’m not going to pretend I do, either, just for views or to improve my SEO or whatever. I gave it an honest try but it killed my writing spark. I hit the end of my knowledge pool pretty quickly.
Here’s my truth: if I’m primarily pandering to the algorithm, I’m not offering my best writing. I’m talking personally, here. I have a particular style of writing that isn’t stuffed with keywords and searchable phrases. It’s just what I’m wrestling with right now, what I observe, honest thoughts from my corner of the world. That’s the only way I know how to do it.
For me, writing has always been a tool of curiosity. Rather than blasting you with psychological tricks or productivity hacks or a bunch of ways to make your life tidier, tightly packed with streamlined plans and goals and an exercise routine, I prefer to use my writing to wander around ideas.
I like a writer who has fewer cut and dry answers and more questions to play with. Reading that kind of writing is like collecting shells along the shoreline. It’s lovely to wander along, picking up ideas, examining their particular ridges and hues, and imagining them in my life. Will I keep this one? Will it enhance my life with beauty or joy or substance?
If I wander into the self-help section of the bookstore, I can start to feel worse about myself because I’m utterly aware of all the things I’m not doing to optimize my life.
But, then again, I don’t want to live simply to optimize everything. I’m not a robot. I’m not a formula. I’m a human poking along the shoreline of my life. I’m just here. I try my best and a lot of days I feel happy. A lot of days I feel heartbroken or confused or bone-tired. And when I’m feeling sad or when I’m looking at that bird splashing around in the birdbath outside, to be honest, I don’t care if you think I should be bullet journalling or perfecting my habits or waking up earlier.
Rather than tossing around articles about similar hacks and tips, can we just be human? Can we leave room for nuance and thoughtful exploration? Can we just tell our stories? Does it all have to be recipes for how to do better in life? I like a little grit to my humanity.
Not hatred or awfulness, mind you, just a touch of realness.
The issue with filling your life with a monochromatic deluge of self-help is that you can do it endlessly and never get to perfection. You can incorporate all the planners and exercises and priorities and hacks and still have a crap day, a crap week. You can still struggle with mental health. You can still get broken up with. You can still look at your bank account and feel a bit sick. You can still not get the job.
When you find yourself in those places, you need writing with fewer hard edges and shallow answers. You need to land in a place with a little more softness and much less rigidity. Sometimes (not always) straight-up answers alone don’t help. We also need someone to empathize with us. We need someone to raise their hand and say, “I’ve been there and yes, it sucks.” We need tools and help, yes, but we also need to be seen, acknowledged, stood with.
We need hope, but not always the shiny listicles of 10 more things to do. Sometimes hope looks like a story or gut-honest thoughts or empathy. You don’t have to have all the answers or show up with only answers devoid of honesty or grace. All those “do x to get y” articles start feeling a little flat and plastic after a while. If I had a friend who always showed up to tell me 5 ways to be better, I’d probably start looking for a new friend.
I’m not talking about injecting “vulnerability” into writing as a strategy to get more views. A lot of people trying to be authentic sort of miss the point and just make it an attention grab or a means to an end. Authenticity needs to hit a bit deeper than just talking about yourself so people will like you more or binge your writing like reality TV. Authenticity needs a dash of honesty and humility. It needs to not have all the answers. It needs an exploratory vibe. Authenticity carries real, substantial weight.
Authenticity is not a shortcut to more views.
That’s what I worry about. I worry that “authenticity” is mixing with prescriptive self-help and making it all about the author’s gain. It isn’t really about introspection or curiosity. It’s just about one more thing to look at, to follow. It’s one more person waving for attention (or money).
The most inspiring and influential people are the ones, I think, with fewer simple answers, fewer lists, and more ability to embrace life with its ebbs and flows. The people out there taking care of their grandchildren or working a couple of jobs to stay afloat: I think those people are just as inspiring (if not more so, sometimes) as the people writing endlessly about the quick keys to their version of an amazing life.
I’ve noticed that the people in my real life are dropping more wisdom than the Internet is, these days.
People are quietly wise. Listen for drops of wisdom sprinkled through the ordinary places in your life. Rather than immediately Googling your way to an answer, try digging around in your own experience first. There is so much around you, trying to speak to you. It’s all right there ready to teach you, to guide you.
There are a lot of writers taking this other path, by the way. No genre is perfect but I’m drawn more to the essayists, the poets, the thoughtful theologians and the activists these days. They often grapple with deep issues. They stretch me and push my mind. That’s where I actually grow and develop my character. I’m searching for writers with fewer pat answers and a lot more grit and depth.
You can’t list your way to good character. Goals alone don’t make you a good person. It isn’t so linear. It’s going to take a bunch of mucking around and measuring your heart and thinking long and hard about how you show up in the world. What do you need to change about yourself? Usually, it’s a bit harder than figuring out some hack or reading about how much money someone made.
You might have to forgive or apologize or start a long road of healing. You might need to close a friendship or find a new community. You might have to leave or you might have to return. You might have to go to a therapist to work through some trauma. You might have to have an honest conversation with a family member. You might have to switch jobs or move or break up.
There are so few one-size-fits-all answers.
Being human isn’t easy. It’s not. It can be so beautiful and fun, yes, but your life is much more complex than simply existing to optimize.
As I went down the vortex of self-help books and articles, I started feeling bad about myself as a writer because I’m not into writing punchy lists or packaging my tips and tricks. I tried that and it felt wrong. Not me. My goal is to make you think more deeply. I want you to come away feeling refreshed and carrying something to ponder. I can share what I’ve learned. I can share what helped me, but I can’t claim to have all the answers for your particular life situation.
It feels great to read articles that claim they can teach you to make a ton of money or get loads of views or fix your self-esteem. However, reading about it and actually figuring it out in your real life are vastly different things. I worry that we are starting to feel like reading about something and actually doing it are the same thing. I worry that we are trying to shortcut through the hard parts of life and skipping over a lot of self-growth and self-reflection in the name of self-help.
It has to come from within. At some point, you have to go inward. You have more wisdom within you and around you than you might think. There is beauty in finding truth and guidance in your real life that you can’t get from Google or Tik Tok.
There is a whole other, deeper thing going on here. You have a complex and magical life at your fingertips. There is a whole story full of surprises and relationships and growth right in front of you. Don’t squander it by reading 50 versions of the same article on the Internet.
Sometimes you have to wait and let the answers reveal themselves to you in the quiet, mundane spaces of your life. Sometimes you’ll hear something in the grocery store that is like a balm for your wounded heart. Sometimes you’ll find your teachers in the garden or at that place you want to volunteer.
Go deeper into your own life rather than falling deeper into Internet rabbit holes.
This comes down to understanding that you have wisdom within. You can’t outsource your growth or motivation or character. Those things need to be built up internally, with experience and seeking and being honest with yourself.
I’m not actually arguing that we throw away listicle articles or self-help entirely. There is a place for that type of writing. There are many listicle articles that have genuinely helped me. I have a few self-help category books on my nightstand.
The issue, I think, is twofold.
One is the writer’s heart behind the scenes. You can tell when a writer is cranking out content to be seen or noticed and when a writer is genuinely passionate or knowledgeable about their subject matter. It’s not the form as much as it is the writer’s intention.
You can generally sense true authenticity as you comb through a writer’s body of work. It hits a certain depth of truth. It’s not so buzzy, it’s not so shallow. There are real thoughts strung through. It’s not oversimplified “just work hard!” or “forget what everyone else thinks!” or “organize your day better!” There has to be an echo of humanity and complexity reverberating through the words.
I’m not arguing for us to throw away listicles. I am saying that we need more honest writers who aren’t trying to copy a formula that leads straight to dollar signs. That can’t be the highest goal of the writer.
Two, we need to be better readers. I was almost exclusively ingesting skimmable self-help content and it left me feeling like I’d only eaten Oreos for a day. That’s on me. I needed to become a wiser reader. I needed to filter the content I took in by finding quality writers worth reading. I needed to mix up the topics and the genres in my reading queue. I need to read consciously, engaging with the material, stopping when I hit my mental saturation point, and choosing writers that have depth and substance in their words. That doesn’t always mean “serious,” by the way. It could mean a jolt of humour writing.
The question is, when engaging in the material, whether it enhanced your life or wasted your time. I’m trying to aim for as much writing that is memorable- that really makes me think and laugh and learn and sticks around in my head and my heart beyond the scroll.
Those are the writers I want to guide me.
