Why Most “Self” Help is a Complete Farce and Waste of Your Time
Yeah, I know, it’s been a long time, but if you will, follow me down this lane…
You’re a dude who’s insecure about your height because people have been poking fun at it for most of your life, and that has had a negative impact on your self esteem which in turn has had a negative impact on your dating life, career, and your social life. You feel like a victim and blame all your mishaps, failures and shortcomings on your height.
“If only I was a little bit taller, people would respect me more.”
“It’s because of my height why women don’t like me.”
“If I could be a little taller, my life would be set.”
These are some of the phrases that are often heard coming out of your mouth or bouncing around in your head.
Well, one day, you have an epiphany. Disgusted with your life and over feeling sorry for yourself, you decide that you’re no longer going to let your height (or lack thereof) hold you back. In a new fit of determination, you decide to go on YouTube and look up “How to be more confident” and start watching videos about this subject and you also Google, “How to be comfortable in your own skin,” and start devouring all the info your can get. You then look up the top book recommendations from people you admire and you go on Amazon and buy some of these books.
Fully determined to overcome this insecurity and improve your self esteem, you gradually get more and more immersed in self help. You even start to go to seminars, and even hire a life coach.
In time, with all this “self helping,” you’re able to build a new identity based on your strengths instead of your weaknesses, and your wins instead of your failures. You adopt a winner’s mindset where you look at your failures as teachers for future success instead of unadulterated proof that you’re an irredeemable loser. You change the type of people you associate with to reflect the type of person you want to become. You also become that “level up/boss up” dude who is now goal oriented, not only taking consistent steps towards your goals, but is improving every aspect of your life – health, spirituality, fashion, etc.
Ultimately, with this new identity and the improvements you’ve made, you become the guy you always wanted to become and your life completely changes.
You have a great dating life, you feel confident about yourself, you’re having success in your chosen career or business, and you have a great social life. This external success serves to feed the validity of your new identity, which makes you more confident to garner even more success, which in turn feeds your identity and so on. You look back at the guy who used to feel sorry for himself and it feels like a whole different person. As a matter of fact, you can’t stand being around those people who complain about their looks, height, bank account, etc. and use them as excuses as to why they’re not successful. In your mind, such people need to stop whining and get their sh*t together.
This, my friends, is the result of “good” self-help where you learn how to create an identity that protects you from your insecurities so that you can become confident and successful. The self help industry is littered with books and workshops that help you do this.
However, there’s a problem with all this.
Remember that insecurity you had about your height and how you once allowed it to hold you back? Well, insecurity about a certain quality or trait you have is tied with shame, and that shame doesn’t magically disappear just because you’ve become confident and successful. Neither do other emotions such as grief, sadness or anger that may be tied with that insecurity as well.
Those feelings will remain ever present in you no matter how successful you become, even if you’re not aware of them. What will tend to happen is that you will seek to attain a certain level of success hoping it will make those insecure feelings go away, and when you achieve it, you may bask in the glow of accomplishment for a certain amount of time, but when that fades, and oh it will, you find yourself left with those same insecure feelings.
What to do then?
Well, for most people, the “logical” step to take is to seek the next goal, and when they achieve it, they’re on to the next, and then the next, and then the next after that.
But you know what?
All this pursuit of success is based on trying to avoid those insecure feelings. But, no matter how successful they become and look on the outside, they’re still being controlled and run by their insecurities. What’s more, the identity they built to protect them from their insecurities and the success they were able to achieve as a result often serves to distract them from their insecurities to the point that if you suggest that they’re insecure, they may not see it, REFUSE to acknowledge that they have any insecurities, or get defensive or straight up belligerent about you daring to suggest such a fanciful blasphemy.
Truth be told, what I’ve come to find out is that creating an identity that helps shield you from your insecurities so you can become confident and successful like what the self help industry mostly teaches has nothing to do with “self” help. Anytime you create an identity to compensate for your insecurities you’re dealing with ego, so we can more accurately label most of “self” help as “ego help.”
True self help teaches you how to tear down your ego so you can fully engage with your insecurities by fully welcoming and feeling the pain behind them, so you can heal from them, which will in turn allow you to connect to your core, authentic self which is already confident and successful.
When you’re able to come from this place, rather than trying to chase success, you’re already coming from the feeling of success and acting from that place.
For years, I identified with an ego I built of being this exotic, good looking, intelligent, well dressed dude with a great body who the ladies love to protect me from how I really felt inside – an ugly, grotesque, boorish, unlovable, pathetic dude who is undeserving of any type of success. I built this ego to justify why I am worthy of the things I want in life. However, as I now see how this “hidden” pain still runs and hinders me, I’ve been trying to tear down my defenses so I can be with this pain. It’s not “fun,” and when I connect to my pain as it comes up, I’m often grimacing or writhing in discomfort, but I know if I get to the other side of it, eventually I can connect to my core self lies that knows it’s already valuable simply by being, enabling me to be more authentic and attract success rather than chase it.
This is The Viable Alternative.
Hope this helps,
p.s. If you’re one of those people who is tired of being run by your insecurities, email me at info@theviablealternative.com for more info about coaching where I show you how to connect to your core, authentic self where you’re aligned with who you naturally are.
