4 Reasons Why The ‘Self-Help’ Things You’re Doing, Are No Help At All

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You’ve been reading articles and books trying to improve yourself. You’ve even listened to audio courses or attended an event that was designed to help you change your life. And suddenly you realize that nothing’s different. You’re the same as when you started. You still have the same problem. But before you give up, consider whether any of these reasons are the cause:

Not addressing your limiting beliefs

Although you need the right information to make a change and you may even be motivated, if you don’t address the limiting beliefs that can keep you from implementing the strategies you’ve learned, you likely won’t see any change.

Remember that your beliefs affect your behavior, your attitude and your emotions. So if you happen to have some beliefs like, “I’ll never change”, “I’m not good enough”, “I’m not smart enough”, “Mistakes are bad”, these thoughts will seep into your behavior and prevent you from changing. So be sure that you’re thinking about any limiting beliefs that can hold you back and put an end to them. Know that you can do anything you put your mind to. That it’s ok if you mess up, just get up, dust yourself off and keep on going.

Squeezing yourself into a box

Often times when you’re reading a self help book, listening to an audio course or even reading an article like this one, it’s not specific to you and your experiences. You have to be critical of the information you’re receiving and tailor it to you. Action steps may not apply based off of your experience, and that’s ok.

And don’t lose sight of what, for you, is a successful outcome. Your ideas and ideals must be your own and informed by the outside world. You can’t take on someone else idea of happiness. Because it’s possible that you can take all the right steps to get to their goal and still find yourself unhappy. Remember that you know yourself best. You are the expert on your own life.

Having unrealistic expectations

It’s just about impossible to find guaranteed results. Know that in order for you to see changes in your life, you have to make changes and no one can guarantee that you will. And often, because we’re imperfect people it will take time for us to change our behaviors. We’ll make some mistakes on our path. This is to be expected. So don’t beat yourself up if you’ve attended a seminar or an online course and you’re not 100% different a month after. Give yourself some time.

Not implementing changes or being consistent

You can read hundreds of self help books by professionals, attend seminars led by the best personal development leaders and listen to audio courses from the most influential motivational speakers, but if you don’t consistently implement any changes, you won’t see any changes. So after you read a book, listen to a course or attend a seminar, reflect on what you’ve learned and how you want to apply it to your life. Clearly define your goals that you want for yourself and specific action steps you’ll take to achieve your goals. Decide how often you’ll review this so that you can reflect on your progress and hold yourself accountable.

And another thing, for change to happen, we have to consistently do something different. That’s how we develop new habits. So, if you’re working on managing your anger and after taking a course on anger management you implemented a few strategies that you practiced for a week. And then stopped. You’re not going to see change. You have to stick with it. It’ll take time for a new habit to form and for you to change your behavior. But, don’t give up.