Can Self-Help Books Really Work?

When it comes to self-help books, it's important to be objective and evaluate how the advice can be applied to one's own circumstances. While a startup founder may learn some lessons from a book about how IBM reinvented itself, it's unlikely to teach them much about raising capital for a new company. Similarly, some business councils may have worked in the 1990s, but the world has changed a lot since then thanks to the Internet, and many lessons may no longer apply. Ultimately, it's up to the individual to take responsibility for their current state and implement the changes in their life. There are a lot of really good self-help books out there, ranging from philosophy and psychology to business and motivation.

However, there are also plenty of bad ones. Knowing when, how and why to benefit from self-help books will help you avoid the pitfalls of fads and fake gurus, and make the most of your time and money. For example, books like the Mars-Venus book appeal to women even though they often characterize women as the source of the problem in relationships. At the same time, as noted by researchers David Richards and Paul Farrand (20), the book should not present an unrealistic and positive view of therapy. Psychologist Rachel Richardson and her colleagues (20) demonstrated that a good self-help book follows the principles of good therapy.

According to Signorella and Cooper, this book is allocated to almost a quarter of couples trying to improve their relationships. You can read several self-help books before you get significant benefits, take revealing information, useful exercises, and helpful tips from several of them. It's easy to read a self-help book or attend a “life training” seminar and get satisfaction just from the dopamine high that comes from finishing a book or enjoying the seminar highs. When people read these books, they connect with their sense of agency, their ability to make a real difference in their lives, but once they have to take what they have learned and apply it to their lives, most people fall short. Richardson and colleagues also suggest that it is very useful to find examples in real case books that have gone well under the author's treatment. According to a review of the scientific literature, self-help books are most effective in helping us learn new life skills, such as assertiveness, problem solving, and even order.

Instead of reading an entire book and then having nothing to show for it, highlight and highlight the things that jump out as you read the book, then go back and write bullet points of the most important lessons in each chapter. In a study of online participants seeking help with sleep problems, a team of Norwegian researchers led by Bjorn Bjorvatn (201) found that a self-help book on sleep actually helped readers improve their sleep and reduce the amount of sleep medications they claimed to take. It can be indoors or out, at home, or in a library or coffee shop, but it should be a relatively quiet, distraction-free place that allows you to read your self-help book with intention and purpose.