5 Intuitive Reasons Why Self-Help Books Don’t Work For 80% Of People

I have always had a love-hate relationship with self-help books. I love reading the content created by self-help gurus, but sometimes, nothing sticks to me.

I learned that I need to have a suitable state of mind to lecture such content and to be capable of adopting the advice I receive. Otherwise, I just exercise my reading.

Let’s shift the attention on you now. Do you read motivational books? How do they work for you?

Why I think self-help content does not work for you…

You Don’t Have the Desire To Evolve

If you tell everybody that you want to be a better person and worker is not mandatory that you want that thing, with your heart and soul.

Self-development means also hard work. This is a good reason why your brain can start to mimic the desire to evolve, but you are not willing to do the required sacrifices.

You can’t be better unless you get obsessed with being better. Without 100% commitment, you will just sabotage the process and make things difficult for you.

You Don’t Trust The Process

To succeed, you must trust the process. No questions asked, just work and change.

Let’s say you bought a self-help book written by a big name in the niche. If the person’s success stands out for himself, you should blindly trust the information provided.

We can agree that nobody is willing to share his deepest secrets and his recipe for success, but this does not mean that the proposed process is wrong. It’s just incomplete.

Everybody teaches you what you have to do to have success and which are the milestones you must pass, but you have to connect the dots by yourself.

General advice represents a good starting point. After you implement the first changes and fix the main problems, you can focus on creating your method and follow your path for success.

You Are Not Willing to Do the Sacrifices Required By Change

As Brian Tracy loves to say — Eat that frog.

Are you willing to eat your frog? Are you willing to do everything required to have success? Can you lock your bad habits in a box and adopt new ones?

Can you stay away from your mobile phone and other distractions while working?

Can you make up your bed every morning and understand the power of this gesture?

Can you blindly follow the given advice and entrust in the Universe? Can you believe that by implementing some chances for success, the Universe will guide you there?

You Are Living In The Past

Another thing that is keeping you from evolving is your inability to adapt to the present. Your incapacity of performing a hard reset.

Can you rewire the wires in your brain and leave everything that happened behind?

Unless you can reach the enthusiasm and positive mindset required for changes to work, you will stay in the same situations over and over again.

Truly accept and forgive yourself. If you manage to do this, your past mistakes will not interfere with your current development process.

You Are Incapable of Taking Ownership of Your Past Mistakes

By not taking ownership of your past mistakes, you are incapable of adopting permanent fixes for recurring problems.

Understanding that you are in permanent control of things is the key to change. Things don’t just randomly happen, they are caused by our actions.

This little trick will help us be more aware and live in the present. Living in the present means making peace with the past and focusing on building a nice future.

To Wrap Up

For the motivational content to have an effect, you need to be open to doing the hard work required by change. Without this feeling, you won’t be capable of digesting and adopting the advice you receive;

Until you are capable of finding your way, you should not contest the proposed processes. Follow them and be open to making adjustments, instead;

Understand that it’s not easy to implement changes. You won’t be successful unless you do what’s necessary, no matter how hard it is;

You should forgive yourself for all the past mistakes and focus on building your future. Use the past only to identify mistakes and not repeat them;

Stop considering that things randomly happen to you. If you understand that you have full control and everything is a reaction to your behavior, you will find the need to turn everything in your favor.

Please read this Oprah quote out loud:

“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.”

Now read it again, please.

Are you ready to implement all the required things to become the successful person you want to become? If not, reading motivational content will not have any effect

Trust me, with the right mindset, you will be unstoppable. And you will feel when it's the proper time.

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👇 I hope you enjoyed reading this piece. Curious to know a bit about myself? 👇

My pen name is Ryan Miller. I am a Linux Sysadmin, writing hobbyist, father, and husband. I mostly write non-fiction on Vocal, Medium, and my blogs.

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