When Self-Help Just Makes Your Life Worse

It all started with the internet. It seemed that Benedicte Kinkolo was being served another story every time she went online. She was told another success story: winning awards, running a business and making millions.

Kinkolo was a second-year student at King's College, London. She ate it all up. Although she knew she wanted to be successful in this way, she wasn't sure what. Perhaps she could learn from the people she studied -- what their routines were, how they think before bed, and their habits -- to help her find the right path. She began to read self-help literature and started to wake up earlier to practice yoga and meditate. She was determined to maximize her time and downloaded productivity apps to alert her when a task is ending.

Kinkolo recalls that she was running around at the university library gathering books for a paper, and checking off things on one of her apps. But Kinkolo forgot a step, and she fell down a flight stairs, breaking her ankle. Kinkolo is now preparing for finals. As nurses and doctors rushed in and out of her hospital room, Kinkolo continued working on her laptop to avoid her app reminding her she was behind.

Although her breaking point would not come for many more years, Kinkolo, now 23, was finally done with college and two graduate degrees. She worked tirelessly to finish them all. While she is on a break, she lives with her parents in Paris, where she is trying to figure out her next steps. She leads a completely different lifestyle from what she imagined. She doesn't use productivity apps, make lists, or meditate every morning. She says, "I never thought in a million that I would take time off." Kinkolo says, "It's been the most difficult, most difficult, and most challenging thing I have ever done in my entire life." Kinkolo worked with a therapist during her time off to help her change her outlook on success and her unwavering pursuit of her goals. She says, "It got so bad that I no longer had any agency." "I let the routines, the apps, and the lists run my life."

A thriving industry has emerged from self-improvement programs like Kinkolo's. The U.S. The U.S. self-help market was valued at nearly $10 billion in 2016, and it is expected to rise to $13 billion by 2022. The appeal is simple: You can use a prescribed routine and optimize your time, resources, as well as yourself, to maximize your happiness.

"Life can be complicated. But self-help can make you feel like there is a solution for all your problems. It's in the five- or ten-step guide," states Jeremy Montemarano, a Spring-based clinical psychotherapist. Most changes in life take time, processing, and in the case mental health, working with professionals. It's tempting to grab something that promises to do away with all of that, but at a fraction of the cost and effort.

This temptation is often compounded when you have access to social media and articles that offer a glimpse into the lives of high-powered people. Montemarano says that having more access to the lives of others, even though they may be edited, can lead to problems that are not there.

Sometimes, it can feel counterproductive or even dangerous to dive deep into the worlds of self-improvement. This world has a counterculture, made up of people who are looking for something more rewarding and less stressful.

"Most life changes require time and processing. It's tempting to grab something that promises to do away with all of that."

Ironically, the greatest pitfalls to embarking on a self improvement quest is that it can stop any real change -- it's easy for people to get wrapped up in routines and habits rather than tackling larger issues. Kinkolo gave up on her endless to-do lists, routines, and obsessive thinking when she realized her days were lacking meaning. She says, "I liked the structure of my days but it became so void of meaning that I didn't know what to do." "I was more concerned with ticking things off a checklist than I was thinking about the work that I was doing."

Perpetua Neo is a psychologist and executive coach from Brighton. "Self-help may be a distraction, or an escape, from relationships, or creating meaning in the life or community," she says. People procrastinate because they are unable to focus or don't know how manage their time. It could be that they hate their job. They'll try to deny that they have the ability to stop procrastinating because it's too late, hard, or embarrassing.

Sometimes, the problems that are being hidden are even more serious. Shereen Thor, a Los Angeles executive coach, felt overwhelmed by her shifting emotions after becoming a mother for the first time. "One day, I would be fine. The next day, I would be crying. She recalls that the next day she would be crying. "I thought it was me, since I had always been optimistic and emotionally stable up until that point.

Thor believed that changing her mindset was key to breaking out of her depression. She consulted her coaches, who helped her with their usual strategies. Thor's husband persuaded her to visit her doctor when she was still not feeling well. She learned that her problem was postpartum depression. Thor states that coaching is often based on the idea that you are responsible to your own results. "So with this premise in mind, I blamed my inability of getting it together," Thor said. "I believe that if I was not a coach, it would've been a much easier path."

This doesn't mean that self-improvement is impossible. Svend Brinkmann is a Danish psychologist professor who wrote the anti-self-help book Stay Firm. "I think people make improvement their purpose in life, and they spend too much time worrying about how to optimize their lives and their schedules," says Svend Brinkmann. This is a difficult task because there's no clear end.

Scientists studying self-improvement stress the fact that not all changes are created equal. Jack Bauer, a University of Dayton psychology professor, led a study on the stories that people tell themselves about important life events, and how they affect their well-being. He says that there were many stories about self-improvement. "It was the idea that one can change from bad to great or from good to worse." We found that self-improvement does not have to be about happiness or well-being. It should also include meaningful relationships and activities that you love. It doesn't have the same effect as improving your self-image and status.

It is obvious that not everyone has the time or ability to take a sabbatical and think about what their true desires are. Bauer suggests that even a few minutes a day can help you gain deeper, more meaningful personal growth. Perhaps you are interested in self-improvement to help you grow in a specific way. Maybe you feel like your life is far removed from the lives of successful people.

You can assess your own routines and projects to determine if they are being done for real productivity or just to reach some arbitrary goal that isn't really in line with what you want or need. It's okay to take the time to make changes, reevaluate and reassess your life, and to strive for better. How much are you willing to do?