The Blunt Truth About Self-improvement Books and Videos

Only one has ever worked for me

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I’m addicted to self-help advice.

Even after hundreds of books and countless videos, I’m convinced the next one will have the answers I’ve been searching for. I will finally discover the secret to a better life. Night after night, I consume self-improvement content while my wife doomscrolls on social media. This even makes me feel superior sometimes because I’m taking action to improve myself, right?

Wrong. Just like her doomscrolling, I’m getting a dose of dopamine with everything I watch. The difference is that the dopamine hit comes from thinking I actually did something just by consuming the content. However, here’s how to know the truth: nothing happened and nothing changed.

I know I’m not alone in this.

Now, to be fair, I have made numerous attempts to take action, but every one of them failed except one, and I’ve discovered a few reasons for this.

The first is that many of them want you to do too much to get started.

I’ll use Brené Brown’s, “The Gifts of Imperfection” as an example. I recently read the 10th anniversary edition, and this one contained what’s called the…