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Accepting Self-Help Limitations:
Page Highlights: ▪ How Does Self-Help Differ from Learning ? ▪ Overcoming a Blockage to Action ▪ Curtailing Behaviors That Harm Others ▪ Self-Help is an Unfair Fight ▪ Due To the Unfair Fight, Most Self-Help Programs Become a "Seduction Trap" ▪ Self-Help Programs Better at Inspiring than Transforming ▪ Realistically Assess Results to Escape the Seduction Trap
Self-help programs inspire and disappoint.
How Does Self-Help Differ from Learning?
When we want to improve ourselves on our own by gaining more knowledge, we don't call it "self-help." We call it “reading,” “listening,” or “learning.” Exactly what is it then that we call "self-help?" The distinction grows easily from the explicit recognition that we operate in two modes. Self-improvement through learning develops our thinking-self by acquiring greater knowledge from various information sources, including books, journals, and the Internet. We improve our automatic activities through other means such as training, practice, experiential workshops, coaching, and self-help. Therefore, self-help refers to changing our own auto-self; in particular, it normally refers to changing an auto-behavior (an undesired habit) without external help except for "advice" on how to do it. One can receive guidance on self-help techniques for a wide variety of topics. The topic that interests us here centers on improvements for attaining and sustaining success – primarily in the work environment.
Overcoming a Blockage to Action
Morry was a high-level individual contributor in a change management organization. He came to me out of his frustration that he could not deal with aggressive people – especially ones in high authority.
Morry’s inability to stay engaged when confronted with aggressive behavior was inconsistent with his desires and intentions to help CEOs of large companies. Consistent feedback from multi-rater surveys spanning several years had created a solid self-awareness about this issue. However, his auto-self drove this behavior pattern, so he was unable to make the desired changes despite many "self-help" attempts. Not surprisingly, Morry and I identified other issues in his professional and personal life where he suffered a blockage to desired action. Morry overcame his primary blockage and other important ones in the course of our coaching engagement. We discuss how we can change people who cannot change themselves in a later section.
Morry experienced his own particular forms of a blockage to action. However, all of us fail to execute some items important to our success and well-being. Common examples in organizations are failure to conduct robust performance reviews, inability to engage and resolve conflicts, avoidance of public speaking, and tenacious resistance to discovering a realistic profile of our own uncontrollable actions.
Curtailing Behaviors That Harm Others We already gave examples of self-help attempts to curtail undesirable behaviors. Mick could not control his anger outbursts even after he became acutely aware of the negative effects these outbursts were having on his employees. I reported my success at overcoming road rage through a self-help effort, but in reality, although difficult for me, that transformation was in a limited and easily noticed area. To realize how ineffective self-help is in changing undesirable habits, look back to the New Year's resolutions that you and those near you have made. How many of these self-help efforts produced lasting results?
Most self-help attempts fail because they rely on succeeding at the "unfair fight." That is, people attempt to use thinking-self intentions to overpower their tenacious auto-behaviors. Transforming a habit or reconstructing an auto-context creates discomfort; therefore, our comfort priorities often trump our success priorities and we terminate our efforts before we establish our desired change. Trying to eliminate deep seeded behaviors through self-help is like trying to stop a charging 800 pound gorilla with a pea shooter. Both attempts may work as an economical first approach, but one would do best not to count on them for survival or success. Self-help is the cheapest way to transform auto-behaviors. In cases where it works, you've won an unfair fight. In most cases, self-help attempts fail. When the issue is crucial to your success, seek expert help.
The enthusiasm created by self-help books and seminars normally lasts a few weeks at best. To create lasting change can take a year or longer. Because most transformations create discomfort, the Comfort Imperative normally overwhelms the desire for change eventually, leading to a poor track record for go-it-alone self-helping. As the enthusiasm and energy associated with self-help programs atrophies, the discomfort associated with changing a habit gradually tilts comfort priorities in favor of discomfort and thinking-self intentions enter into an unfair fight with the inherent auto-self resistance to change. Now you understand why your New Year's resolutions fail so disappointingly and why so many people fail in their intentions to lead a healthier life style. The unfair fight is buried deep in human nature. Just as people don’t always lose when they play a slot machine or bet on the lottery, people don't always lose unfair fights when trying to make personal improvements. However, none of these approaches provide a reliable path to sustained success.
Due To
the Unfair Fight,
Here is a general caution that is relevant to self-help approaches. Beware of the "seduction trap." The seduction trap occurs whenever we allow ourselves to substitute positive feelings for needed actions. We end up solving the wrong problem. We alleviate the discomfort associated with realizing we are not where we want to be in life. We may feel great when some new plausible advice inspires us, but we end up not making the deep, fundamental, permanent changes that sustainable success requires. This dilemma is particularly troublesome because the great feelings generated make it seem so much like real benefits will surely come, but that is often not case with the programs presented in the self-help books, videos, and seminars. They often serve only to relieve the internal reality war associated with realizing some of our behaviors no longer match the requirements of our environment. Unfortunately, ameliorating the discomfort of knowing that you need to change has the unintended consequence of blocking the initiatives, energy, and tenacity that you need to mount a more determined effort to make the transformations actually happen. Most self-help attempts end up being simplistic-solution evasion gimmicks instead of real solutions to the need to change.
Many people succumb to the seduction trap because of the need to resolve the internal reality wars once they become aware of a conflict between an automatic behavior or context and feedback from the environment. Instead of engaging in heavy lifting to change an undesired habit, they inadvertently take the easiest way out by employing a simplistic solution. The Comfort Imperative is such a powerful driving force that often people unintentionally seek to escape it at the expense of their success. "Any port in a storm" usually doesn't work because like Homeric Sirens sweetly beckoning sailors to their demise, many of the ports are seductive lairs of entrapment that lead to failure.
Self-Help Programs Better at Inspiring than Transforming
Because so many people desire to find ways to improve their chances of success, there is an eager market for inexpensive and seemingly easy self-help programs. As such, self-help offerings run the gamut from dubious approaches by charlatans to well-thought-out, experience-tempered approaches that often do help people improve themselves on some issues.
The book, 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life, From Timeless Sages to Contemporary Gurus, by TomButler-Bowdon provides a summary of 50 historical and present-day approaches to self-help and is an excellent vehicle to survey the landscape of self-improvement. It includes a wide assortment of approaches ranging from practical to mystical. Since all of these books contain at least nuggets of good advice on how to improve one's self, some positive changes might occur. However, a common thread is that they provide plausible advice but fall short on effective techniques. Since most of the reviewed books have sold well, it follows that another attribute of these books is that they inspire. Inspirational books can provide motivation and energy to attempt to make significant changes, but they frequently fail to turn that motivation into a transformational reality. The self-help industry does not seem to see it in their best interest to track actual results. Knowing about the unfair fight and the seduction trap, I estimate the success rate of sustainable self-help change is south of 10%.
Realistically Assess Results to Escape the Seduction Trap
Since self-help works so poorly, we can obtain better results by giving and receiving help.
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