Is the self- development movement a scam? That’s a good question right and I’ll address this whole topic later on. Let me first address the thing that people will say: “but Alex isn’t your blog a self-development blog?”. It started as one but it isn’t one anymore. Overtime the blogs turned more into reflections rather than the mainstream self-development blog posts or youtube videos. Why? Because being in the industry for a while opened my eyes rather quickly. I’m not saying that all self- development is bad. What I’m addressing here is when they start selling self- development programs.
So that begs the question: Is the self- development industry a scam?
In my opinion, the answer is yes, and here is why…
You can’t ……………self- development.
Imagine that you want to get in shape. What steps will you take? You’ll probably invest in a nutrition program and a training program. You’ll look at your current shape and then assess the results after X amount of time. This is why it’s hard to scam people with fitness programs, you need to have good results to keep selling courses. Not being able to help people reach their goals might result in bad reviews which leads to less income etc. It’s hard to fool people because in that industry you can measure results. Do you see where I’m heading with this?
You can’t MEASURE self- development. By not being able to measure it, it’ll be harder to judge whether or not the program was effective. Most self- development coaches are good at making people feel better but feeling better is not necessarily a sign of growth. It is promoted as such because happiness is the end goal for most people. Not being happy all the time is seen as a sign of illness these days and that should be avoided at all costs.
Happiness inc and the quick-fix mentality.
Happiness should never be your end goal simply because it is impossible to be happy 100% of the time. The medical industry has labeled emotions as positive and negative and that itself is dangerous. By labeling certain emotions as negative you give people the feeling that something is wrong with them. This is all a scam to sell you pills or overpriced counseling of course. Because once certain people create the problem they also sell you the solution (go figure). It’s an easy trick to make money.
In the end, emotions just are. Being sad for example is not negative per se. It’s just a reaction to a certain event and is also part of being human. Dwelling too long on emotions whether they’re positive or negative (if you want to use labels) is bad. The same goes for being overwhelmed by emotions. Happiness can be a dangerous emotion if you can’t control it, the same goes for anger.
You get the point right? Emotions are part of you as a human being. How you deal or label them is entirely up to you. Sadly enough for you, some people made that choice for you and this is where the self-development industry got founded.
Self- development Inc.
Some people figured out that pills were not the solution to a better life. Changing your life is not that hard although most people make it seem like that. The self- development industry is filled with “life coaches” who’ll accompany you on the self- development journey.
But have you ever thought about that term? Life coach? What does it mean to be a life coach in your 20’s, 30’s or even 40’s? The term life coach is vague, this is mostly a term used by people who’ve read a ton of self-development books and assume they’ve figured life out. They don’t master anything, in particular, they just have some theoretical knowledge about how life should be or think it should be. In reality, life is more complex of course. People are at different stages in life and might face things that you’ve never faced. The only way that you can coach some in life is if they live the same life as you, otherwise, you might be able to advise on certain matters but not on everything they go through.
Can’t you learn from other people’s mistakes?
I know that a lot of people say that you should learn from others’ mistakes but that’s easier said than done. Sometimes this might work but the majority of the time you’ll make the mistake as well and just deal with it quicker because you have to knowledge to follow up your action. I had to learn this the hard way. Every fighter knows that you shouldn’t be too overconfident going into a fight yet most fighters have a loss due to being overconfident.
You can read 20000 books on that but that doesn’t make able to deal with the feeling itself. Something that a lot of people seem to forget.
Sometimes we really have to learn things the hard way…
This is the end of the first part.
In part 2 we’ll dive deeper into why the self-development industry is a scam. Also why the phrase “I’ve grown as a person” is a vague statement and much more.
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Till next time
Alex
