{"id":1079,"date":"2009-10-14T10:00:50","date_gmt":"2009-10-14T17:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/?p=1079"},"modified":"2018-04-03T08:33:08","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T15:33:08","slug":"why-i-hate-self-help-platitudes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/14\/why-i-hate-self-help-platitudes\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Hate Self-Help Platitudes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most delightfully frustrating experiences I get is receiving book review requests. Normally, I don\u2019t mind receiving these requests. If your book is brilliant, I\u2019m more than happy to promote it without any compensation.<\/p>\n<p>However, I\u2019ll often get press release emails for books which advocate an idea I\u2019ve explicitly argued against on this blog. I\u2019d like to hope that the sender of that email is simply sending me spam, and that they haven\u2019t actually read my blog to see that I completely disagree with their book\u2019s thesis.<\/p>\n<p>But part of me worries, that in having a website with a tagline, \u201cGet more from life,\u201d that people believe I automatically subscribe to every piece of self-help nonsense that gets published.<\/p>\n<h2>A Brief List of Ideas I Don\u2019t Support<\/h2>\n<p>Just for the record, here are just a few ideas I don\u2019t feel are important, am skeptical of, or actively disagree with (links are to articles explaining my disagreement):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/10\/dont-be-yourself\/\">Be yourself<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/30\/the-power-of-humility-why-confidence-is-overrated\/\">Be confident<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2007\/10\/08\/the-virtue-of-living-life-rationally\/\">Faith<\/a> (or belief without reasoning or evidence)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/15\/when-to-quit\/\">More persistence is always better<\/a><\/li>\n<li>NLP<\/li>\n<li>The most important step is getting started<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2009\/05\/27\/what-the-heck-is-spirituality\/\">Spirituality<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Radical honesty<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2006\/10\/14\/using-pessimism\/\">Positive thinking<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Affirmations<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/31\/be-yourself-law-of-attraction-and-other-pieces-of-bad-advice\/\">The Law of Attraction<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2007\/07\/29\/what-do-you-want-to-do-with-your-life\/\">Deciding what to do with your life<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/05\/waiting-for-an-epiphany\/\">Life-changing epiphanies<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/07\/should-you-work-on-your-strengths-or-weaknesses\/\">Focus on your strengths<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Natural medicine<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/09\/what-are-you-going-to-be-exceptional-at-in-10-years\/\">Take risks<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/14\/the-art-of-the-small-start\/\">Dreaming big results in achieving greatness<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/12\/avoiding-motivation-burnout\/\">More motivation is always better<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/08\/the-laziest-solution-possible\/\">Laziness is the enemy<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Pretty much anything to do with Freud<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I did say brief. I believe in the broad idea of self-actualization. I just disagree with a lot of the advice out there on its implementation.<\/p>\n<h2>Advice Needs to Mean Something<\/h2>\n<p>Advice needs to have the possibility of being wrong. It needs to suggest one thing at the expense of something else. And, when the evidence is mixed, it should polarize some people to agree and others to object strongly. If advice can\u2019t be wrong, it doesn\u2019t mean anything at all.<\/p>\n<p>If I look back over my archives from the initial months after I started this blog, I\u2019d wager that at least 80% of the older articles I wouldn\u2019t have written today. In some cases, I still agree with the main idea, just that I would have written the article completely differently. In other cases, I\u2019ve completely reversed my opinion.<\/p>\n<p>But, isn\u2019t that the point of advice? I would be far more worried if I didn\u2019t disagree with some of my early posts. Either that means I\u2019m stubborn and unable to change my point of view. Or it means that my advice was essentially meaningless. If it couldn\u2019t be made wrong later, it couldn\u2019t have meant anything to begin with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most delightfully frustrating experiences I get is receiving book review requests. Normally, I don\u2019t mind receiving these requests. If your book is brilliant, I\u2019m more than happy to promote it without any compensation. However, I\u2019ll often get press release emails for books which advocate an idea I\u2019ve explicitly argued against on this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,656,681],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-courage","7":"category-life-philosophy","8":"category-nc-mindset","9":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Why I Hate Self-Help Platitudes - Scott H Young<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/14\/why-i-hate-self-help-platitudes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why I Hate Self-Help Platitudes - Scott H Young\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the most delightfully frustrating experiences I get is receiving book review requests. 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