What is Self-Help?
Self-help has been around forever. I learned about Louise Hay back in my early years when my mom purchased her book You Can Heal Your Life back in 1984. I was 15 years old. My mother was mostly likely on the spectrum, undiagnosed and suffered from OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). We always joked about her quirks, but I never really understood it until after she passed away from cancer when I was 40. She was always trying to heal or control her brain.
I believe that was my very first introduction to self-help. My real journey on to self-help or self-improvement was in my mid 20’s. In the salon I worked in un the 90’s decided to get involved with personal development. The owner started working for a network marketing business in health and fitness. Her mentor suggested she read The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and other books that successful people read and used in their businesses.
Your Were Born Rich, by Bob Proctor, introduced me to the Law of Attraction which changed my life for the better. I haven’t met a single person who was born with all the answers. And especially, since I really didn’t know anyone at the level of success I wanted to achieve. So who in their right mind wouldn’t be interested in this stuff? It opened up my limited mind to the unlimited possibilities.
I Thought Self-Help Was a Good Thing
Apparently there’s areal stigma surrounding self-help. Recently I had a conversation with my son regarding Alex Hormozi’s. I had purchased his book $100M LEADS when I turned my focus to my online website to understand sales and marketing.
Even though I’ve been building this career of wellness which started out in my in-home salon, I wanted to take it to the next level and focus on teaching what I’ve learned from self-help. That’s when my son informed me that there is a stigma on Socials surrounding Alex Hormozi and other self-help teachers. He basically said self-help teachers were cringy. That it was a scam to take peoples’ money, because everyone should know this stuff and don’t need someone to tell you what to do.
My confusion was real. Because I literally changed my life by utilizing the information I learned. I saw real change in my world in my twenties. From a single mom barely making it at 21 years old, to purchasing my first property as a single mom in 1994 at the age of 25, was proof to me. No one I knew had owned a home or even thought about one at age 25, except for some of my cousins and sister.
Most of my friends and family thought my life was doomed from getting pregnant at an early age and that life would always be hard for me. So how was this self-help or self-improvement stuff bad? It worked for me.
Applying Self-Help Strategies Unknowingly
Many of us have super powers that we’re unaware. My super power is resourcefulness. By my parents not giving me much, taught me how to be resourceful and always to keep an open mind. They weren’t much into helping me financially or even emotionally, but didn’t discourage me on how to figure out how to get what I wanted.
At 14 when I wanted a horse and the opportunity came up for me to buy one, my mom said, “If you can afford the expenses and find a place to keep a one, then go for it.” I went to “Bank of Grandma” to get a loan for the horse and got a job to make monthly payments. My neighbor let me board my horse for free at their home, being there hadn’t been any horses in their barn for a span of time. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. I didn’t realize I was utilizing the law of attraction and law of action at that time, which is used in life coaching programs.
“Life Coach” and “Cringe”
Even, I cringe at the term “life coach” at times. Maybe it’s because I’m half way through life and have had tons of life experience and some little whipper snapper is going to “school” me in finances, business, relationships, etc. without having a sustainable successful business, relationship, finances, or all the above. They offer coaching sessions for thousands of dollars where many vulnerable people can get sucked in, and their life hasn’t changed. The end up worse off than when they started. They feel guilty for not achieving their goals and are sick of how much money they spent. It feels very cultish. Twin Flames University comes to mind when I think of cringy coaches and notably a scam.
Many people cringe at Tony Robbins. I’m not sure why. I’d love to go to one of his seminars, but I couldn’t afford one of his. Plus, I don’t know if I could walk on hot coals. Some would say you can’t afford not to go. As Alex Hormozi says, “It cost you the total amount of money from your desired goal, subtracted by what you currently make, is the cost of you spend by not learning how to get the money you were targeting.
But guess what? I paid for Weight Watchers. At one time I paid for a persona fitness trainer. I lost weight and got fit. It’s not like I didn’t know what to do. Both programs kept me on track. If you don’t need that and you are at the place you want to be in life, then great. You can stop reading. I don’t know one person that couldn’t use a little improvement somewhere in their life. So I am asking you to keep an open mind.
The Bad Rap
Self-help or personal development forces you to look inwards. It asks you to analyze your issues and understand that you are the common denominator. Then it suggests you need to make some changes. It’s that old saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.” We all want change except when it gets too hard.
In this day and time, it’s been trendy to be addicted to your problems. Also, we’ve had a paradigm shift that makes other people responsible for our feelings, or what’s wrong with our lives. We’ve actually given up control of ourselves by allowing others control how we feel; seeking approval of others, taking what others do personally. Remember big pharma wants you in a state of anxiety or depression and taking those prescriptions. Big money. (If you haven’t had a chance to see my blog on the placebo effect).
The number one reason, (I believe) why people have a problem with self-help, is the people they personally know will listen to and possible regurgitate the information, yet never apply it to their lives. People want to see proof that something is working. Don’t tell me how to make money and give business advice, when you’re broke.
No offense to overweight people, myself included, but you wouldn’t want me giving you weight loss advice or personal training in the gym with the body I have right now. It may sound harsh, but life is harsh. It’s not fair and was never meant to be. Life is for us to learn, grow, and evolve.
Harsh Reality and Benefits of Gen X
As a Gen X’er, I can relate to all the TikTok videos on Generation X. Our parents didn’t show much or any affection. No fault divorce was legalized. It was rare to have parent that were married. We got in trouble if we didn’t get “A’s” in class, and we didn’t get to sit with the adults and family dinners. My therapist was convinced I was emotionally neglected. Like many, I found comfort in drugs and alcohol. I’m lucky to have survived the 80’s and 90’s. Maybe, but I think all that neglect forced me to be responsible for everything in my life, good or bad.
When I was a young single mom and tried to get an apartment in a nice neighborhood, no one would rent to a single mom. No one would rent to me, as a single mother. I was showing and couldn’t hid the fact that I was pregnant. Plus, new to adulting, I didn’t have credit. My mother refused to cosign for me, too. (She eventually had to give in or I’d be living with them, and she made it clear that I could not live there with a child.)
There was an assumption that I was on welfare and that would attract negative people to their upstanding establishment. I was never on welfare, just for the record. Was that fair? No. It was, what it was. I had to deal with it, regardless. The only place I could afford was a place where allegedly a Hell’s Angel managed the apartment building. (Honestly, they kept it under control, because when they weren’t managing anymore, the street hookers would use our laundry room to smoke crack.)
Needless to say I needed to get out of that place. Unfortunately, to prove my theory of discrimination, it was made apparent that was the case. The first place in a nice neighborhood accepted my application because I was moving in with my daughter’s biological father. We looked like a cute little family starting out, blah. Like I said, life isn’t fair.
Self-Help Is Hard…At First
After moving into the good neighborhood with my super-dysfunctional relationship, I had to move salons. The salon where I had finally begun to make good money, decided to change the way they managed the business. Anyone that has rented a chair as a hairstylists, knows it can be tricky starting over. Talk about life being not fair. That time in my life was the hardest time ever. My income was completely unstable. Plus, I was trapped with a physically and mentally abusive person that I couldn’t get to leave and who wouldn’t help pay bills. Life sucked.
Every cloud has a silver lining. The upside is when you are at your rock bottom there’s nowhere but to go up. At 22 yrs old, I had the epiphany that I was the common denominator in all of my woes. No one was going to fix me. I had to fix myself. Hence, self-help. At first I felt like the biggest failure. Thus, my journey to self-help and personal development began.
Being a hair stylist, I’ve been fortunate to have successful clients. I began listening to what they did and how they became successful. Some of it sounded out of reach for a single mother at 22 yrs old, but this isn’t a sprint, but a marathon. Listening with enthusiasm and practicing the law of attraction, things started to manifest. This self-help stuff was working. Through the law of attraction, I brought in the right people to help me get where I wanted to be, like a realtor, and useful information such as creative financing.
Believing is Seeing, Not the Other Way Around
It took time, but I had more time than money so why not test out this self-improvement thing and experiment with the law of attraction. When you’re working on yourself, you’ll back slide. Don’t let that get in the way of your progress. Visualize how you want your partner, your home, your perfect career, and the prosperity you want. This is not woo woo or poo poo, but it may sound like it. Again, consider the source of the naysayers. Is their life the life you want?
Niels Borh’s https://www.britannica.com/biography/Niels-Bohr and Werner Heisenberg’s https://www.britannica.com/biography/Werner-Heisenberg discovery of quantum mechanics and quantum physics plays an important role in self-help. To summarize some of what their findings are is that the observer of subatomic particles can influence the behavior of those said particles. That means your thoughts and feelings can influence outcomes. What you believe you deserve, not what you want, but what you actually believe, is the key here. And does influence your outcome in life. This book, The Answers, by John Assaraf and Murray Smith best illustrates how your thoughts and quantum physics works. At least it did for me. I still refer back to it.
You’ve Got the Power!
Isn’t that great news? You have powers you may not knew you possessed. This gives you control and empowers you. You no longer have to rely on the government, your boss, the weather, whatever or whomever you blame for not being where you want to be. This is science not some magical thinking, that is often associated with self-help. This also is holding you accountable for the life you want. Some people may not like that notion.
When you have power, family, friends, and associates, my not react in a way that you’d expect. It may’ve been Alex Hormozi or one of the many self-improvement podcasts I listen to, I’ll paraphrase what they’ve said, “People are your biggest cheerleader, until you pass them up.” Sad but true. Of course, people that are secure with themselves don’t fit into this category.
For some reason, as you improve your life, people internalize it as though they should be doing same. Therefor, feeling guilty or bad for not fixing their own life. That’s not it at all, but that’s been an observation I’ve seen in my own family. Instead of being happy for your improvement, they compare and compete with you, then complain. The 3 toxic C’s. Nothing good comes from fear, and all negativity is rooted in fear. Everything good comes from feeling grateful, happy, joyous, excited; all rooted in love.
In Conclusion
If you find happiness and peace in bettering yourself, then by all means, you do what makes you tick. Don’t allow others to steal your thunder, by making fun or putting down something that gets you motivated. Self-help and personal development has helped me to break old patterns, habits, and limiting beliefs. It has help me to build a clientele in a salon strictly by word of mouth. It helped me achieve getting properties and building my portfolio by 29 yrs old. I found my husband of almost 30 years together by focusing on what I wanted in a partner. Simply by my intentional thinking and understanding the law of attraction and law of action.
Don’t mistake your personal power with things outside of you. Life is full of dualities like I mentioned in my last blog. https://wellnessgardentoolshed.com/understanding-the-gift-of-duality/ Without life’s contrasts we wouldn’t appreciate anything. We can’t control other peoples’ behaviors or actions or make them do anything. None of this implies that if something bad happens to you, that you deserve it or caused it. You do have control over what you do next.
It took action on my part to make things happen. I was no longer a product of responding to stimuli. Being mindful and focusing was the action. Then more I began to notice improvement, more improvement came my way. I learned what kind of manifester I am. With specific intentions and focus, I turned my life around within 8 years. It’s been said we over estimate what we can achieve in a year, and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade.
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
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Thank you taking your valuable time in reading this blog. We finally have the comment section working. Yay! I’d love to hear from you on how you’ve manifested or have benefitted from self-help or personal development. Here’s to your personal development. Cheers.
