Guest Blog - Welcome to the Jungle: Choosing a Self Help Book

Here is a blog post written by one of our clients!
You can link back to her personal blog at
http://renegademindblog.wordpress.com/2013/06/16/welcome-to-the-jungle-choosing-a-self-help-book/

If you are interested in writing a blog post for Total Health Concepts, please contact Jennifer Stanhagen at jennifer@totalhealthconcepts.net.
Enjoy!

Welcome to the Jungle: Choosing a Self Help Book

The self help section of most bookstores is the literary equivalent of the Amazon rainforest – an interdependent ecosystem of topics consisting of innumerable individual titles. Hundreds of books advertise the solution to any problem. For a visitor, finding what you want in this improvement jungle can seem daunting. You need to learn to hunt like a native.

1.      Identify the problem. What is bothering you the most at this exact moment? Is it a fight with a family member? Look for books on relationships. Did you lose a loved one? The grief and dying section will probably help. Are you having financial issues? Then you’re actually in the wrong section. The personal finance books are near the business section, pretending not to be self help books.

2.      Look for titles that grab your eye. You want a book that appeals to you, because, contrary to popular belief, you can judge a book by its cover. Since preferences vary, I’ll give you some code words to look for:

a.      “Secret” – I’ll ruin the surprise for you now. The secret is there is no secret. What this book is actually selling is a paradigm that you can use to look at your problem in a different way. If they had the be-all-end-all cure for the problem, the self-help section would be much smaller.

b.      “One-Week” – This book will probably offer a complete program for dealing with the problem at hand. This is good if you’re looking for a lifestyle change or if you prefer holistic approaches. It will likely take more than one week, though.

c.      “Too Good to be True” Sounding Promises – If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Remember, self help books aren’t published based on program success. They’re published based on marketability. If, despite appearances, the statements are possible, the amount of change they promise will likely require significant lifestyle changes and a strict regimen of some kind. Trust your gut.

3.      Pull out books that seem friendly and sit down somewhere.

4.      Read the first few pages. When you’re done, think about how the first chapter made you feel. Hopeful? Excited? Then it may be the book for you. Some red flags to look for are:

a.      Threats. I read a book on cleaning your house in a weekend last winter. It swore up and down that if I didn’t get rid of all of my clutter as soon as possible, I would die alone and covered in my own trash. I started panicking, but I thought it would stop if I got further into the book. It didn’t. Save yourself the misery and put the book down if it threatens you.

b.      Tone. This is a matter of taste, but it makes a big impact. If you’re creative and rigid authority rubs you the wrong way, don’t get a book that’s written by a drill sergeant. If you need structure and concrete activities to motivate you, don’t get a book that’s written by a zen master.

c.      Chapter Titles. If the chapter titles sound boring or useless, the chapters will probably be, too.

d.      Author. In the first few pages of the introduction or first chapter, the author will likely introduce themselves. The best authors are the ones who have been through the problem they’re writing about. Not only will they resonate better with you, they’ll have experience. I don’t care how many Ph.D.’s you have – if you haven’t had the problem yourself, you aren’t a complete authority. This being said, programs developed by psychologists can be effective, but the odds are you’ll have better luck with books written by “survivors.”

5.      Re-shelve the books you don’t like.

6.      Purchase the survivors.

Congratulations. You are now a veteran of self help hunting. Enjoy your new-found path to personal improvement.