Consuming self-help content for me is very different to learning other material, such as languages or dance. For the latter, there is usually a relatively clear answer for what is the right thing to do (e.g. if a given sentence is grammatically correct), at least at a beginner to intermediate level. We do not need to challenge what is taught that much, because the skill gap to the content creators and teachers is large. For such learning with a relatively clear correct answer my focus is learning and retention, using the principles I describe in my “How to learn efficiently and durably” guide:
- A healthy overall lifestyle as a foundation to enable the physical processes underlying learning
- Loops of exposure to content, recall/testing and feedback as the core learning methodology
- Doing the real thing, i.e. performing the actual skill we want to learn in the actual context we need it in as far as possible, interchanged with drills isolating specific sticking points
The topics that self-help tends to cover on the other hand, such as relationships, values, happiness, meaning, how to live a good life, are ones that have perplexed humanity for millennia. They have been addressed over and over through philosophy, art, religion and more recently psychology and self help. No one has everything truly figured out, definitely not in a way that works for everyone, and usually also not in a way that works for themselves. The most rigorous of the approaches investigating how to live a good life is probably modern experimental psychology, but even there replication rates are only around 50%, and generalizability is often limited. The scope of experimental psychology is also simply not enough to have something relevant to say about every question around how to live a good life.
Because of this lack of a clearly correct answer, for self-help content, retention is not the only thing that matters – what is most important is how to choose what to accept into our belief system. We want to find answers that work for us individually, at least for the time being. To avoid taking on an answer that does not work for them, some people avoid reading self-help entirely, instead preferring to read fiction to trigger thoughts and then figuring things out for themselves. I still value the direct advice from self-help, but take a sceptical stance. My approach involves the following:
- I will generally read “just-in-time” content that somehow relates to issues I am currently facing in my life or I anticipate to deal with soon, rather than “just-in-case” content that may or may not become useful later
- To get a variety of perspectives I will usually consume several books or other sources relevant to the question I’m interested in, as well as talk to several people whose opinion I respect
- Whenever I have an urge to do so, I will take a break from reading or listening to the content and think about whether I fully understand it, and whether I agree with it. I find this especially important for emotionally charged content, e.g. around relationships. Often I journal when taking such a break. I believe more is gained from this rather than rushing through books in order to become a “well-read” person
I will then experiment with some of the ideas I exposed myself to, to see if they improve my life. The content creators or advice givers will often take a very motivational stance, pushing us to implement their advice. This makes some sense, because if we only consume content and take no action, we will make no progress, while having the illusion that we are doing something productive. I believe however that it is better to only experiment with a minority of the advice we receive, because experimentation usually takes vastly more time and energy compared to consuming content. We want to have a balance where we regularly implement some ideas, but discard others. This leaves us with the question of what advice to experiment with. I consider several factors when selecting ideas for experimentation:
- How many people are in favour of a certain viewpoint?
- How clear and convincing are their arguments? Do they show their full chain of thinking and what evidence brought them to their conclusions? Do they discuss context, and give examples for when their ideas did not apply?
- Do these people seem to have good outcomes? There can be a lot of bullshitting regarding outcomes, but for content targeted towards emotional health, a subjective sense of the energy given off by the person can be a helpful indication. That being said, people can still have a lot of interesting things to say if they got themselves from a really bad state to “only” a tolerable state
- Have I previously obtained good results from following other advice from these people?
- Most importantly, does it intuitively make sense to me and is consistent with my existing viewpoints? I believe that for most people confirmation bias is a good thing when consuming self help content, because if we constantly challenge everything we can become uncentered and disoriented. We need to have working hypotheses for how to do most things, and only selectively make changes. The answers we find only have to be good enough for ourselves, not universally apply to everyone, and it is ok and inevitable to find out that some of our working hypotheses were not ideal after all with hindsight. Deciding what to move forward with is as at least as much an intuitive process for me as a logical one – it is probably not even possible to grasp all the relevant factors logically
Different ideas I have implemented have different levels of support from the above points, for example
- Many people in favour: The fluffy explanations given by meditation teachers I often found unconvincing, and I was not intuitively drawn to meditation, but it was recommended by so many people that I decided to give it a solid go
- Credibility through outcomes: I take exercise advice preferably from people who have bodies that seem healthy, beautiful and powerful, and who I know are not using performance enhancing drugs (which is hard to say for influencers that I do not know personally)
- Makes intuitive sense to me: When first exposed to Internal Family Systems, which frames issues involving self criticism or addictive behaviours as parts that are trying to help us, I was immediately drawn to the warmth and self compassion I experienced from this approach and rapidly began experimenting
What I do not consider is how assertive the content creator is about their viewpoint. In my experience, the more humble, subtle writers often have a better understanding than the brash ones. The brash ones may either be bullshitting confidence for simplicity or in order to drive engagement, or may not have had enough experience applying their ideas in different contexts to recognize the limitations of those ideas – sort of like a teenager who thinks they have it all figured out.
Once I experiment with an idea, I observe closely what results it got me in terms of objective outcomes and in terms of how I feel, often journaling about it. Some changes I decide to make a permanent habit and others I discard. I may consolidate my views in a blog post such as this one – aside from hopefully delivering value to others and building connection, the process of writing closes the topic to a certain degree, freeing up mental space for other topics. If I want to deeply ingrain a mindset, I might continue to expose myself to content promoting that mindset, for example I enjoy listening to Tara Brach repeatedly making similar points encouraging awareness and compassion: content being repetitive is a feature not a bug in that case.
Some of the ideas I am exposed to but decided to not experiment with stay in the background of my mind, and later become relevant again. In that sense, reading self help content can prime us for learning through experience. It is important not to get too hung up on regret for not implementing the advice earlier – we are simply not able to implement all advice, especially given it often conflicts with other advice.
Although my method of approaching self help content does not make retention the number one goal, it still has some elements that support it:
- Taking breaks to think about the content aids understanding which increases retention
- Discussing it with others or writing about it is active recall that strengthens retention and challenges illusions of competence
- Experimentation is further recall in the form of doing the real thing
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