Self Organization

I was asked recently by someone posting on my self help blog what were the best self help books I have read. Although there are several thousand self help books published each year I have come to the conclusion that there is very little that can be added to the many words of self help wisdom that have been written over the last century and a half. From the early pioneers like Napoleon Hill to today’s monumental giants like Tony Robbins. It was said, I think by the latter of these two gurus, that we arrive on this planet without an instruction manual. I think for that reason alone there is not just a thirst for knowledge but a greater need for a guide to how to survive life which drives the market for self help books. You don’t need to have suffered a deep psychological trauma to want to invest in one of these guides. But for those who say you can’t deal with serious issues like depression then I disagree. Where my own doctor and a clinical psychologist were unable to help me a number of the books on my all time classic list gave me the support to get my life back on track. However its not reading self help books that gets results its taking action on the advice that is given therein. So my advice is read a small amount of self help books but take a lot of action if you want to significantly improve your life.
Can self help books bring happiness? Now there is a million dollar question! Depends on your definition of happiness of course. Many people would define it as achieving a certain amount of wealth. However as many wealthy people often say the wealth in and of itself doesn’t bring happiness. In addition have you ever noticed that wealthy people never seem satisfied with what they have got and continually seek to make more and more money. The truth is that happiness is not a destination it is more likely to be a state of continually striving to achieve goals, achieving them and setting more goals to strive to achieve. If thats your definition then I think self help books will help you and my list of all time classics have certainly helped me in that respect. There are many out there who will disagree with my choice of self help books and have their own favourites all I can say to them is that these are the ones that gave me the focus and the necessary poke in the ribs to take action and I still revisit them for ideas.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 2:32 am and is filed under Problems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.