A few days ago, I wrote about Shiny Object Syndrome (S.O.S.) and how it undermines your self-discipline.
Self-help is very useful on your personal self-improvement journey. It can show you the way to a more meaningful life. However, like everything that “sells a lot,” the majority of the advice you receive is contradictory, damaging, and makes you less consistent.
This is where your S.O.S. is used against you.
Self-help is, first and foremost, an industry.
I began reading self-help books when I was 14 years old (precocious, I know).
After 20+ years, I noticed that 80% of the advice, while presented as new and revolutionary, comes from texts written hundreds of years ago. In fact, you can find most of the advice you get from self-help gurus in stoicism, epicureanism and the Bible. The remaining 20% are, for the most part, opinions from a so-called Guru justified by some obscure scientific research. And those studies are often unreliable since they cannot be replicated and verified with the scientific method.
But the self-help industry needs to constantly create novelty so it can sell more, leveraging your insecurities and Shiny Object Syndrome.
Marketing always uses your weaknesses against you.
We all have weaknesses.
If you want to become more resilient, become aware of yours. Salespeople and marketing messages aim to exploit every single one of your weaknesses to lure you away from a more reliable, traditional and consistent path. Loneliness, the feeling of not being enough, the constant fear for the future, etc. are all leverages that can be used against you.
Combine that with your Shiny Object Syndrome and the novelty of a “new, effective method” to solve them, and you will fall into the trap of self-help gurus.