What is One Thing Common Among All Self-Help Books?
I’ve been reading self-help books for the past several years ranging from authors of our times and gone ones. One of the popular genres, self-help authors aim to enlighten and help readers with tips and tricks to become better, sharper and successful in life.
In the process, they depart the quintessential wisdom others possess, the right approach to doing things, and preserved guidance of those who walked on Earth before us.
I have read so many self-help books till now from popular to less known in different shapes and sizes. Some of them are The Richest Man in Babylon by Richard Carlson, The Almanack of Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Man Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma, The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel, so on so forth.
I saw some basic lessons that are the predecessor of success. Here and there they are trying to impart the core values a human must possess to achieve excellence and magnanimity in mundane life, although their ways of providing precious and timeless wisdom may be different. These can be termed as ‘Basic Structure of Self-Help Books’ that works as a scaffold to build skyline towers.
The building may appear in different shapes and styles from one another. Some might seem more beautiful and intriguing than others. But they are the same from the inside, be the mesh of steel wires, a concoction of sand and cement, and bricks.
I list down some of the basic values that each and every self-help book aims to impart to readers:
The Difference of Growth Vs Fixed Mindset
Humans are animals with desires. They want everything and desires change with the progress of life. One may have different sets of desires in childhood from adulthood.
But not everyone gets what he/she desires. Some are considered lucky than others as they get successful to attain many wistful things in life. But it’s totally disrespectful and absurd by calling them ‘lucky’. They are the people of growth mindset who don’t settle for less unlike others. They have dreams and aspirations and they can go to any extent to achieve them.
Fixed mindset people accept everything life offers them. They don’t learn, upgrade their skills and be passionate and curious about new things. Our mind is like plants — if we don’t nurture and care for it daily, then it will start rotting and shrinking from the inside.
For a growth mindset people, skills are learnable that can be mastered with persistence and hard work whereas fixed mindset people believe skills are inherent and they are by birth. Read more here
The Power of Effort
No matter how much you have been deprived of means, if you make efforts to get what you wish, sooner or later it will come true.
Results don’t come overnight. Sometimes a decade it takes to get that one moment that changes everything. But one must need to endure all ups and downs, rejections and negativity while moving ahead. All will happen when you start making efforts. As a popular proverb says, ‘Half battle is won when you start doing it’.
“Continuous effort– not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.”
The Benefits of Investment
You can’t get free from the rat race unless and until you start building other passive streams of income. They will help you to be freed and provide enough time to pursue your interests.
Saving isn’t enough, but making your money work for you is also important. Having enough wealth for time being if and when things take the wrong turn, is as important as earning.
Create your own story
We are our own creator/narrator. You have to write your own story as you wish to unfold it. Don’t get into passive thought, believing stars and destiny. Whatever you do today will have implications on your life tomorrow. Be thrifty and wise even for your time as well.
