The Self-Help Delusion

Self-help books are generally directed towards solving specific problems that a reader believes they ‘have’ and ‘have’ doesn’t lead to a change of behaviour.

I believe that people ‘do’ their problems, by their thoughts, words and deeds. This simple change of approach puts the onus on the reader who can then ask themselves, ‘Ok, what can I do instead?’

Having spoken with many people over my years as a personal consultant, I found that although people want some aspect of their life to change, they themselves want to remain the same - they just want the world to change. Unfortunately, this is not how personal change works. We create our perceptions of the world in our own head and if we don’t change those perceptions, then our world cannot change.

When something happens in our life, we need a meaning in order to process that event cognitively. We usually just take the meaning we have created before, perhaps even years before, because we don’t realise there is a choice in what we make events mean to us now.

This book takes common experiences and offers alternative meanings to the reader. With an awareness that there are choices in the way we create our world, the reader can change their beliefs, their behaviours and hence their world.