Goodreads
Twizzle • 31 Jan 2024 •
At the suggestion of @phaidenbauer I logged into Goodeads to record that I had read a book and started a new one. I had forgotten about the site, not remembering how many books I have recorded there over the years.
Most seem to be what I call the “Entrepreneur self-help starter pack” books, like The 4 Hour Work Week, The One Thing, Essentialism, Seneca or The Miracle Morning.
Why just tell someone to get up a little earlier, eat better, drink more water and get more exercise, when you can wrap it all up in a story about how you nearly died, failed in your business but then learned to grind your own mushroom tea powder on a mini-retirement retreat, whilst getting up at 5AM to do manifestation gratitude yoga, meditating under a cold shower?
The fact that I had forgotten most of the books even existed just shows what an impact they had on me.
Actually, that’s probably wrong. I suspect they did have a small impact on me and I took from them what I needed at the time, even if it was just the feeling that I was doing something, anything to improve my life. Sometimes, just reading about how people started a business, or overcame an issue helped me not feel so down. But it also made me feel inadequate that I wasn’t doing those same things too. Plus, when the same books keep getting recommended on the podcasts, by the writers and in the courses, they have to be the answer to my questions, right?
I tend to gravitate towards books like that as I honestly feel a bit “broken”, that I am not living my best life, achieving enough, being happy and content enough and am not able to take action to remedy my shortcomings. I was expecting to find the fix or answer in those books, but it never arrived. I just moved on to the next book, the next course, influencer or prophet of change. I felt like the books made a lot of sense and gave good advice, just not for people like me.
Comments
I think the issue was that I was expecting the books to generate change, just by me reading them. I obviously wasn’t prepared to make the changes myself and got frustrated and confused that nothing was working, no matter how many I read. Could I fit in a 10-minute meditation each day? Yes, but I have to actually do it myself. Just reading doesn’t have the same effect as doing.
Absolutely, sadly nothing happens from doing nothing 🙈 I learned that when I tried to suck up knowledge in school by lying a book under my pillow. But doing is hard.
I know exactly what you mean. I’ve read the Miracle Morning too and a few other self-improvement books, but always feel like they don’t match onto my lifestyle. I wonder if I’m doing something completely wrong, or if those authors just have something special about them? Thinking about it, all books basically sell the same strategies over and over again, so am I crooked or are those authors so completely different to me?