Self-help – What works and what doesn’t?

You’ve seen my list of self-help lessons I have learned from reading lots of books on the subject of personal development, and my self-help book reading lists. But what really works?

Here again is my list of lessons learned from reading self-help and motivational texts, but this time with notation to tell you what works and what doesn’t, and what is supported by scientific evidence, and what just seems to work without science to back it.

Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn: Two of the most effective personal development gurus available.

My List:

1. Take Action – the number one thing you must do! Never leave the scene of a decision without knowing what the action is and taking it.
   WORKS – the action habit creates results – there are no results without actions.
2. Make decisions – make more of them. Take action immediately following.
   WORKS – decisions create actions.
3. Spend more time on improving yourself than you do on your job.
   WORKS – make “you” your top priority – increase your value and it will serve those around you as well.
4. What you focus on is what you will get. Concentrate on what you want and not on what you don’t want. (The law of attraction.)
   WORKS -the law of attraction is not scientifically supported, but when you focus on something you will work toward getting it.
5. Know exactly what you want in life. Set a clear target. Eliminate any “internal battles” with yourself (inner conflicts).
   WORKS – visualizing just what you want does not work, but setting clear goals is required and common sense. There are ways to set goals that make this work, but just ‘dreaming’ of a great future will not work. Setting sub-goals works to not get overwhelmed.
6. Visualize what success looks and feels like. Experience it in virtual ways before you get there. You must believe that you can get there. You must want to get there. Link pleasure to your goal.
   MAYBE – again, visualizing just what you want does not work. But, visualizing the process it takes to get there does work. See the steps involved and this will work.
7. Work hard but get enough rest to have energy. Always be stretching yourself and your abilities. If you say to yourself that you can’t then you must. Adopt this attitude. Always “try until.” Don’t give up.
   WORKS – mostly common sense.
8. Be passionate about what you want and what you do. Your job should be fun.
   WORKS – mostly common sense.
9. Develop good communication skills. The quality of your life is the quality of your communication. The effectiveness  of your communication is measured by the response you get. Keep trying different angles of communication until your message is understood.
   WORKS – mostly common sense.
10. Connect to others.
    WORKS – although just connecting to others is not all, it is the quality of the connections.
11. Set a solid plan. Successful people plan for success.
    WORKS – the plan must have sub-goals in order to work. You have to see each step in the process of your plan.
12. Everything happens for a reason and it serves you in some way. There are no failures, only outcomes.
    MAYBE – this is mostly a way to keep a positive attitude and may not work for everyone. Everything happening for a reason is not supported by scientific evidence.
13. Take responsibility. Take charge of your life.
    WORKS – although you should not feel like you control everything.
14. Become a person of action. Make things happen. Take actions – don’t just set priorities or make to-do lists.
    WORKS – again, although you can not feel like you control everything, it is always necessary to take action to make things happen – this is common sense in this respect.
15. It is not necessary to understand everything to use everything. Act as if you know what you are doing.
    WORKS – common sense. Think of flipping a light switch while not knowing everything about electricity in order to do it.
16. Improve your health and stamina. You need energy to do all that you want to do.
    WORKS – common sense.
17. Know what others want and find a way to fill their need.
    WORKS – basic economics of free markets.
18. Give back.
    WORKS – improves your self-image and motivates. Must not be self-sacrificial – that is going too far and causes resentment.
19. Keep a journal of things you’ve learned. Never let an idea you’ve had be lost. Leave your journals as a legacy.
    WORKS – common sense, allows you to capture your thoughts and keep your good ideas.
20. Model successful people. Duplicate their belief system, values, and syntax. Do what they do. Fake it until you make it, and you will end up doing what you want to. For example, if you see a good golfer, pretend you are the good golfer also and do exactly what he does. You will golf well then also.
    WORKS – but must be within your capability and nature.
21. Smile. Say positive comments to others and to yourself. You can make yourself feel good just be doing the things that a good-feeling person would be doing. Start with smiling.
    WORKS – scientifically proven.
22. Reduce and eliminate negative thought patterns and habits that stand in your way to success. Do this through NLP and NAC techniques. Shut off the news and reduce your relationships with negative people.
    PARTIALLY – NLP is scientifically proven, but it is not just enough to disassociate negative thoughts through NAC as scientific research says that this will only delay the negativity. Also you tend to think about anything that someone, including yourself, tells you not to. For example, if I say “don’t think of a polar bear for the next sixty seconds,” what did you just think of? (And, I’ll bet you think of that bear a lot over the next minute or so.) Although, NAC does work, it is the way it is used that is key.
23. Make good decisions.  Nothing happens without a decision, commitment and action. Fully commit because until then you will not follow-through. Never leave the scene of a decision without taking an action.
    WORKS – sound advice.
24. Take time to contemplate things. Use time alone to think. Shut out the whole world to give you time to think. Even if you do not think, your mind needs time for your subconscious to come up with the answers you need. Give it time.
    WORKS – scientifically proven, but the exact mechanism of how it works is not fully known.
25. Don’t do what others do. See where they are going then go the other way.
    WORKS – also, sound advice.

And with this list now, I also recommend another book that will give some additional insight into what works and what doesn’t: “59 Seconds” by Richard Wiseman. It has helped me see through some of the self-help mantras, and allowed me to choose what works.