Self help coach
Do you have yards of self help books? All New York Times top ten, sold millions and highly recommended? Did you finish any of them? Did you apply the exercises and ideas? I had piles of self help books, I learned some things from them, but they didn’t really solve my issues.
Why?
Because they were not tailored to me, my situation and my specific issues.
How about this one (heavily overloaded) tip in an article on how to build confidence? ‘Stop feeling guilty, start believing in yourself and take some time out to get to know yourself’. Sounds good. But have you got any idea how to do it? How do you stop guilt that has been building over years? And if you have serious self doubts how can you change that overnight? How do I get to know myself? I guess if you wanted to take this tip seriously, you would have to buy at least three books now:
One on releasing guilt, one about lack of self-belief and the third on how to get to know yourself.
- What is lacking in all these tips is that they are too generic. When you want to change you need to change you and not an army of hundreds of thousands of others as well. Great tips, but maybe not for you
- Loads of these tips are too theoretical. They simplify the most complex processes and can leave you feel more inadequate then before you started reading. Like the above ‘release all guilt’. Yeah, if you could just breathe in and breathe out all your guilt and that was it, it would be easy. But there might be years of therapy needed to achieve letting go of guilt.
- Solutions are unrealistic. Such as build new friendships (for someone with social anxiety), take a dog (this is like expanding your family, not a light decision), go on holiday (who is paying?) are great to read about but not very realistic
- They lack the practical handholding. Explaining step by step actions that will help to achieve whatever you are after. Looking at the goal doesn’t help you to get closer. Breaking it down in doable and easy actions will help you to get closer to your goal. One step at the time.
If you are good in s(h)elf development, it might be time to look into more specific and personal support. A coach or therapist can help you solve your issues in a much better way than any book could ever do. Want to know how I could help you? Book a FREE coaching session to find out. Click here and choose your slot.
