What to read instead of self-help books
Liza Birger
American writer O. Henry, the great singer of fraudsters and swindlers, described millions of ways to make money quickly and easily. His cheerful heroes were eager to get rich on alternative medicine or miracle elixirs - a cure for everything, the main miracle ingredient of which was ordinary water. If O. Henry lived today, life-coaches would probably have become his heroes: people who, without adjusting their own lives, rush to correct someone else.
However, the problem is something in ourselves: being adults, we cannot independently cope with our “motivation” or “personal growth”. And let the crowds of charlatans preying on our impotence. Among the life-coaches there are the most real swindlers, such as Bodo Schaefer - the author of a whole sea of books about the "increase of money", already ruined three companies. And there are brilliant teachers, like Brian Tracy - a man who did not finish school, but he built a successful real estate business, wrote a series of best-selling books “The Psychology of Achievements” and came up with a training program based on them. It was Tracy who formulated the main formula of all self-help: “People are poor because they don’t want to be rich, they are fat and unsportsmanlike, because they don’t want to be healthy and thin”. It turns out that all you need is just to want it, but can books help us shape our desires?
How to change a life
What is really worth reading:
Let's say you smoke, drink or sit on Facebook for hours. The book will help! In fact, the very desire to stop drinking, smoking and procrastinating is already worth a lot. My best friend quit smoking three times according to the Allen Carr system, but quit only with the birth of her son. Another studied a bunch of books about how to start doing everything today, but only collected an impressive home library from them - a glance at the shelf reminds of her unfulfilled desires.
In a good way for a girl who wants to start all over again, there is no better example than the world tour of Elizabeth Gilbert, who solved all her psychological problems at once.
The result is not guaranteed:
Allen carr "Easy way to quit smoking"
Neil Fiore "Easy way to stop postponing for later "
How to lose weight
What is really worth reading:
Crowds of girls of all ages sit on a Dukan diet, and even enjoy inventing how to eat, make breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack. Others use the book to try to convince themselves not to climb at night in the fridge for sandwiches. But let's face it - there is no better way to start looking after yourself than rereading Bridget Jones's Diary. Yes, two men of the dream chase the heroine at the same time. But it is in the book, if not in her fantasies at all. The harsh truth is that Jones is fat, and no Colin Firth shines on her in such a life (and build). If you really want to look like Bridget, or grow your cheeks like Renee Zellweger in the film of the same name, relax and take a donut from the shelf. If not - to the gym!
The result is not guaranteed:
Martin Ingvar, Gunilla Eld"Brain control over weight. Scientific approach to losing weight"
Pierre Ducane "I can not lose weight"
How to get married successfully
What is really worth reading:
If you are 25 and you are not married yet, then this is a failure, - the author of the book How to Marry Margaret Kent considers. "You can not sit back, like a beached whale, waiting for the tide. All you get is a dead fish and seaweed," - threatens the writer. Kent claims that any girl who reads her book will marry within four years. The woman in her mind is a hunter who needs to find a place where men gather, choose one and seize it. For those who are not ready to set foot on the warpath, the New York method of catching a millionaire fit in Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany: all savings can buy one little black haute couture dress and flit from a party to a party, following a diet from tartlets and champagne.
The result is not guaranteed:
Leil Lowndes "SSS (Hidden sexual signals)"
Kent Margaret "How to get married successfully"
How to get out of depression
What is really worth reading:
There is no better cure for depression than the stories of the English writer Woodhouse or the Dickens Pickwick Club Notes. Just because the only 100% working medicine for mental disorders is laughter. But if this is not about a hangover “nobody loves me”, but about real sorrows or even worse - clinical conditions, then my hand will not rise to print about the book “Say Life Yes!”. Psychologist in the concentration camp “Victor Frankl” self -help ". A philosopher and psychologist, Frankl went through the Nazi camps, he had to die three times, but he survived - and his whole book about how you want to live, and how in such an extreme situation, the meaning and purpose of life is revealed to a person. This is impossible to repeat, but the very idea that even after such a thing you can live and be happy, should comfort even the most inveterate sufferers.
The result is not guaranteed:
Dale Carnegie "How to stop worrying and start living"
Andrey Kurpatov "5 saving steps. From depression to joy"
How to succeed
What is really worth reading:
The main theme of all life coaches - success in all its forms. Do not forget that all this literature originated in America, where it is simply indecent not to be successful. But even the best of such books just repeat the truisms in different ways: if you just want it, it will work out; do not do things that you are not interested, and do what brings a buzz. Robin Sharma and Mihai Chikszentmihaii do not discover America when they say that spiritual growth precedes financial growth. But if you ask all the financiers of the world about what books they read, I'm sure that we will reveal only one coincidence - and this will be the Bible. Not because, of course, that fervent prayer comes back from the heavens with ringing dollars, but rather because dollars are returned to us by humility and work — very Christian virtues.
The result is not guaranteed:
Robin Sharma "The monk who sold his Ferrari"
Mihai Ciksikntmihai "Stream. Psychology of Optimal Experience"