I’m starting a project exploring the history of self-help; where the ideas came from, how they’ve changed over time, and what they mean for us today.
This episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast is my chance to set some intentions, explain why I feel drawn to do this, and share how you can get involved if you want to join me for the ride.
I’m not starting this project with the end in mind. Sorry, Stephen Covey, but I’m rebelling against the second habit of highly effective people. I honestly don’t know how this will look or where it will take me. I’m just intrigued to dig into the backstory of personal development and positive thinking, and explore how it became an industry worth an estimated around $40 billion in 2024, projected to more than double by 2033.
Self-help shapes how millions of us think about ourselves, our relationships, our struggles, and our potential. I want to look at where it came from, how it works, and what it’s doing to us now.
https://youtu.be/GMowyoc4TeA
This isn’t about belittling self-help
I want to approach this with a curious and critical open mind, not a cynical one. I’ve personally gained insight, tools, and practices from authors in the personal development space. So, I have experienced the value of resources and authors under the broad self-help umbrella.
But I do have some questions.
One in particular that has long been on my mind...with the ideas in self-help are as widely adopted as they are, why haven’t they “worked” in the big-picture sense?
Why now feels like a good moment to examine the rise of self-help
We’re living in a strange mix of economic precarity, post-pandemic disorientation, the maturing of influencer culture, and now
AI churning out self-help style advice at industrial speed.
If self-help reflects and responds to the anxieties of its time, then this moment feels like a perfect point to ask whether it might be contributing to those same anxieties it claims to ease.
The quote that caught my attention
About 12 years ago, I read The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman.
One idea in it has stuck with me ever since:
“Perhaps you don’t need telling that self-help books… rarely much help. This is why some self-help publishers refer to the ‘eighteen-month rule’, which states that the person most likely to purchase any given self-help book is someone who, within the previous eighteen months, purchased a self-help book—one that evidently didn’t solve all their problems.”
I was a big reader of personal development books at the time, especially those that spoke to building online businesses around creativity. They gave me a sense of forward momentum and excitement about future possibilities, but I could also feel myself on a treadmill. Old dissatisfaction was replaced with new.
That quote made me wonder if the self-help industry insists on not solving our problems. Which makes sense when you think about it...why would a market secure its own demise? It needs to keep inventing new problems to solve. Otherwise it collapses.
The 18-month rule and endless repackaging
Some people enjoy the sense of growth that comes from reading a new book, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But from my experience, a lot of them say the same thing in different clothing.
Different anecdotes. Different metaphors.
