If you type "self help" in the search bar on Amazon.com you will have over 200,000 books to choose from. That information alone tells us two things. First, self help stuff sells and two, there are lots of people looking for help.
Somewhere in this house is a box full of self help books. Most of them I've read and most of them pretty much say the same thing.
They will tell you to have a plan. That's a pretty good idea. If there is something you want to do or change, it's important to figure out just how you're going to do it. It's like making plans for a trip across the country, if you have a map, it is easier to stay on course.
Positive affirmations is another thing that lots of self help books teach. Most people roll their eyes at making positive affirmations to themselves. The thought of standing in front of the mirror saying things like, "I'm the very best I can be, all day, every day" seems like a lot of B.S. But think about this for a minute. How many people do you know who say the following things, to themselves, on a daily basis: "I'm an idiot", "I'm always broke", "I'm fat", "I will never amount to anything"? I know a young man who constantly uses his family history as an affirmation to getting absolutely no where in life. And guess what? As sad as that is, he's right. So in retrospect, positive affirmations can really work wonders.
Like it or not, humans looks at other humans on three levels. We either look down at someone, look up to someone or see someone at the level we see ourselves. Perhaps that is just human nature, but you can walk into any school, church, office building or anyplace that humans gather and see this happening in full living color. It is this very reason that every self help book will tell you to surround yourself with like minded people and it is probably the most important lesson anyone could ever learn.
If you want to learn to weld, do you seek out a nurse? If you want to be a pilot, do you spend all your time with people who only drive tractors? Of course not, you look for the people who do the things you want to do. That makes perfect sense.
It also makes perfect sense that if things are not going the way you plan, maybe it's time to take a look at your surroundings. I do not advocate looking down at other people because I am a Grand Master at trying to find the good in others. Nor do I think it is healthy to put people too high on a pedestal. The higher they are placed, the further they have to fall and the bigger your disappointment in them will be. If you are wasting your talents on people who don't want to be what you want to be, or don't really give a hoot about what you want to be, it's time to change.
Sometimes that is a hard thing to do, some of the people you may need to walk away from could be your friends or your family. But look at it this way, if your talent or job is to cheer up a room full of depressed people and you go in without reinforcements, you will soon find yourself just as depressed. It's like running around pumping up tires that have a hole in them, by the time you get the last one done , the first one needs air again. Before you know it, your tire is flat too. There is strong meaning in the phrase, "Don't cast your pearls to the swine".
So there you have it. You need a plan. You need a mentor in the same field you are interested in. You need to make sure that the majority of people you hang out with share your dream, or at least your enthusiasm. Simple? Yes, it is, but there's one more part to the equation. It's called action.
You can read all the books until your eyeballs fall out in your lap. You can fill your brain with infinite amounts of wisdom and knowledge. But, if you don't do something with it, well, that's just a waste of your precious time.
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