Help Yourself

Actor and writer Stephen Fry’s opinion of self-help books is pretty clear from this quote, “I almost once wanted to publish a self-help book saying, ‘How To Be Happy, by Stephen Fry: Guaranteed Success’. ...this huge book [would be filled with] blank pages, and the first page would just say, ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself – and you will be happy.’” Along with “chick lit”, self-help is one of the most mocked of literary genres. It fuels snobbery and elitism among certain sections of society, while others dismiss it as nothing more than the psychobabble of a bunch of fraudsters. It’s also long been recognised that reading self-help books is a highly-gendered activity. More often than not, these books are written for women, marketed to women and read by women. It’s difficult not to deduce that the derision of self-help writing is due in large part to the fact that it is primarily enjoyed by women.

Historically, women’s activities and interests have always been belittled. The term “domestic fiction”, for instance, was employed to minimise the value of the work of 19th-century women writers. The implication was that these books were less important and less scholarly, that they had less value and offered fewer insights than work produced by men. This reductive attitude still exists today, in the sporting world for one. Women’s soccer receives nothing like the investment enjoyed by the Premier League; it has much smaller audiences, and these women’s annual pay packets fall far short of the tens of thousands of euro successful male players receive each week.

Like any genre of writing, the quality of ideas and execution in self-help literature varies wildly across its spectrum. There are plenty of rotten apples in the fiction basket too.

Given that the industry as a whole is worth a whopping €10 billion, it’s not surprising that there are a few snake oil salesmen in the mix. Whether you love or hate self-help books, devour or despise them, the basic premise of buying a book with the intention of improving yourself is a good one and it irritates me that this desire to work towards being a better human being (as opposed to just wishing on a star for it, or not trying at all) is looked on as something slightly laughable. Self-help aficionados are not just viewed with scorn and derision, they’re portrayed as needy and dysfunctional individuals who can’t get their shit together. Author Marianne Power, who in her 2018 book Help Me! followed the rules of a different self-help book every month for an entire year, admits that as an English Literature graduate she was snooty about self-help books in her early twenties until she actually read one. “Then I was hooked. I was reading them secretly, constantly. I didn’t tell my friends about it, but I was.” The contempt frequently heaped on self-help enthusiasts often invites self-loathing and secrecy among those who find value in it…

In contrast to a lot of academic voices, Harvard English professor Beth Bloom makes a convincing case for the self-help reader in her book, The Self-Help Compulsion: Searching For Advice in Modern Literature, which was published earlier this year. She says, “At a time when the value of literature is often called into question, self-help offers a reminder of the promises of transformation, agency, culture and wisdom that draw readers to books.” That word “agency” is important here. Buying a self-help book is a progressive act, a positive act, a step towards acquiring a better understanding of yourself and the world around you. It’s not an act of defeatism or desperation. Don’t we all wish Donald Trump had read even an occasional self-help book?

Of course, some men do read self-help books, although, interestingly, not for the same purposes as women. According to a study at the University of Calgary in Canada, “Men are more likely to read books relating to careers, while women are more likely to read books about interpersonal relationships.” So perhaps Trump has read some...just not on the subjects he needed insight on. But do career guides and management how-tos even qualify as self-help? In many online bookstores, such as Eason and Waterstones, they’re not included in the same section but categorised under the more masculine, less fluffy grouping of Business. To me, self-help is about achieving inner goals rather than outward success. The former may lead to the latter, but it’s not the primary motivation, it’s more of a silver lining.

There are any number of articles available to read about why self-help books don’t work. This is another reason why the genre is dismissed as faddish and a waste of time. Reading them isn’t enough, of course. You have to action the ideas within them if they’re going to have an impact on how you live your life and how you see yourself and others. This is the theory Marianne Power put to the test in her book, which has now been translated into 28 languages and had the movie rights sold, such is the level of interest in the notion of whether or not self-help really can lead to self-improvement. To give you a flavour of how seriously she took this project, during her month of following Susan Jeffers’ Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, she jumped out of an aeroplane, performed a stand-up routine in a comedy club and spent an evening naked modelling for a life drawing class...as well as actually opening her bank statements for the first time in years, an activity most of us know can be as scary as any of the above exercises.

Three years after her 12 months of self-help, Marianne says she gained tangible benefits from thoroughly engaging with each book. She explained for example: “Every time I’m asked to go on television or radio or do public speaking I am terrified, and I do it anyway. [Before] I always said no… the fear of embarrassment, of failing, of not saying the right things: it was too much. Now I seem to be able to live with that.”

While you might think I’m a self-help devotee myself, I’ve only dabbled. I remember being handed The Secret many years ago. I didn’t get very far into it before it informed me that I should start imagining cheques coming through my letterbox and eventually the real-life kind would follow. I scoffed and discarded it.

I wonder if I'd fare better with it now, in midlife, when the cynicism and “I know better” attitude of my younger self has been very firmly proven to be anything but helpful in my own self-help journey.

I’ve dipped in and out of Irish author Enda Murphy’s Five Steps To Happiness and found it to be anchored in good sense and useful advice. I’ve just started Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett, which is a really worthwhile read. Next, I’d like to try The Gifts Of Imperfection by Brené Brown because I’ve watched many of her TEDTalks and found them to be utterly brilliant but never read one of her books, and as I wrote in another article for Heyday, I’m a recovering perfectionist.

Last year, sales of self-help books reached record levels in the UK, according to an article in The Guardian – I can only imagine what a pandemic will do for the genre. Never one to sit on the fence, journalist and broadcaster, Janet Street Porter, once said, “Self-help manuals are worthless. Chuck them in the bin, and enjoy what you’ve been dealt in life.” But I prefer Marianne’s school of thought. “If a book can help us understand our situations a bit more, and feel less alone, that is really valuable.”

Marie Kelly, September 2020.

What are your thoughts dear reader? The comments are open for you below…