Why Self-Help Doesn't Work
Jordan Gross |
TEDxBergenCommunityCollege
• March 2020
The primary argument of my talk is that traditional self-help advice is outdated. It is not actually the best way to help yourself and improve your life. It may be necessary for some who have no sense of where to begin, but in order to maintain personal growth, we must make decisions for ourselves and not follow advice aimlessly. This is why I believe that personal development through storytelling, through fiction and allegories, is the best approach for long-term self- improvement.
The talk will start with a fictitious character, let’s call her Jenny, and it will outline the problem by discus- sing all the self-help she has read in an effort to im- prove her life. I will provide examples of different books whose perspectives contradict one another, ultimately sending Jenny down a rabbit hole of per- sonal development doom. This is the main problem. Too much information, too many options, too many different ways that people are telling you how to live your life, but it’s a life that these authorities know nothing about.
I will then make the case for personal development through creative storytelling by highlighting books like The Alchemist, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, or The Journey to Cloud Nine, and I will explain how these books help with personal development by add- ing 3 key elements:
1. Emotion Appeal – feeling the advice, not just reading it
2. Holding Attention – More likely to finish a book with a great story
3. Imagitivetation – Imagination + Creativity + Inter- pretation + Implementation
I will then break down the concept of Imagitivetation for creators of personal development as well as con- sumers of personal development. This is the solution for the talk. This is how we overcome the anxieties associated with self-help and become the pilots of our planes throughout life.
I will then end by coming back to Jenny in a real-life situation, after having used her imagitivetation. It will revolve around the concept of receiving advice and understanding it, but only listening to her own intu- ition as opposed to following the advice aimlessly like she did in the beginning of the talk.