Self Helping Yourself

Self Improvement Made Easy

Living Better

Self-Editing Yourself Can Keep You Out of Trouble

by Leave a Comment

Pen crossing out words to symbolize self-editing yourself.

The name of this site is Self Helping Yourself, but today I want to talk about Self-Editing Yourself.

Some Examples of Self-Editing Yourself

To clarify what I mean by self-editing yourself, let me give you a few examples from my own life.

I previously mentioned that a couple weeks ago I spent two days writing a blog post, only to abandon it before publishing because I realized it was kind of obnoxious.

This recently happened again. I started writing a post, and the further I got into it, the more I sensed it was going off the rails.

I took a break to do some random chores, and then kept doing additional random chores to avoid returning to the post. Normally once I start a post, I’m excited to finish. But this seemed like a burden. Eventually I realized it was my subconscious telling me the post was all wrong and I should throw it away.… Read more

Sometimes It’s Better to Be Less Informed

by 1 Comment

Woman shrugging to show she's less informed.

There are times in life when being less informed is better than being more informed. I know that sounds shocking. We’ve always been taught that becoming well informed is a virtue; our civic duty. It seems appalling for someone to advocate ignorance.

But let me illustrate why being less informed may be beneficial with three recent examples from my own life.

Being Less Informed Can Help You Accomplish More

Two weeks ago I accomplished very little. I wrote a short post asking people to click on my affiliate links. I dashed off a quick funny story about kittens Friday afternoon just so there would be some content on the site. And I did one other thing that ended up being a waste of time, which I’ll come back to in a minute. That’s about it.

Last week, I accomplished a ton. I should take time to be proud of getting so much done, but I won’t bore you with a long list.… Read more

Tooting My Own Horn – And Why You Should Too

by 1 Comment

Alpine horn with caption "I'm Just Here to Toot My Own Horn"

In general I try to avoid tooting my own horn. When I was younger, I was quite arrogant, and in many ways that made me an unlikable person. Eventually I grew out of that, and learned to not rank myself or other people.

XKCD Comic about tooting your own horn.

But as someone who advocates positive-oriented self-improvement, I believe it’s important to celebrate successes.

Celebrating Our Achievements

It’s worth remembering for all of us that huge wins and achievements are special. Nobody likes a braggart who constantly goes on about how great he is. But big accomplishments don’t come along every day. That’s what makes them big accomplishments, and they are big deals.

You should be excited about them. If you don’t share that excitement with others, they either won’t think it’s important, or won’t know it happened at all. Then the excitement and joy you ought to be feeling over this epic win will be diminished and hollow.… Read more

The Coronavirus Lazies Are Nothing to Be Ashamed Of – And Some Tips to Fight Them

by 2 Comments

Woman laying on bed to represent Coronavirus Lazies

Lately many of us have been feeling the Coronavirus Lazies. The Coronavirus Lazies is the mix of loneliness, depression, worry, and stir-craziness that makes it hard to motivate ourselves to do basic functions like showering, putting on pants, and keeping our homes in any vague semblance of order.

The Pressure to Be Amazing Despite the Coronavirus Lazies

Yet I keep seeing challenges and demands that people use the quarantine time to complete some sort of grand project. These come in the forms of memes and attempts to be motivational from a certain type of self-help guru.

Obnoxious Jeremy Haynes tweet accusing people of lacking discipline.

These tell people that they have an obligation to take advantage of this global tragedy to produce something amazing. If instead they fall prey to the Coronavirus Lazies, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Even when advice-givers are less obnoxious about it than that Jeremy Haynes tweet, the message is still the same. I was recently taking a webinar about book marketing, and the instructor acknowledged that we’re all suffering from COVID doldrums, and sometimes it’s hard to just get out of bed.… Read more

Just a Funny Story About Kittens

by 1 Comment

A pile of kittens as main image for a funny story about kittens

Here’s a funny story about kittens.

Yes, I know that’s not what I usually talk about. But I haven’t had any real content this week, other than announcing that I now have affiliate links.*

I’ve been working on a long post that’s about a sensitive issue where I want to take extra care to not be hurtful, and haven’t quite gotten it to the point where it’s ready to be published. (And I’m debating whether I should publish it at all.) I have another post semi-written in my head about giving ourselves a break during the COVID crisis. But now it’s Friday afternoon, which is a terrible time to publish a blog post. So that will have to wait for Monday morning.

But two of my Rules to Live By are “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” and “Doing something 30% is better than not doing it at all.”… Read more

Affable April

by Leave a Comment

Affable April

Three months ago I created a challenge that I called Genial January. The idea was to spend the entire month without posting anything negative on social media, in either my own posts or comments.

I don’t know how many people participated. Maybe I was the only one. But I found it to be an extremely worthwhile exercise. Which is why I’m going to repeat it, for Affable April.

We don’t realize just how much time we spend complaining, criticizing, and insulting. I’ve worked very hard to become someone who does that far less often than most people, and I spent very little time on social media in January due to being crazy busy at work, yet I was still shocked at how often I had to stop myself from writing something negative.

There’s a saying in sports: How you practice is how you play. Every time you write something negative on social media, you are training yourself to focus on the negative, which is training yourself to be unhappy.… Read more

Less Scorn Equals More Happiness

by 1 Comment

I recently read The Gift of Imperfection by Brene Brown. In the book, Brown made a very interesting point about scorn, contempt, and judgmentalism.

Over the last ten years or so, I’ve made a determined effort to avoid scorn/contempt/judgmentalism, especially toward people I know. This ties into several of my rules to live by. “Anger and hate hurt yourself far more than the target of your anger and hate.” “People can be wrong without being evil or stupid.” “It’s okay for different people to have different beliefs.” “Most people are generally good and decent.” “Don’t attack or blame people.” It also ties into some of the Things I Wish I Knew: “Don’t be spiteful.” “You suffer from the same flaws as everyone else.” “It’s always better to be polite and friendly.” 

The reasons I’ve tried to avoid scorn have generally been outward looking, based on my relationships with other people.… Read more

Times of Disruption Are When Habits Change

by 1 Comment

As I write this, we’re all going through a huge disruption in our lives due to COVID-19. We’re cooped up at home, we can’t see our friends, and a lot of people are out of work.

When our routines and the way we live our lives get upended like this, so do our habits. Suddenly all the regular cues and events that trigger our habit loops are gone, and without this normalcy, we forget to do the things we normally do. This can be both a curse and a blessing.

It’s very easy to abandon our good habits during a time like this. How do you exercise when the gyms are closed? How do you eat healthy when a trip to the grocery store is an hours-long ordeal that risks your safety? How do you read good literature when the library is shut down?

And even for habits that aren’t any more difficult, it’s still easy to forget about them when everything is changing, the days are running together, and you feel like a prisoner in your own home.… Read more

13 Things I Learned From Reading 50 Self-Help Books

by 2 Comments

A stack of books, recommending self-help books

Over the last few years, I’ve read over 50 self-help books. And I’ve noticed certain pieces of advice that tend to come up over and over again. (At least in the better, more scientific ones.) The reason these come up repeatedly is because they work, they’re true, and there’s evidence to back them up.

You shouldn’t expect any of these to completely transform your life. As I said in my last post, expecting any sort of self-help advice to provide a radical change overnight is unrealistic. But each of these is very likely to make your life a little bit better and make you a little bit happier. Taken all together, they just may build up over time into making your life a lot better and making you a lot happier.

1. Keep a gratitude journal 

Every night before you go to bed, write down at least three things that you are grateful for.… Read more