Before Starting Your Self-Help Journey, Read This

When I was in high school, I was depressed and unconfident with myself. It was tough because I did not know how to fix these problems; my family and friends didn't know what to do. I drifted through school like this for a couple of years. That was until I came across my first self-help video; it felt like I hit the gold mine.

The dopamine rush kicked in; the solutions were so simple that I was surprised I hadn't thought about them earlier. Every day I learned something new. A new technique, a new method, was so exciting to me. Until I hit a plateau, but that was no big deal. All I needed to do was to learn more. And I didn't stop at just school; I did workouts, motivation, and productivity. Until it wasn't working, at some point, I no longer was improving. I felt I was at a dead end with myself, I was exhausted with my, but I was still essentially a failure.

It was gruesome; not only I felt like a failure, I felt like a failure who had tried everything. Once again, I was drifting through, still sifting and consuming every self-help video. But I did not try everything. I had overlooked some of the simplest lessons in my pursuit of knowledge. And if you are starting or undergoing your self-help journey, this next bit is significant to understand.

Obsessed about "learning"

It's easy to trick yourself into thinking you are learning stuff since watching content creators fill you with all this valuable information, and you develop this warm fuzzy feeling of progress. Don't be mistaken; none of what the content creators or authors said was lousy information. The real problem was that I wasn't learning; I only believed I was. I craved the feeling of learning and not learning itself. What once was a passion became a toxic obsession.

Something to kind of keep in mind it's like self-help videos and courses are there to sort of sharpen the axe, but you still need to cut the wood. Several videos can be really life-changing and beneficial in the areas that you actually need it but once you start viewing more will be have diminishing returns.

With that, here are some lessons to learn from my mistakes.

Focus on your goal

Whether you are trying to get strong or improve your studying it doesn't matter. If we don't have a specific goal in mind, we can look aimlessly and start learning unnecessarily. For example, there are many different meanings to what it is to get "strong." Is it to lift 400kg or maybe to perform rock climbing? Both require you to be "strong," but they differ in their respective disciplines. To dial in your focus, I would recommend doing a SMART goal. SMART stands for:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Timely

If your goal was to lift 100kg, the SMART goal would look something like this:

S: I want to lift 100kg by starting to lift 20kg and adding 1kg a session.

M: I can measure this since I can see how much weight I am using and can record this.

A: I think it is achievable; 100 kg is a good milestone for many beginner lifters.

R: This goal is realistic. I work out consistently several times a week and have been making progress every session.

T: I want to from the end of February to be able to lift 100kg by the beginning of April.

There probably needs to be some fine tuning as you continue to lift, but you can see how this drastically helps what you want to do and how you will achieve it.

Mastering the Fundamentals

It's still important to gather knowledge to improve yourself. After all, you are learning because you have no idea where to start. But despite that, these techniques are no replacement for the basics; diet, sleep and exercise. Each fuel the other and when combined allows for lasting energy, focus, and overall health.

Pillars of Health

Before we can even get help, we need to observe our physical health. We want to reprogram ourselves, yes, but our physical health plays a massive role in getting us there.

This is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It describes what human conditions for them to function. We want to fulfill esteem needs (becoming confident, happy, etc.), but to do so, we need to first start at the bottom: our physiological conditions. You can think of it as the foundation for rebuilding ourselves; we cannot build our mental health without a solid foundation.

So does this mean that if we meet the basic needs we'll be peak performers? Not necessarily, they are only building blocks which our study methods and techniques can stand on.

If we look at the graph, as we improve on physiological needs (diet, sleep, exercise) results for doing the fundamentals are pretty much immediate and drastic at the beginning; but taper off as we become fit. Meanwhile other needs like esteem and self actualization become drastically more important but are useless initially.

This is where I think study techniques and mental wellness are misunderstood, you can't start with them because they take time to develop and require other needs to be met first.

Let's talk the basic needs

Diet

Food is fuel for the body, it's as simple as that. If we eat quality food, we can perform at a higher level. Consuming the right foods not only provides you with energy for the day but nutrients that can improve from bone and muscle development to cognition and mood.

Understanding the technicalities can be a bit of a challenge, generally, I recommend seeing a nutritionist and using a food tracker to figure out your dietary needs.

Exercise

You don't need to do insane things like 100 pushups, 100 sit-ups, and a 10km run every day.

Seriously don't, your body will be so exhausted the next day that you'll lose all motivation.

Simple walking and stretching is an excellent place to start. It improves blood

circulation, cardiovascular, and flexibility, and helps to relieve stress.

Sleep

Arguably the most important and underrated of the three, sleep is crucial to many body functions. It helps rebuild muscle, maintains the immune system, improves cognitive function, and most importantly, can improve your mood. I have a post about that here.

For those who just want a brief summary here are some things to consider to get better sleep.

• Sleeping at the optimal temperature

• Managing your light usage at night

• Scheduling downtime

• Winding down your day

Sharpen the saw

You need to work to accomplish things, regardless of if you are working out or studying. But arguably more is to rest. It allows time to pause and reflect on our actions:

• What went well today?

• What didn't go well today

• What can I do better

  Credit to Jim Cotter for saying to me when I was a kid

Casually writing about how you felt today in a notebook can help to unload and unwind.

The more important side to this, however, is that it's just nice to take a break. After all, our end goal is not to work to live; it's live to work and we want to simply live a good life.

Have Self-Compassion

All of this is a process; it takes time, like how trees take time to grow. There are going to be lots of ups and lots of downs. I just want to remind you not to be so hard on yourself. Pause for a moment and slow down; step away from your work for a moment if you have to. Self-improvement is a marathon, not a sprint, so pace yourself.