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How to grow, with self-esteem and self-love (avoid toxic self-help)
Creating this thread for the future upcoming article.
@Mats provided the initial idea.
Mats and/or me may go ahead with the article in the future.
Anyone else who wants to contribute, be very happy to read.
You can share:
- Personal experience
- self-help that may harm your self-esteem
- self-help that becomes too extreme doesn't help anymore: for example, I fell for this with nutrition, following fads and some "gurus" that added little or zero value, at high cost of time, execution, and heavy restrictions
- Thoughts and ideas
- Possible good resources
- Good gurus/bad "gurus" examples: such as, who inspires you to healthy personal growth, and who pushes an agenda leading to exaggeration and/or guilt, low self-esteem, and self-loathing
- ...
A good note from Power duck on walking the line and not overdoing it on any extremes:
Quote from Power duck on June 25, 2023, 12:47 pmHowever I comitted a fatal mistake some time ago when trying to solve this issue, I shifted towards the opposite mindset: "It's ok to fail we aren't perfect after all, tomorrow you'll try again and hopefully things will go different"(of course I adopted other mindsets that improved my mental health and self esteem too), this caused me to lose lots of progress I had made (not watching porn, not playing videogames, studying hard) after all "It's ok to relax a bit from time to time isn't it?".
Hence the reason for writing this:
And I'm growing a bit tired of this behaviour of mine that seems to never disappear, of losing time on instant gratification activities as a means to avoid feeling bored or to fill a void caused by a lack of meaningful social relationships. I have to stop behaving like a kid, I have to stop always trying to make hard things easy/enjoyable, yes, it's true, it does indeed help to learn how to enjoy doing hard things, but it's not going to be like that always. You have to man up and START DOING THE THING YOU SAID YOU WOULD DO, because if you always leave things for tomorrow, that tomorrow will amount to years of your life wasted.
I wanted to force myself into feeling bad, so I would take action and reflect about what I did, instead of trying to alleviate feelings of guilt like I usually do in regards to studying.
I believe self help is toxic when it is unreasonably optimistic. When it disregards the differences in potential between people, like the blank slate.
“ you can achieve whatever you want, as long as you put your mind to it”- “if a guy like me can do it, everybody can do it”
I prefer the “acceptance” branch off self-help. do the best you can with the hand you were dealt.
It’s important to set realistic goals.
like Ray Dalio, I believe it is important to embrace reality.
It is enlightening to read about behavioural genetic and twin studies to see how very little environment matters when it comes to psychological traits and IQ.
The book is called: “ DNA, the blueprint”
The best practical self-help is learning power dynamics in power university and the forum.
Thank you for the note, Jack!
I agree on the unreasonable optimism.
I find it not only unhelpful but it gives me a feeld of "childish and immature".
I stopped to follow Tom Bilyeu in good part for that.
Him repeating "you can do anything you set your mind to, without limitation" felt idiotic at a certain point. And all the various stories h weaved around it that "it's not true, but I believe it anyway" didn't make it any better. Just felt like more time wasting.
It's not like if you're more of a realist it means you'll work any less hard on it.
You'll do the same, with just less BS.
OFF-TOPIC
I'm close to your point of view, but maybe a tad more optimistic about the "what you can achieve".
IQ may be harder to move, but what you can do with the same IQ brain with more dedication, focus, knowledge, or evening learning how to think better can make a big difference (which is nothing something you ever denied, so probably you'd also agree with that).
Even if you look at some guys here and how their results changed by going from power unaware to more power-aware, it's quite astonishing.
OFF-TOPIC
About self help that harms self-esteem:
- I say that one of the most counterproductive pieces of self help is the idea (that I found TPM demolishes) that “communication between humans is 93% non-verbal”.
This single piece of information contributed (together with other things, of course) to lead me to behave, for years, in ways that relied on “staying physically strong” and “not replying”.
I stayed silent in the face of innumerable insults and one-ups, with the consequent self-cementing effect and loss of respect, as I thought that just subcommunicating with my body or with my non-responding that I wasn’t affected, was enough.
Thank you for sharing this, Bel!
Crazy, I wouldn't have even thought about that.
Yeah, and being constantly told by relatives since childhood that I had to “let other relatives’ nasty remarks get off me like water on a duck’s back”, as I had to be the “bigger guy” (compared to adults), didn’t help either :)
Talk about gaslighting…
Yeah, that's basically either the naive self-help, or the manipulative one (can be either, depending on the perpetrator).
Just to be clear, this thread is more for "normal" and even good self-help that can still turn toxic.
For example:
- Go to the gym, where the "ideal" is the guy who puts his alarm at 4am (can't think of anything more stupid, personally) and going ALL the time, even when not feeling well
- Cut out "bad foods", but the "cut" is forever, and never touching anything that's "bad" (leads to food demonization, stupid rules that add little value but have heavy costs, potentially binging, feeling "bad" after a slice of pizza, etc. etc.)
- Cut out all "time wasting", but "time wasting" is everything, including a movie or a game after a long and already productive day of work
These are all good messages.
But still potentially unhelpful in some cases and when shared with certain frames -which, not rarely, are exactly how they become most popular since whatever is extreme captures people's attention a lot more-.
Note: I personally think that as potentially damaging as misinformation purported by self-development is poor mindsets and attitudes held by certain societal communities and groups. But, for the purposes of this thread, I'll stick to the potentially harmful self-help.
#1. You Should Care (Too Much) What Others Think...Or Not At All?
I think most self-help literature (mainly environments like the red pill) is moving toward somewhat extreme ideas such as "start caring less about others (and focus on yourself) and others will start caring more about you".
But that's mainly for some of the STR dating literature. For some of the LTR literature (without having read too much), I feel it sort of flips and it's recommended instead that the more you care about what your partner thinks, the better off your relationship will be (sometimes without even taking into account the potential for a partner to be a manipulative value-taker who will use your caring to their sole benefit).
Then, there's the corner of self-help that takes things to another extreme, saying that if you care about nothing (such as by having zero expectations) then you'll always be happy because you can never be disappointed.
I'll share the beginnings of the nihilism article I started writing that shares some of my thoughts on nihilism as a concept which also addresses this issue a little:
The Attitudes and Applications of Healthy Nihilism
Nihilism As a Moral Obligation
Let’s start with a little philosophy to introduce the necessity of nihilism as a foundational mindset for mental empowerment:
Is it possible for a man who cares about everything to be morally good?
In an ideal world, the answer should always be “yes” and that more caring is always better.
Especially on a site like this one that seeks to create powerful human beings who are morally good, one would think that caringness taken to its maximum might be a case of a great extreme. (We could say that perhaps a level of caring that knows no bounds would be a hallmark of a fully morally good individual and the potential beginnings of a great force for good in the world. After all, those who care most are also those least likely to sit back and do nothing when that which they care about is negatively affected.)
In this regard, fully caring could be argued as the full completion of this character trait’s self-development.
However, we do not live in an ideal world and “more caring” isn’t always better. Everything should be done in moderation, including caring [and including moderation, but that’s a topic for another article].
So, we need a way to effectively manage and regulate the levels at which we care about things in the world.
And a concept that serves as a good tool for achieving this balance is nihilism.
How much caring is too much caring?
Anything taken to its extreme often becomes bad for those affected by it.
And yet, one would think that caringness taken to its maximum might be the one exception where that extreme may be good.
Besides, the idea of exactly how much caring is too much caring is subjective since it’s a moral trait. We all decide for ourselves our own moral value systems, so to attempt to define in any specifics how much caring is too much in this one article could be a constantly, ever-changing line that will always be different from reader to reader.
With that said, I do have a definitive line that works as a fairly solid starting point.
Power is a moral obligation.
One cannot be powerless and morally good because an inability to uphold or carry out one’s values is the equivalent of being valueless. A moral code one never stands up for because one can’t due to being too weak is virtually the same as having no moral code at all. Therefore, the starting point here is that one cannot care so much about everything that it begins to inhibit their own power. And, in this regard, we can even begin to argue that nihilism is also a moral obligation.
But let’s not skip ahead. And, we should add the caveat here that what we’re describing is a “healthy” nihilism. (Just as too much caring could ultimately cause harm, too much care-freedom can also be equally as harmful.)
The Dangers of Caring Too Much
Let me be clear on what I mean by “caring” now.
We’re talking about overcaring about everything.
For the purposes of this article, the most notable “cares” that we’re discussing may be other people’s thoughts, judgments, and opinions.
And if you let those three things get to you too much, you may need to put them in check.
This is so important that the dangers of over-caring reach as low as constant overthinking and as high as being emotionally controlled by others.
Here are some of the main potential consequences:
– Anxiety and Stress: caused by the fear of judgment and criticism.
– Indecisiveness: decision-making can be more difficult when you care too much about how everyone will think and feel about it (and indecisiveness is often perceived as uncharismatic).
– Self-Esteem Issues: if you place too much value on others’ opinions to determine and measure your own self-worth, you’ll constantly be dependent on the external validation of others to experience high levels of self-esteem.
– Emotional Exhaustion: from constantly thinking of and trying to meet the expectations of others (or what you think their expectations might be).
– Lack of Assertiveness: since overcaring about what others think, you may have difficulty setting boundaries. You may be more prone to people-pleasing, which can result in being taken advantage of or neglecting your own needs.
The Solution: Healthy Nihilism
You can call it many things. You can call it “enlightened nihilism” in that it’s a more enlightened way of approaching a characteristically negative idea for personal empowerment. You can call it “technical nihilism” in that you’re only embracing the technical parts of nihilism that benefit you most and leaving the rest that are mostly negative. Or, you could even call it “eudaimonic nihilism” in that you seek to use nihilism only to the extent that it leads most reliably to a life well-lived.
However you choose to call it, the focus of this section is on healthy nihilism.
All power starts in the mind. And here we have some mindsets that leverage the benefits of nihilism while disregarding the pessimistic (and oftentimes counterproductive) rest.
Let’s start with the first one.
My work on "healthy nihilism" was an effort to address low confidence in people.
And I'd say that that's another potential flaw and downside of self-development:
#2. Overfocus On Building Confidence and/or Build It On Shaky Foundations
- Casey Zander recommends working out to build confidence: saying, "How can you have confidence when you have nothing to be confident about? Let your body be the foundation, work on your body and you'll start feeling more confident." (And what happens if you gain weight? Or get injured and can no longer exercise?)
- Some other literature recommends other ways of (over)focusing on building confidence: which may also be a mistake in itself. What's worked better for me is to focus on building the "confidence cousins" (and rather than building social confidence, building social fearlessness through nihilism) so I don't need to feel confident in order to act (which can be a self-limiting trap on its own).
#3. Mistakes and Failure ARE Bad. It's Up to Us to Make Them Good
I think another trap is trying to convince oneself that failure is good.
The truth is, failure is (most often) bad.
And we can't pretend like there's no such thing as a mistake or failure or that they're all (always) great things because it'd be a step toward ignoring that there is bad in life (which I'd consider a necessary part of acceptance for self-empowerment).
No, the bad exists, mistakes can suck, and failure hurts.
But, we can turn the bad into good.
For example, here's a quote that made me ponder this (with my own addition in brackets at the end):
"Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry. All that blood was never once beautiful. It was just red. [Then, we turned it into art.] - Kai Rokowski
I'd add:
"All those lyrics were never once touching. It was just words. Then, we turned it into music."
Similarly:
"All those mistakes were never once good (hence why they were painful). It was just failure. Then, we turned it into fortitude."
We turn our failures into opportunities for exercising antifragility and growing character.
And I think ignoring that there is a process to it and making it seem as if all failures are automatically good is why so much self-development literature says, "Don't be afraid to fail!" and yet so many people are still risk-averse and afraid of the potential of defeat.
They don't realize that their instinctive intuition that the failure will hurt if it happens is natural, OK, and probably right and that it's up to them to turn that pain into their opportunities for further growth.
#4. Stretch the Words of Gurus to Make Them Work for You
Or, for this example, we could call it, "Make Excuses and Alternative Interpretations for (Potentially) Bad Gurus."
Rollo Tomassi made this tweet a couple months ago that stirred up a debate:
The main part that stood out to most readers is Tomassi's recommendation for men to get a vasectomy in their 20s.
When one of the guests pushed back on the idea, since Tomassi is considered one of (if not the) fathers of the red pill, the hosts of the podcast began rephrasing Tomassi's words in order to defend Tomassi's statement as valid and continue pushing it onto the public.
But I think it's a self-help mistake from the hosts that the followers could also fall into to try and justify potentially bad advice rather than seek out potentially better advice.
Don't get so attached to a guru that when they say something you disagree with you stretch their words until you can "maybe" agree with them. Instead, consider finding better advice or another guru.
Great insights Ali, thank you for sharing!
To generalize them, it seems to me that:
#1. is a case of "glass ceiling" self-help, such as self-help that only helps a certain category, up to a certain point, before starting to turn harmful
#2. Fragile ego/confidence type of self-help
And that nihilism approach is gold, made a note for future UP updates.
#3. Something we may refer to as something like "truth stretching reframing", where the reframe or "frame flip" seeks to instill a good mindset, but doing so through something that is simply often not true and hence not credible and not easy/healthy to internalize.
It's a good one.
#4. Guru first self-help, VS "content first" self-help
