If I said you are unworthy right now, you are way below what I would have expected from someone like you. You are behind, you are insecure, and you need to really work on yourself. You would either 1- slap me in the face or 2- agree with me and nod in silence.
And if you are the type to agree with me, stay with me. Let’s talk about the dark side of the self-improvement industry and how it can spur on depression and lack of achievement. I’m Dani D’Silvez, your go-to person to learn how to stand up for yourself and heal from toxic people. Let’s go.
When you think about the self-improvement industry, it seems to have all the answers guaranteed? Oh, this pretty book tells me this is all I need to get onto the straight and narrow and get disciplined. Or this man in the video with his expensive suit and neon lights in the background knows his stuff because he has millions of subscribers.
Hey, I’m Dani D’Silvez. I help those who are at the beginning of self-development end toxic cycles, set boundaries, and get ahead in business, life, and relationships. And with my background in psychology, video presenting, and as a former ‘self-help addict,’ I wanted to share some ugly truths. Let’s spill the beans…
1- Someone gains from your insecurities
Just like a surgeon makes profits from those who feel insecure about their appearance, the self-development industry preys on our insecurities, promising quick fixes and easy hacks. Of course, there are a lot of credible people out there who are genuine and want to help you on your journey to self-improvement, but they are disguised as ‘gurus’ with millions of subscribers and social media followers. They sell us the dream of transforming our lives overnight and anchor us with their marketing words like ‘Are you struggling to speak up in public? Do you hate being rejected? Are you fed up with feeling stuck?’
When someone points out what we don’t have, such as happiness and success, we believe that there really is something genuinely wrong with us, which keeps us running towards the external carrot of ‘I want to be different; I hate my current self.’ And then we have to prove to ourselves that we need to master this topic, let’s say public speaking, confidence, leadership, whatever, to be ‘successful.’
In actual fact, there is nothing wrong with us. If we haven’t achieved a goal, it just means we need to try something differently and gain some more wisdom, not that we are majorly flawed or missing something. We don’t need to achieve a goal of 1 million followers, own 3 Lamborghinis, or date 6 women at once; it’s ridiculous and means absolutely nothing.
2- The lack
When we believe we are lacking in something, we feel we are flawed, broken, and that there is something severely wrong with us. We gorge on endless content, courses, books, podcasts, videos, meetings, events, seminars, etc. We assign a feeling in our heads of perfection and we won’t feel settled until we have achieved this feeling that only comes from goal succession – not our growth. It becomes a fantasy of utopia exploration, an obsession, and if you attempt to grow in that mindset of obsession, you reach perfectionist boundaries, and even if you do get something, you won’t truly appreciate it because nothing is perfect and you won’t be able to handle the down days that are normal. Oh wait, I’m married; I have achieved utopia. But we’ve just had an argument, what is this compromise you speak of, a 50/50 split of chores? I want a refund on my relationship success course.
3- Feeling unfulfilled is okay
Sitting with that feeling of ‘I don’t have what I want, I’m not where I want to be,’ is uncomfortable. We will go out of our way to not feel icky feelings. But if you’ve ever been to therapy, you know, exposure to those feelings and exploring where these feelings come from, will, after some uncomfortable sessions, inspire tremendous growth.
Logically,
We are humans, programmed to survive; we scan our environments for threats. We are supposed to be looking for the next best cave to live in, the next best water hole to commute to. But we aren’t machines; we simply sometimes have to compromise on the cards we were dealt. Miracles are not real. Instead of exploring that unfulfilled feeling, we think we are wrong to have these feelings and strive for immediate action. We become desperate, thinking we may need to take action such as ‘find a new job’ because your current job is getting you down, when in fact, it could be you hate working 30 – 40 hours a week, coming home in the dark, only have 2 days a week to get life admin and house maintenance done. If we don’t sit with our uncomfortable feelings, we end up following someone else’s strategy of ‘success’ instead of what works for us.
I encourage you to explore the work of self-help; if a book or a video resonates with your unique situation, then explore that, but from a place of self-love, not lack. The perfect business model is to sell a product or service that keeps people coming back for more, a face cream that runs out, the ‘supplementary course’ for that previous course they bought.
Marketing in this industry creates a burning desire to take action right now! People are selling you the thought that there is something wrong with you so you need to change to be likable, instead of saying; you know you want to do better, so why not consider this step-by-step guide to achieve that?
The self-improvement industry has created a monetized monster. We all have vulnerabilities; it could be our social skills aren’t up to par, maybe we can’t control our emotions and easily trigger our rage in arguments, maybe we don’t have enough money to enjoy life in the way ‘social media’ tells us to; you know, the fashion, the fancy house, the cars, etc.
Even your most loved self-proclaimed self-improvement guru here on YouTube has flaws, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities, but you only see what they choose to show you. When we think someone else has mastered their own improvements, we see them as almost god-like. This amazing human being who shines and never does anything wrong.
This isn’t to say you should accept a life you don’t want, but a gentle invitation to be kind to yourself and accept that it’s okay to have our flaws and moments where we aren’t our best selves. You can’t improve until you make mistakes. But you don’t have to fix everything about yourself and if you do, you don’t have to do it straight away.
4- A lot of advice is worthless
I remember 7 years ago, absolutely devastated with who I was, my relationships, my career, I felt hopeless and had no more fight in me to keep going. And then that was when I saw a video online that promised me ‘this is the only advice you will ever need.’ It gave me the passion to try just one more time, and I threw myself into the deep end, absorbed everything I could get my hands on. While I was hoovering, I had Pat Flynn podcasts playing, I slept to Tim Ferris audiobooks, I was attending
as many webinars throughout the week as I could, and about 5 years later, I sat on the end of my bed and thought, what have I actually done to change my life? Yes, my life improved and I amassed some amazing business tips, but I still felt lost, I didn’t have the promise that other people sold to me. My self was so consumed by negative emotion. I didn’t know how to make the most of the information I was absorbing because the relationship with myself was negative. I trained my brain to think ‘your current you isn’t good enough, you need to change and you can’t trust yourself to do this without external help and giving your power to someone else.’
Or a lot of information includes the ‘why you are lacking’ and the what you need to do or have, but doesn’t really give the ‘how,’ so you are left with a burning desire to achieve a goal, with no actual method of how to achieve it, thus intensifying the ‘wow, I’m an idiot because I can’t figure this out.’
In those moments where you don’t feel you have the power of self-control and inner wisdom, that is when you need to try out therapy, and explore your negative self-talk, not another self-help book.
Self-help online is not a substitute for therapy; it’s a supplement, providing the content you digest is reputable and you begin with the attitude of kindness to the self to be curious to improve the mindset that ‘I have TO change because I am lacking.’
5- The pressure of perfection
I’m a firm believer that you become what you surround yourself with – and I have an amazing video, if I dare say so myself, about friends unconsciously holding you back ‘click here’ to watch later. So the more you surround yourself with hustle bro culture, cold showers at 5 am guys and let the social media algorithm give you tons of ‘you suck unless you have this’ posts. It creates the pressure to be more. You’ve seen the number of edited images on Instagram; we are not flawless. Surround yourself with normality, with things that internally make you feel good without any pressure. It might mean your Instagram For You page is a lot less ‘dopamine-inducing,’ but it becomes a calmer place of just enjoying instead of ‘omg, I don’t own a hot tub, I need to publish an online course and make money.
Take stock every now and then; are you happy in the present moment with yourself, or happy because you think other people would think you are happy?
You can start to feel guilt when enjoying your life because it doesn’t fit in with ‘self-improvement.’ Feeling guilty to not work every minute of the day, feeling guilty to sit on the sofa and just enjoy a TV series, feeling guilty to spend a couple of hours gaming.
I recently completed a Kabbalah course, and it’s hands down my most favorite course I have ever completed, and I want to share this with you. It taught me about the endless test of the ego and the concept that to heal our ego we have to let go. Instead of thinking, why is this bad thing happening to me? We have to think ‘why this is happening for me.’ What miracle can I gain from this? [personal example] In the moments when we don’t feel good, we assume we are lacking something, and if we believe we are lacking, our ego wins and we continue to plunge into a cycle of negative emotions reinforcing low self-esteem.
6- It’s a lifelong journey
Improving oneself is a continuous process; you build yourself up, cracks appear, the walls fall down, and you build back up again until the next crack. I honestly thought when I started my journey, I would be a master at emotional intelligence and never end up dealing with an immature adult, a narcissist, never had any down days where I say the wrong thing. So 5 years later, I thought, hang on a minute, am I flawed? Am I broken? I’m still feeling sad some days.
And the reality is you never get to a point where you have achieved ‘success’; you grow until you’re like ‘yup, I’m happy here, I can healthily compromise with this moment.’
But the devilish self-improvement industry tells us, focus on that end goal, there is a guaranteed fix; we have constant reminders that time is running out, and if we don’t achieve our goals quickly enough, we are a failure. Then the work becomes a chore, we feel unfulfilled, and end up probably not finishing that book or course or abandoning our dreams and goals because we don’t feel that buzz of excitement 2 weeks in. Therefore reinforcing we are a failure and the cycle repeats.
7- It’s hard to improve
Improving yourself is not a quick fix like some gurus say. If it were, we wouldn’t have crimes, we wouldn’t have abusive parents in their 60s, we wouldn’t have narcissism, ugly divorces, etc. It’s a constant battle, and facing vulnerabilities is so painful it can feel like dying; it can unleash a huge amount of shame and endless nights. A lot of advice, courses, and books (believe me, over the past 7 years, I have happily thrown money at a ton of them) don’t acknowledge how cruel improving the self can be. It’s not just a ‘oh, I suck at social skills, let me take this quick 6-week course to improve my charisma and eye contact’; no, it brings about deep feelings (if the guru or writer is aware of the psychology – because anyone can claim they are an expert nowadays), it brings deep feelings of ‘why have I sucked at these skills?’ why wasn’t I modeled these skills as a child, did my parents not find them important, oh god, my parents have emotionally neglected me, oh my god, there’s so much I am lacking.’
This is what self-improvement doesn’t talk about. The spider web effect of exposure theory and how unlocking one trait to improve brings about hundreds more. God, I remember this awful shame cycle that I had for months, thinking back to the times when I wasn’t my best self in social situations, after taking a charisma course, I started to analyze & cringe at my behavior, I started avoiding certain people out of shame. The course I purchased did not prepare me for that, there was no ‘caution if you feel these negative feelings, go to therapy or temporarily journal it out’; it was a wam, bam, thank you, ma’am. I have your money, please leave.
8- Not loving the starting self
The moment we watch a new video, or buy a new book, or click ‘sign me up for this course’ we are saying to ourselves, I believe I don’t already have what it takes to improve myself/situation, therefore, I am giving my trust to another person because I have no idea, telling ourselves, I have no inner power, I need to get it externally. Thus reinforcing our ‘I am not good enough self.’ So read or watch thinking ‘right now I am perfect with my flaws and all, let me be a little curious to see another perspective.’
9- It’s not a one-size-fits-all
The perfect marketer knows that for every product they sell, there needs to be an ideal buyer. And they have the age, gender preference, location, their interests, their relationship status, their income, their passions and hobbies and mission statements all noted down after doing tons of research to find an ‘average’ Your can buy a course, or read a book and feel a bit off, that you have more work to do than the average person because your situation is unique and different. For example, something I’m learning to realize, my social skills were off for years, turns out you will struggle with social skills due to autism, extreme trauma, ADHD, etc., you might not be the perfect viewer or reader of a book, and that’s okay, that doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you, it just means you leave that book unread on the table.