Self Help – How Can It Help You?

In today’s world as families are shrinking and community concept is fading, self help has become almost imperative. It has become highly essential that people learn to help themselves without looking at others for help. Self help is a way of improving yourself or solving personal problems without expecting anyone else’s assistance or help. Assistance from someone can be in any form for example getting help in walking, doing house work, shifting house and many more. Therefore self help is a broad topic which can be applied to any area like health and fitness, cooking, beauty treatment, house hold work, decorating your house, assembling furniture and many more.

Can self-help improve self-esteem?

Self-help is nothing but governing yourself without being dependent on others.  There is a direct correlation between self-help and self-esteem as it provides opportunities for genuine growth in self-esteem and could prove to be a key to success for the individuals. According to Samuel Smiles, author of “Self Help”,  “Heaven helps those who help themselves”.

To improve self-esteem there is no better tool than self-help as it can free you up from over-guidance and helplessness. It is absolutely essential to take control of your own problems and develop yourself. For example, fear of speaking in front of others can be overcome by joining some speech clubs like Toastmasters, where you are given many opportunities to speak in front of people, taught skills like making eye contact, controlling your gestures etc. Also, you learn by watching others to speak. It is important to know that such institutions are there to help you overcome your problems, but ultimately you need to take active actions to overcome any hurdle in your life.

Self help Tips

Here, self help tips will slightly change according to the subject of application, but the overall principle remains the same. It is always better to improve yourself by concentrating on one problem at a time. According to me following things are necessary to help yourselves:

• Motivation: It is first and the foremost thing as without motivation it is impossible to take control of your life and move ahead in a direction of your choice.

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

•  Setting up a goal: this step is crucial as you analyze your existing problems and start looking for the available solutions.
• Start working towards your goal: After analyzing your problem and reviewing existing solutions, it’s time to choose most practical solution and start to work towards self-improvements.
• Assess the improvement: While taking an action towards self-help, it is always necessary to assess your progress periodically.
• Continue to improve: “Never stop improving yourself” is a key to success.
• Help others to improve in the same situation: There are many people who have problems similar to you and they need help like you did. Helping others does not mean taking control of their life. But your help can always motivate them and suggest possible ways out. It also gives you inner satisfaction and helps you increase your self-esteem.

Self help Market

Self help is not a new concept, it has been existing in our society since old days for example self-help through audio tapes in meditation, yoga etc. In last few years this concept has become really popular and there has been tremendous growth in self-help culture and self-help publishing material. Many self-help books, TV shows, DVDs, audio CDs, seminars, personal coaching and speech clubs are coming up. In United States, Self help market contributes to over 11 billion dollars a year and it is still growing continuously. A lot of self-help books specially in computer programming like ‘C programming for Dummies”, “UNIX for Dummies” is extremely popular and are successful in developing additional skills people need.

At the time of credit crunch, when people prefer to save some money and learn new skills at the same time, various courses like online IT or distance learning courses are becoming very popular. These courses can very well be considered as self help courses. ‘Online course’ market is thriving these days as people are benefitted by developing new skills in their own time and space.

Self-help Groups

Self help groups are the groups formed by the people suffering through similar problems, also known as support groups. Here, people share and learn through each other’s experience in a nonprofessional and nonmaterial way and provide sympathetic understanding. These self-help support groups are organized and controlled by its members. People normally voluntarily join a group with a problem similar to their own like Cancer, Alzheimer, AIDS etc.

Popularity of internet has developed an opportunity for many online self-help groups to connect people from different geographical locations to share similar problems. Some groups offer chat forums where individuals can exchange messages in real time and some groups allow members to read the discussion and leave their comments. Facebook and Twitter have further added to this concept.

Is Self-help misleading?

Some people argue that the self-help culture can be misleading. According to Steve Salerno, “SHAM: the Self-Help and Actualization Movement — not only as ineffective in achieving its goals, but also as socially harmful.” Christopher Buckley in his book God is My Broker asserts: “The only way to get rich from a self-help book is to write one.”

However looking at the above criticism, people should not forget that there are many disadvantages associated with assisted-help in terms of over guiding, lack of freedom, reduced self-confidence and many more. Therefore, after carefully weighing various pros and cons of self help, it can always be recommended.