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The Formula for Self-Improvement

Author: Rustin Rawlings, Kaleo Church

The Formula for Self-Improvement is easy and you don't have to read every self-help book to figure it out. I sure haven't read them all, as a matter of fact, I haven't read any. Why waste my time? Based on interviews with the authors and book reviews, you get a clear picture of what they're going to say. When it comes to books like these, the trick is not what you say but how you say it.

This all started by my stumbling upon a FOX News article titled "Is Oprah Starting Her Own Cult?" Given my deep rooted dislike for Oprah Winfrey (the subject for a future post) plus my fascination with cults, I was immediately intrigued. Come to find out, though, it's only another scheme to dupe people out of their dough by dressing up the old formula for self-improvement.

For this newest scheme, Winfrey is the pusher and an author named Eckhart Tolle is the costume designer, dressing up the self-improvement formula in an outfit that would make any effeminate, pretentious, New York fashion nut drool so much that it would become the latest trend.

Before we get to the the formula, though, it must be noted that the first thing Tolle has going for him is his guru, Yoda look. In my opinion he looks similar to the character Ben on the television drama LOST. Maybe it's just the small, creepy man similarity.

But really, who wouldn't be suckered into taking advice from a tiny, soft-spoken Englishman (good luck trying to keep up with all of this jimble jamble)?

Let's move on to the formula. Again, it's simple and it is the common thread among all self-help/self-improvement books, no matter what else clutters the pages.

(Please remember that the formula below includes common threads among all self-help/improvement books. I am not saying that Tolle includes every specific detail in his work that is mentioned below. But he does include the steps. How could you not?

Also, it could be argued that all self-help/improvement books do include these pieces of the formula but that it doesn't devalue them. With attentive reading of the exposition of each step in the formula, though, my argument is that these steps are hollow, predictable, and void of any true solutions.)


Step One: Reaffirm people's hope for something better.

Everyone hopes for something better. From the smallest of things like free breakfast at work (well I hope for it at least) to the biggest of things like Heaven and everything else in between. Hope is what keeps us going.

The first step is simple, reaffirm the fact that people should hope for something better, paint a picture of how great their lives could be. Create almost dream like sequences that are void of conflict and strife where people do cartwheels through fields of chocolate flowers.

You must reaffirm the reader that there is hope for something better in life, something better than they already imagine. This can be achieved by identifying the most common problems the majority of Americans face in life and letting people know that they are fixable. While this may sound arduous, there are two simple ways to identify these common problems.

The first way to identify common problems of Americans is to simply look at the table of contents of a handful of other self-help/improvement books. People's problems don't change. Despite the gory details of each individual person, we would all like less conflict in our lives, to be happy more often, and to feel confident that we have the ability within us to succeed. The key is to keep it general. The more specific you get with the problems you address, the more you risk losing some readers who don't have that problem or can't relate to it. For this reason, when I mentioned success a few sentences earlier, I didn't specify in what part of life that success was in reference to. We all desire to succeed in something, so anymore specificity would have isolated some of my audience.

As a side note, this idea also applies when writing horoscopes. Keep it general, here's mine for the day...


Who doesn't have a "slight misunderstanding" every day? And the romance that should be simmering gives me hope for the day! Hooray for simmering romance! Plus, I get my way, just how everything in life should be.

The second way to identify common problems is by examining the difficulties of your life and those around you and then creating labels that serve as an umbrella for more specific life problems to fall under. A few examples would be better understanding of your spouse, better understanding of ourselves, and most importantly, self-empowerment.

All of these things are achievable and your life can greatly benefit from them. And the best part is that you are in control and can make it happen.

Step Two: Convince people that it is within their power to achieve something better.

This step ties in very closely with the first because it is all about control. In a world where the majority of life's difficulties are out of our control, people must be made to believe that the solution to those problems is within them.

Beyond that, it is about empowerment. You must convince the reader that while their situation may seem dire, it is fixable by simple steps that anyone can take.

The trick to this step is to not make it feel taxing. People want it easy with as little work as possible, despite recognizing that they have to do it themselves. Having to work to hard implies that there's a lot wrong with us, which we don't want to admit. That's why there are a great number of books that are packaged into steps, as in seven steps to become...blank or five steps to improve..blank. In doing this, it feels easier for people to do which translates to being easier to market which then translate to big bucks.

This step seems very innocent at first glance. An individual has a problem so that individual is responsible for fixing it. While there is some truth to that, by approaching our problems with an inward-focused perspective, thinking only about how this will benefit me, it caters to our natural selfish tendencies. It's about my peace, what I will gain, and how I will be happier in life. And the people around us? Well, let's hope they have a good book as well.

This step preys upon two common, natural fears that a great majority of people have. Similar to step one, this step also identifies commonalities in people and exploits them.

The first common fear that step two caters to is the fear of being let down. Everyone has been let down by someone at some point in their lives. Maybe it was as simple as being disappointed in your kids for a poor decision they made or even being let down by someone you thought you were in love with. In any case, we all know the feeling. It is a sick sense of isolation and depression that makes you wonder if you can really trust the people closest to you.

The solutions found in self-help books require only you, and no one else. You must take others out of the equation in order to succeed at this step. Why involve anyone else? They're probably going to let you down, anyways. Can you really trust them to come through for you? Can you really trust them to not judge you?

But when relying solely on yourself, what happens when you fail? Do you take responsibility, learn from it, and move on? No, you blame someone else. Maybe, despite your best efforts, the thorns from someone else's inner-peace garden choked your confidence flowers. Or maybe the winds of the sky spirit brought dark clouds of conflict to rain on your enlightened hour of sunshine power. I hate when that happens. In any case, you are a victim of your circumstances.

The second common fear that is exploited by this step is conflict. While some may be more inclined to deal with conflict with certain people or in certain situations, no one openly invites it into their lives unless it is a way to gain something they don't already have, like attention. Much of the trouble we face in life is as a result of or in response to the people around us. But by focusing only on ourselves and the supposed ability we have to solve our own problems, we avoid conflict with others altogether.

The reality of life, for those that haven't already realized it yet, is that people will let you down, anger you, and disappoint you. This can't be avoided and only focusing on yourself will not prevent it from happening.

Step Three: Dress it up and make it sexy to the point that it feels spiritual.

This step is key and where creativity is crucial. This is how you make your money. Because the formula is old, you must disguise it amongst seemingly profound colloquialisms, clever analogies, and anecdotes from supposed real life happenings that really only end up making the reader set unrealistic expectations for themselves and/or those around them.

Tolle uses language that is soft and refreshing (also seemingly spiritual) like enlightenment, transcending consciousness, silence, awakening, and the classic go to of addressing "your life's purpose."

Another way to dress it up is to connect your ideas with something bigger, something unseen, or not fully comprehensible in an effort to make it feel spiritual. The tricky part is to do this without attaching it to a god of any religion, as Tolle does well. If an author were to be attached in any way to a certain religion or god, it would isolate their audience which hurts the bottom line.

But, there's a lot of money in faith.
Specifically Christianity.

By spicing up this step in the formula with mentions of God, Heaven, or prayer you're connecting with a reported 78.5% of Americans. The tricky part about taking this route is that in order to most effectively reach the majority of America's Christians, you cannot be offensive. And in order to not be offensive, you must disqualify Jesus from Christianity (I will discuss this in detail later).

In doing this successfully, you're able to take the power of God and the identity of being a Christian while neglecting any of the responsibility or personal accountability it requires of you (another formula for a future post).

Without seeming spiteful, the best example of how this plays out in the Christian faith is in Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church here in Houston. Osteen is vocal on his stance of not mentioning sin (our faults, wrong doings, destructive habits, negative effects on others) in his sermons. In doing so, he makes no mention of Jesus Christ either (so how can it be called a Christian church, one wonders; or how could the attendees rightly identify themselves as followers of Jesus).

The connection between the two is that Jesus died for the sins of all people thereby restoring our relationship with God for whoever believes in all that Jesus accomplished through his death, burial, and resurrection. So if you don't preach sin, then there is no necessary, meaningful mention of Jesus because his ultimate purpose in being sent to earth by God was to die for our sins.

So then, you're taking the power and identity of being a Christian and believing in a Christian God without accepting sin, again our wrong doings or faults. In accepting or even recognizing our sin within a context that is loyal to what the Bible teaches, it requires the believer to take personal accountability and constructive action to repair those weak areas through the laborious but satisfying work of repentance.

This is where we find the offensiveness in Jesus. The first of two reasons we find him to be so offensive is because his very existence accuses every man, woman, and child on earth of being a sinful person. As said before, his ultimate purpose in being sent to earth by God was to die for our sins. But in America, not just anyone can tell you that what you're doing is wrong. We have rights and if we feel as if someone were to get within a five mile radius of anything that can be even remotely misconstrued as some kind of violation of them then a great upheaval is in order. We see Jesus as a threat rather than a savior and we see God sending him as a judgment, rather than a display of love for all of his people.

The second reason Jesus is so offensive to us is that having a Biblical faith in him requires that we relinquish control over all areas of our lives. As Christians, we seek to live out God's will for our lives rather than our own, we desire what God desires which is often not what we think is best. For example, the scariest part about natural disasters is that although we may be able to see them coming we can do nothing about the damage they cause. It is out of our control entirely and we are at the mercy of them because we have no control to stop them. We are left out in the open, vulnerable to the elements. And the reason we find roller coaster to be so thrilling is that it simulates a loss of control while we really know that we are kept safe.

...But why go through all of that when you can still attach yourself to God without it (even if it is heretical)? The true Christian faith is not measurable and cannot be formulated. Any attempt to do either only cheapens it. And especially in Westernized culture where if you want something done right you must do it yourself and quick fix solutions run rampant with the fast-flowing pace of life, there is only room for spirituality that can be charted, put on bumper stickers, and sold for an inflated rate.

So where does that leave us? Repeat steps 1-2 and the circle continues.

There's a reason that when searching "self-help" on Amazon.com you get over 3,800 items tagged with that label. These books aren't even bandages for people's difficulties because they don't provide lasting healing. They are all attempts to redress a simple three-step formula that, at best, is an opportunistic vulture feeding on the desperate needs of others.

Finally, I want to clarify that I am in no way saying that these needs aren't legitimate. At their root, they are issues that affect all of us in different ways. What I am saying, though, is that you won't find healing even if you were to read all 3,800+ books available on self-help.

In my greatest attempt to not sound clever or cute, I am confident in my belief that God has only given us one book for a good reason. And although it may seem foreign or out of date to us now, it is comforting to know that the same issues that every self-help book has addressed in the past 100 years was already explored 2,000 years ago.

Category: Culture