In 2023, the self-help industry was worth $41.2 billion. Self-help book titles alone tripled from 2013 –2019. And there’s no slowing down – the industry as a whole is projected to reach $81.6 Billion by 2032.
Big numbers. Why does this matter though?
Many of us, despite having such easy access to an overwhelming abundance of information, find ourselves still struggling with problems of discipline. Specifically, with problems of overeating, under-exercising and under-sleeping (as it pertains to this blog and readers of it).
Driving the point further, not only is there such a huge market for supposed “solutions” to our problems of poor discipline; we are almost constantly exposed to TikTok reels teaching us “10 Tips to Sleep Better”, talk show hosts promoting the newest book on how to ‘hack’ our mental and physical health, celebrities and influencers advertising their favorite new guided meditation phone app.
There is an unrelenting stream of products, services and content promising to change our lives by helping us build better habits – of diet, sleep, exercise (and even parenting, productivity, marriage and friendships).
But our bad habits of unhealthy procrastination, avoidance, distraction and even substance abuse persist.
Why?
Is it because we don’t know what to do? No. We know we need to go to sleep earlier. Is it because we don’t have ‘the hack’, ‘the secret’? Well, we all know someone who doesn’t know more than we do, yet they still get it done. Is it because we don’t know what the negative, destructive consequences are of not changing our habits? Smokers know – in Europe mortifying pictures of lung cancer are printed on the cigarette boxes, yet on average they smoke more than Americans.
Why do, despite all the self-improvement information that is readily available, for free and for purchase, we still suffer from poor habits? Why do we still hit snooze, why do we eat and drink too much, why do we delay what we know we need to and should do?
Two answers.
When it comes to understanding poor habits, deconstructing them and replacing them with better habits, there are two schools of thought. Let’s call them the ‘Behavioral’ and the ‘Attitudinal’.
The ‘Behavioral’ argues that the reason we have poor habits is because there is a misbehavior in one of the 4 stages of habit building: cue, craving, response, and reward. (This is a process long-ago studied by behavioral psychologists and recently popularized by James Clear in the bestseller ‘Atomic Habits.’)
The ‘Philosophic’ argues that a person’s beliefs of the fundamental nature of hard work, sacrifice, our human ability to change and our impact on reality are what underpin their behavior. Change the beliefs, change the behavior, change the person and the life.
Both are crucial and interdependent, but I think our culture has placed more of an emphasis on “hacking” our way to success, while failing to realize: you can have the best tools, apps, calendars, timers, journals and planned routines, but that does not remove the harsh reality that hard work is hard work.
And what is hard work? Although in the long-range rewarding, in the short-term, uncomfortable, challenging, self-denying and sacrificial of other, fun things we can be doing with our precious time.
We’ve all heard stories of someone placed in a harsh environment, with broken tools, and imperfect routines but with consistent, imperfect, energetic action who overcame adversity.
What’s not obvious though is that that’s the story of humanity. And you take part in that great tradition of needing only a will to make a way.
This 3 – Part series will aim to teach you not just practical ironclad disciplines, but ironclad beliefs that will help you carry things through when the going gets tough. And it will get tough. But you, my friend are tougher.
Till next week!
Coach B.