The biggest problem with self-help books (like mine).

The biggest problem is we buy a book, any book really, but particularly personal development books, and we expect the purchase to be the largest part of the improvement process. Just buying the book…I’ve done something!

Perhaps we don’t think this consciously, but there is a part of many of us that expects the book to act as a kind of totem: we’re holding it, wearing it, so to speak, and that's enough for it to work its magic.

But of course the purchase of a book isn’t anything really. If we want to know the story, we have to read the book. If we want to know more deeply how we think about it, we have to spend time working with its ideas. And if we want self-help, we have to help ourselves to use the material presented.

I’m speaking for myself, perhaps, more than anyone else in this, for I’ve proven the rule as often as anyone, including with my own book! I’m coming off a week of particularly good (and rare) sleep, but last night was a challenge. Did I go immediately to a tool I know well and have made progress with? I did not! At least, not at first. Eventually I did, I’m happy to say, and made progress after a two-hour delay.

But here’s the thing: remember that a book, or advice, or talk is inexpensive (I won’t say “cheap”!)…what counts is what we do with it.