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OK, I don’t know how this one passed me by but a report produced by Canadian researchers in July this year (I know, I know) showed that self help can’t always help.

In essence, the study revolved around a getting people with low and high esteem to repeat positive phrases such as “I am a lovable person” and “I accept myself completely” – common tricks used by people hawking tapes, DVDs and books which rarely contain any concrete information.

What they discovered, though, is that people with low self esteem (i.e. those who would be using this kind of ‘help’) actually felt worse after repeating these mantras. If they were ‘allowed’ to think negative thoughts, quite often their mood improved.

What about those with high self esteem though? Well, they did get some improvement from positive phrases, but not as great as was expected.

What the researchers did point out though was that as a part of a broader therapy programme, such mantras could help. So, all is not lost, but surely this must put a dent in the old snake oil market? Right?

Life coaching. The very phrase makes my skin crawl. Some person telling you how successful they are and how you can be like them, pumped up with some ridiculous jargon to make it sound like they actually know something.

OK, maybe you can tell I don’t approve of it much. The reasons behind this are simple – they’re just there to take your money. That is what makes them successful. They’re one step away from ambulance chasers in my book.

I believe that in order to really pump yourself up and increase your self esteem (which is what these people are trying to do most of the time) you actually have to realise that you are in complete control of it. Some guy standing there telling you how you either suck or rule at whatever is useless. As I’ve mentioned countless times, improvement is a result of your time and effort. Simply offloading this onto someone else who you pay money to is cheating, plain and simple!

Some life coaches like to think of themselves as ‘life planners’. They acknowledge (mostly) that they know nothing about psychology, so simply try to organise someone else’s life in return for money. All well and good, but what are you paying for? Something you are too lazy to do yourself? Isn’t the whole point of self improvement to actually improve yourself, and not just do what someone else tells you to do?

Give me your thoughts.

I thought I’d throw a question out there to the readers of this blog – how do you look for self help and self improvement information?

It is a bit of an open ended question really. After all, there are plenty of sources to choose from. Books are the age-old source many people have experience with – I think most people have encountered a For Dummies book at least once for example! However, they aren’t the only solution.

Audio tapes used to be popular but seem to be diminishing with the advent of the internet and the wealth of free information available. Self-help DVDs range from fitness and exercise to motivational and self esteem guidance, but I must admit I don’t really know anyone who has tried anything beyond an exercise video.

Finally, the internet has an almost limitless source of information for those thirsty for improvement. So – where do you look? What sites do you go to? Which ones are the best? Answers in a self-addressed envelope, please!

One area of self improvement which is not discussed overly much on this blog is fitness and health. Seeing as most people who are trying to improve their lives are trying to lose weight or generally get fitter, I thought I’d redress the balance!

There are plenty of applications around to help you stick to your plans and get fit. The iTunes App Store is home to an every increasing number, along with a variety designed for your home PC or laptop. One of them is the WeightDate Weight Tracker, which takes in a bunch of information about your body and routine. Keep it up to date with your weight each morning and hey presto – you have graphs and charts to show your progress towards your goals.

There are many more apps out there for you to play with, so I suggest you look around. Even if it is just keeping track of your progress, this can often help keep your motivation up. However, go overboard and you could well find yourself obsessed with stats and figures which don’t always have a bearing on reality!

The UK government is trialling giving career advice and guidance to children as young as 7 years old in an effort to help those from underprivileged backgrounds get a clearer idea of how to achieve their goals.

The scheme, being trialled in nearly 40 primary schools across the country, intends to inform children about what they can do when they grow up and how they can go about getting there. This is in response to a notable drop-off in students in high schools using careers advise services, with the numbers of students doing this dropping by half since 1997.

While this is certainly an admirable scheme to get those from poorer backgrounds to realise that they can do anything they want to, it does highlight a worrying trend to make children mature faster and faster. I know when I was 7 years old, I didn’t really want to be anything other than an astronaut or fighter jet pilot!

I do hope this scheme makes a few children think a bit more positively about their future, but I think they are addressing the problem at the wrong age. I would imagine helping with careers guidance at the beginning of high school, rather than half-way through, may well motivate more students to aim higher and get the qualifications and knowledge to get into their chosen field of interest.

Still, good to see the government doing something…

Chances are that if you’re reading this then you have some experience with self-help books. You know the kind – usually a title like “Make Yourself Into God in 10 Easy Steps” and some guy who has made a ’success’ of his life from adverse origins. Never mind that usually the way they became successful was to start writing self help books full of meaningless fluff. So why are they all scams?

Well, in essence, they are preaching to those who think they need help and will listen to anyone who labels themselves as ’successful’. You will probably look at this blog and think this is exactly the same, but there is a crucial difference – this information is free. You can take it or leave it. No-one is asking for a fee upfront, or for your to spend hundreds of dollars to attend a conference telling you how amazing you are.

You can see this for yourself by reading any book you see on the subject. They’re trying to appeal to you for long enough to hand over your cash, and beyond that they offer very little. Instead of telling someone how to look at their own life for something to improve in, or for a social cause to involve themselves in, they focus on the very selfish aim of earning more money. This isn’t improving anything beyond the numbers on your bank statement each month.

It has been said that the only way to get rich from a self help book is to write one yourself, and this much is true. If you really want to improve your life, it comes from within yourself. Look for something you can do, want to do or should do. Look for causes beyond your own desires and needs. Look everywhere – this is the whole point of this blog.

A recent study by When Is Good, a meeting planner website, has found out that the time when most people are available for a work meeting is 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon. They put this down to many factors – the motivation once you’ve coped with the weekend backlog on Monday, the timing fitting in with working hours (meaning there is less danger of it over-running) and the chance to get down to work in the morning is not affected. But what is the time when you’re most productive?

I tend to find that in the middle of the week, when the weekend is in sight and I’m actually well into the work-time frame of mind, is my best period. I can get loads of work done and outside interference seems to have less of an effect. In this respect, I’ve learnt to plan around it: get the tough stuff done mid-week, the easy stuff on a Monday or Friday and everything else can fit in as and when time is free.

Realising your productivity changes over a traditional work-week is an important step to realising your full potential. Trying to undertake tasks you know will be difficult or long-winded when you’ve barely got any energy left on a Friday afternoon is sure to fail, while doing little in the time when you are most productive is essentially wasting your time when it could be spent better somewhere else.

So, sit down and have a think – are you productive right now? If not, when are you? It could be midnight on a Saturday night, or 8am on a Monday, it really doesn’t matter. Just as long as you fit in your activities around it, you may well find your overall productivity rising. One example of this is fitting in your exercise or down-time with when you aren’t typically productive, meaning you save your best time for things which matter.

Some of you may have heard of this story before, but I think it is a good one to tell again.

A young man in Malawi, William Kamkwamba, is being touted as the embodiment of the African spirit and determination which could save their continent from the worst ravages of climate change. Why? Well, after being forced to leave school at age 14 because his family could no longer afford the $80 a year in fees, he decided that it wasn’t all over for him. He kept on learning from the local libraries he had access to and in the end has shown a remarkable talent for innovation which has helped his family and others living in the area.

You see, this boy loves science. A lot. He built a windmill from bits of scrap he found – so far so what? Well, this windmill has revolutionised his area by generating electricity from the wind and enabling the villagers to be able to pump water, a precious resource in drought-afflicted Malawi.

Initially his family and others simply thought he was up to no good. He had to explain numerous times what he wanted to do and they didn’t believe him, or believe it was possible. But when he finally finished his work, what they saw made them realise he was on to something. By hooking up a light bulb to his makeshift wind turbine and showing that it worked, he showed everyone that not only could their lives be improved, but that they didn’t need anyone else to do it.

In the end, his windmill and its successors have given electricity and running water for irrigation to a large area. Villagers queue up to charge their mobile phones, his family’s farm can thrive thanks to the availability of water and paraffin lighting has been replaced by electric lighting. All in all, this boy (as he was at the time) has really been a shot in the arm to his local community.

Now 22, the man has been around the world at climate change conferences, speaking in front of major world statesmen and businessmen, and won a prestigious scholarship at a South African leadership academy. No doubt he will go on to even greater things, and I would not be surprised to see this young man rising higher and higher in African society.

So how does this story relate to you? Well, if this boy can do what he has done in circumstances where even $80 for a year’s education is an unachievable target, then maybe you can make those life changes you have always wanted to. He is a shining example that available resources don’t matter all that much – raw determination, spirit and desire to improve either your own or someone else’s life can go a very long way.

Read the story for yourself here!

“Self improvement” is one of those areas of knowledge which is half snake oil and half fact. There are plenty of people who have spent thousands upon thousands on books, tapes, DVDs and seminars to “become the best they can be” – but this is a vague aim. The best you can be has no hard definition. Chances are that as you go on through life you will find out you could do a lot more than you actually do! This side of the coin is snake oil – promises are often made that can’t even be quantified, never mind fulfilled. So what is the other side of it?

The base of all self improvement is your general well-being. You would be amazed how much you can improve your day-to-day life by just being that little bit fitter, for example. More energy, endorphins flying around your body like nobody’s business and a generally more healthy body can do wonders for self-esteem and mental balance, which in essence are the core of what self improvement is all about. I like to think of this as the ’self’ part. Once you have the ’self’ nailed down you may well find it a lot easier to go on and do what you want to do – the ‘improvement’ part.

These are the reasons I think fitness is more important. I’m no health freak (far from it!) but when I began to exercise a little, using up energy wherever I could, I found myself more driven in my work and private life. Part of it all is going to sleep knowing that you have done a l0t in that day, and that the next day you will continue and do it again.

Self improvement gets a bad rap but I think with simplifying it to this bare structure, it sounds a lot better. What do you guys think?