Why self-help

Why self-help is very important to every aspects of your life? It is the first step towards achieving success in whatever areas in your life.

Socrates had advised his student thousands of years ago to “know thyself”. Self-help starts with knowing yourself, where you are today and who you want to be and what you really want in life, and what are you going to do?

Alice in Wonderland, she asked the Rabbit for directions and the Rabbit asked her where she wanted to go but Alice answered that she doesn’t know and so the Rabbit told her wisely if that is the case it doesn’t matter which road she takes. It is very important to know where you want to go for you to get the right direction to get there. “If you don’t know where you want to go, any road will take you there.”

The term self-help (or self-improvement) refers to self-guided improvement economically, intellectually, or emotionally—it is linked to how you think and what is your personality profile. Are you more of an introvert or extrovert and how can you make the best use of your strengths and leverage on others to make up for your weaknesses or improve yourself.

Self-help is about personal development, business education and personal wellness. You need self-help in all areas such as health, family, personal development, financial, social and spiritual.

Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) published the first personal-development "self-help" book with the title: Self-Help in 1859. Its opening sentence: "Heaven helps those who help themselves", provides a variation of "God helps those who help themselves", this often quoted maxim also appears in Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac. (1733 - 1758).

Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) began the self-help movement in the 20th century when he published How to Win Friend and Influence People in 1936. Having failed several times, Carnegie was fascinated with how people achieve success and its link to self-confidence and studied the subject for years. Carnegie's books have since sold over 50 million copies worldwide and have made a positive difference to millions of lives.

In 1902 James Allen published As a Man Thinketh with the belief that "a man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts." This is a classic self-help book highly recommended by many trainers and motivational speakers.

Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich(1937) can be found in many successful people’s library and he interviewed over 500 successful people on the principles of success and presented it to the world in this classic self-help book that have helped created many millionaires.

The "self-improvement" market in the U.S. is estimated to be around $11 billion when you include infomercials, mail-order catalogs, holistic institutes, books, audio cassettes, motivation-speaker seminars, the personal coaching market, weight-loss and stress-management programs.

“There is no shortage of demand for products and programs that will allow Americans, specially affluent female Baby Boomers, to make more money, lose weight, improve their relationships and business skills, cope with stress, or obtain a quick dose of motivation. Now more than ever, Americans are turning to gurus for help in a variety of areas. They want to be more in control of their emotional and financial lives. An elite handful of multi-millionaire celebrities like Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra and Suze Orman have leveraged their names to build multi-media empires consisting of: websites, books, tapes, CDs/DVDs, public or corporate seminars, workshops, catalogs, infomercials, TV or radio shows and consulting.” John LaRosa, Marketdata Research Director,

Experts have projected double-digit growth for the self-help or self-improvement
market through 2010, and estimated the market in US will be $13.9 billion. This is a very clear indication that self-help or self-improvement is greatly in demand and it is very lucrative for those who are in this industry helping people to improve their lives through self-help books, programs, courses, seminars, conventions, etc.

Whether you want to improve yourself through this self-help industry or be one of the coaches and trainers, you will be part of a very dynamic and high-growth market because not only people want to improve themselves but companies as well in terms of teamwork, productivity and personal skills.

Why the self-help industry will always be growing at a healthy rate? What do you think will be the answer if you ask someone: “Would you like to have a happy life?” The answer will most probably be a resounding “Yes!” And we all know that to achieve a happy life, we must improve ourselves through self-help books, programs and seminars in these important areas: personal development, business education and personal wellness.

That is why the wellness industry will be a trillion-dollar industry by 2010, it is because people want to look better, feel better and live better and to achieve that they are turning to the self-help industry and wellness industry to learn the skills and buy the products and services that will help them to achieve the results they want in life.

Everyone has the opportunity to look into the mirror every day and who do they see? They see the guy in the glass and sooner or later there comes an awakening that “If it is to be, it is up to me.” And they realize that the only person that can really help them is themselves and self-help is the first step they have to take to realize their dreams.