The futility of self-help books and videos

Most, if not all who are reading this whant to change something with their life. Weather it's getting rid of bad habbits, aquiring good ones or changing your perspective in general, most of us want some kind of change in their life. And most of us go about it the rong way around

I have done it too. I want to change something, so what do I do? Look up someone telling me what to do. It's natural, we would do the same thing if we were learning to swim or cook. Search a tutorial, read a book. Except, it doesn't work that way. A few days, or even hours later, we give up. A lack of motivation, other stuff getting in the way or simply forgetting. We have our excuses. But maybe the mistake was looking for change outside.

I have found that I only understood something once I experienced it. Weather it was an actual external experience, something I lived through, or an internal one, which would be a new way of thinking, I had to go through the experience in order to understand trully what the words meant. Yes, I could catch on fast intelectually, but it took experience to get the thing. And only once you get the idea you can apply it properly.

But videos, books and other such things do have their value. Their value stands in planting a thought in your head. You have to do the investigation, but they show you the direction. They are like the north star : you still have to search for the trail, but you know the general direction.