Tim Ferriss on the dangerous trap hiding inside self-help: Most people approach self-improvement the same way someone might prepare to play soccer, except they never actually get on the field. Tim describes this pattern in striking detail: "You want to play soccer but first you're going to read all... the textbooks and get a master's degree and PhD in soccer and then you're going to practice dribbling and penalty shots and so on by yourself and you want to become as perfect a player as possible by yourself before you ever actually get on the field and play the game of soccer." The result? You begin to believe that practising alone is the same as playing the game. This is the hidden danger Tim calls the self-help trap, the implicit belief that you must fix yourself, do the work, and polish yourself to readiness before you can meaningfully engage with other people, relationships, or family. The problem is that it never ends. There's always another edge to smooth, another flaw to address. The self becomes a project with no completion date. As Tim puts it: "You're always polishing this self and it can become this real recursive dangerous trap, this fixation on the self." The real game, relationships, family, community is learned by playing, not by preparing to play. The friction, the discomfort, the messiness of showing up imperfectly with other people is the development. You can't practise your way into readiness for it in isolation. The irony of self-help is that taken too far, it keeps you away from the very thing you're supposedly preparing for.show more

@BigBrainPsych I spent a whole summer once getting all my art supplies perfectly organized and watching tons of tutorials. Never actually picked up a paintbrush.

@BigBrainPsych I believe the same can be said of psychotherapy … “fixation on the self”

@BigBrainPsych You don’t become ready in isolation. You become ready through exposure. Plasticity needs friction, not perfection.

@BigBrainPsych Excellent point

@BigBrainPsych Procrastination dressed up as meaningful work

Sounds painful. And brilliant, wise. I'm applying this to musicians. Some are so raw and they could use more alone time, or at least reviewing recordings to fix things they don't hear while playing. But all the prep alone doesn't replace the shared pool of music as you're making it and that interaction is more important.

@BigBrainPsych Of course. No purpose in removing bad feelings is you don’t go out and test your new bliss

@BigBrainPsych "Motivation Industrial Complex," "Self Help Syndicate," "Higher Consciousness Cartel," "Meditation/Mindfulness Mafia," and "Art of Manifestation Mob" don't want you cured. They need you addicted. @tferriss, where am I wrong?

@BigBrainPsych Self-help is an infinite game. A well-defined goal connected to something tangible would never create such a bottleneck. It is when you say I just want to grow with no destination in sight, it becomes a trap.

@BigBrainPsych The trap inside the trap: journaling apps that turn reflection into another form of preparation. You're logging instead of living. The ones that actually work force you to confront something, not just record it.