Self-help Has Its Place: But Only to a Point
“He who trusts in himself is lost. He who trusts in God can do all things” (St. Alphonsus Liguori).
In 2018, I left my job as an associate attorney in private practice to hang my shingle as a freelance writer. Though I’d always self-identified as a writer, I had no idea how to run my own freelance business or to even begin to match the salary I’d made as a lawyer.
For guidance, I devoured self-help and personal development content, from books, podcasts, and audiobooks to blog posts, social media accounts, and articles. I consulted the Tony Robbinses and Rachel Hollises of the world for advice on everything from finances to personal branding to lifestyle hacks. Armed with this wealth of knowledge, I convinced myself I could make it in the business world.
Then, about six months into my entrepreneurial journey, I burned out. Hard.
All of a sudden, I was inexplicably sick. I couldn’t swallow or digest my food. I cried all the time. I suffered from insomnia. As I started to shut down, I shut everyone out. It was a dark time.
This shutdown was due to many factors but most of all my diagnosis at age 28 with an anxiety disorder that had been unchecked for far too long. I believe that my foray into the self-help world only inflamed my anxiety and exacerbated my distress.
I am certainly not blaming the secular self-help industry for my descent into massive anxiety. However, through the benefit of hindsight, I’ve seen clearly just how damaging a purely secular worldview, utterly divorced from the lens of faith, can detriment someone who is already overwhelmed, struggling, and seeking answers to difficult questions.
Putting the Onus on Us
The more secular personal development content I consumed, the more I started to feel as though my destiny lay in my own hands: specifically, my own commitment to my goals, my own self-discipline, my own mental strength. For someone who perennially struggles with anxiety, this self-reliance can feel like an impossible standard (because, frankly, it is).
Had I balanced my reading with spiritual texts, Sacred Scripture, spiritual direction, and prayer, I don’t think I would have taken these self-help tomes as Gospel truth. I would have been more able to take wisdom from them and jettison the rest, letting the rich truths of our Faith fill in the gaps instead of believing I, and only I, was responsible for my own flourishing.
The Eradication of Suffering as the Ultimate Goal
Divorced from the lens of faith, texts geared toward self-improvement tend to promulgate a message that perfection is achievable here on earth. Yes, we are called to constant growth in virtue, but we cannot “hack” our way to a life that’s free from imperfection, bumps, or glitches.
Immersing myself in story after story of successful entrepreneurs who created gloriously wealthy, productive, and happy lives and careers led me to view the elimination of suffering as a goal. Of course, it’s good to enjoy our lives! But by focusing on eliminating suffering and struggle instead of learning to bear it well, I set myself up for an intense spiritual failure. Viewing hardship as an aberration rather than an inevitability, for which we must lean on Christ for strength, set me up to suffer much more than I needed to and left me spiritually weakened.
Instilling a Fear of Mess
The more I read about systems, lifestyles, and processes that can make life run more smoothly, I started to view the messes in my life as anathemas, and I started to blame myself for their existence. A messy house? I just didn't have the right organizational system in place. Misbehaving kids? It was probably because I wasn’t feeding them a 100% clean, paleo, grass-fed diet. Chaos in my work life? I hadn’t bought the right workflow software.
This way of moving through the world made me feel pressure to do, buy, and upheave all the time, instead of leaning into the messes and doing the best I could where the Lord had placed me. More problematically, it led me to believe that fulfillment and growth lay in finding the best “system” instead of leaning on Christ, especially in the areas of my life where I felt stretched.
Self-improvement for Its Own Sake
Finally, my self-help binge conditioned me to view self-improvement as a good in and of itself. As someone who already struggles with scrupulosity, this quest to improve myself in virtually every area of my life led me to be hyper-critical of others who had not implemented the same lifestyle changes as I had. In turn, I started to resent myself in seasons where many of these new practices became impracticable (for instance, when I was pregnant and no longer able to stomach all of my hyper-nutritious meals)
Without the backing of faith, my constant search for answers and wisdom in secular content left me wondering: What is the point of improving ourselves if there is no end goal or purpose beyond that? How can personal growth be sustainable if our only telos is our own satisfaction, our own fulfillment?
A Grace-filled Antidote
I understand and appreciate that there is much good to be gleaned from the secular nonfiction genre. However, given that we are all malleable and suggestible to a certain extent, it’s vital to closely examine what we are taking in, what is becoming a part of our internal world, what is becoming intertwined with our inner dialogue.
The antidote isn’t rejecting every secular resource on business, wellness, or personal development. But, because virtue is found in the mean, the antidote is a healthy balance. There is no recipe but, rather, a call to prudence: Along with your secular reading, can you make an extra effort to receive the sacraments more regularly? Can you plug into your Catholic community (like the CWIB community!) to infuse your newfound knowledge with the wisdom of the Church? Can you work some spiritual reading or reflection on Sacred Scripture into your routine? Doing so will help you run all of your newfound secular wisdom through the filter of the Catholic Faith to ensure it is not only helping you thrive in this life but also nourishing your eternal soul.
I wish I’d taken this approach five years ago—but because the Lord is kind and merciful, it is never too late to start.
Alexandra Macey Davis is a lawyer-turned-freelance writer and author. Most recently, she has written for Verily Magazine, Coffee + Crumbs, Public Discourse, The Federalist, and FemCatholic, and she writes a monthly Substack letter called Chrism + Coffee, a call to find peace and rest in both the sacramental and the ordinary. She is the founder of Davis Legal Media, a ghostwriting and content strategy company serving the legal industry. Her first book, Pivot: The Nontraditional JD Careers Handbook, will be published in late 2023. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with her husband and two boys.