My self-help evolution (revolution?)

The first time I read a self-help book, I was 28.
And I was hooked.

I’d only just begun to get my professional life together.
For most of my 20s, I was elbow deep in drinking, smoking, co-dependency, unhealthy relationships, and convinced I would never amount to anything.

Self-help books gave me hope.
They gave me another way of looking at things and opened up the possibility that, *deep, dramatic pause,* maybe I could amount to something.

So my journey began.
And let me tell you, this journey was slow.
It was slow because I did absolutely nothing with the information I was learning. For literal years, I consumed the information, loving the possibilities, without changing my behavior.

And that was okay, because once I was finally ready to start changing my behaviors, I could put a lot of these tools and concepts I’d learned into practice. From there, my life changed pretty quickly.

🍷 I quit drinking.
🚬 Quit smoking.
💔 Allowed myself to feel (hello and ouch).
🥦 Started eating a whole-food plant-based diet.
🏃‍♀️ Started exercising regularly.
🧘‍♀️ Picked up a bit of meditation and yoga.
😨 Faced some of my biggest fears.
🌑 Acknowledged my many imperfections.
💗 Forgave myself.
🤝 Forgave others.
🧡 And I devoted my clear mind to Clean Food Dirty Girl.

I continued to read self-help books, but now I could implement strategies and use tools as I learned them instead of collecting them on a shelf for later. I was all about becoming the best version of myself, increasing my capacity for the life I most wanted; out with the bad parts of me, in with the good.

But in 2020, I had a moment of clarity.
It was one of those aha moments that slaps you in your face and stops you in your tracks.
It stung. And that sting made me rethink everything I knew about self-help.

Here’s what I understood from this aha moment:

The point of self-help is not to change who you are, the point of self-help is to accept who you are.

I had a full-body yes, and then I had to give my brain a chance to catch up, understand, and make peace with this.

I’d always thought the whole point of working on oneself was to change the things that, at best, no longer serve us and, at worst, hurt us. I thought it was all about change. How is someone supposed to change something they accept? Doesn’t acceptance lead to complacency?

I had to zoom out to see that accepting myself was not the same as accepting all of my behaviors, and that when I accept myself, the behaviors that are no longer helpful, or straight up hurtful, can change as a result of that acceptance.

When I thought back to when I’d quit drinking all those years ago, I remembered a defining moment when I made the decision. I didn’t quit because I was steadfast on quitting. I finally quit because I had made the bold decision to accept myself, whether or not I quit. When I fully embraced that, I knew I was done drinking, and I quit.

When we focus on acceptance ➡️ love and humor are our co-pilots, and change quietly swoops in through the back door.

When we focus purely on change ➡️ judgment and shame take a cozy seat next to us, and change feels hard-earned, banged up, and bruised from the battle.

Do I still read self-help books? Absolutely, and I am so glad they exist. But now I read them with a different lens.

✨ Not to fix myself (I’m not broken).
✨ Not to change myself (even as I work on my goals).
✨ Not to become someone else (everyone else is taken).

I read them to remind myself and connect with who I already am. I highlight less and nod more. I sit back and enjoy the wisdom instead of feeling like I’m cramming for a test.

I take self-help a lot less seriously now, knowing I’m not a project to be completed, but a messy, imperfect human who loves and is loved—right here, right now, just as I am.

Molly