Things Self-Help Books Never Tell You…

Looking for something else at the weekend, I came across a page torn out of a magazine with the above title.

No idea where it came from or why I kept it. Most of the things listed are pointless – but here’s a few that amused me before I consigned the page to the paper recycling bin…

• Getting up 15 minutes earlier every day to ‘make time for yourself’ will simply mean you put in an extra load of washing
• Climbing the stairs at work will simply make you late for the meeting.
• Having you hair cut in a radical new style will make your children laugh- and you cry – for a week
• When you diet, you will lose all the weight from your boobs before you lose a single ounce from your thighs
• Any time management regime that involves making multiple lists means spending time making lists when you could be achieving something else with your time
• Drinking 10 glasses of water a day may mean you cannot sit through the entire film in the cinema – or sleep through the entire night.
• Building up your confidence by starting conversations with people you do not know may also guarantee you a seat alone on the bus.
• If you have time to fold your knickers neatly into individual drawer dividers, you should really be out somewhere doing voluntary work for charity instead.
• Becoming assertive by saying ‘No!’ when people ask you to do things you don’t have time for will cause palpitations of guilt at 3am.

true story - I once had a friend who signed up for an Assertiveness Course. The first week she paid out £45 for the textbooks. The second week, she decided to leave the class because the tutor made her nervous. Sadly she was too nervous to go the third week, and return her books and ask for her money back!

Have you ever received any ‘self-help’ advice which proved to be less helpful than it might have been?