How Self Help Actually Helps Others
We talk a lot about self help around here. Personal development, self improvement, self help – these are my favorite topics! Have you ever considered the impact that your personal self improvement has on those people around you? It’s true, you have to put on your own air mask first. What I mean by that, is that you can’t help anyone unless you first help yourself. Your self help actually helps others too.
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So, by all means, do some self-help. Improve your personal situation, and work towards a better you. While you’re doing this, you’re likely to notice things about people around you that could use a little bit of improving too. Great news! Your self-help will actually help those people too.
Here are 9 ways that Self Help actually helps others around you.
1. You Can Only Change One Person
It’s a fact: We only have control over one person in this world, and that’s ourselves. When you come to accept this fact, you’ll start taking more control over your own needs without worrying about how that affects everyone else. For example, let’s say that you’d like to lose weight, but your spouse isn’t very supportive even though they could stand to lose a few pounds too. Putting yourself first in this case (working on getting healthy even without your spouse’s support) will rub off on them. You’ll be setting the example and showing your spouse how it’s done.
2. When You Are Happy People Want What You Have
When you show people by example that you’re a different person and have accepted responsibility for your life, and it shows up as real happiness on your part, people will want what you have and start asking you what you did. You can share your good fortune by sharing the resources you’re using (blogs, books, podcasts), and supporting them on their journey to a better self.
3. You Teach People How to Treat You
Remember Dr. Phil? He is most famous for saying that if people are treating you poorly it may be because you’ve given them permission to do so via actions, if not words. Once you start treating yourself better, your friends and family might decide that they also deserve better. You’ll find that those around you will treat you better because you’re treating yourself better, and they’ll treat themselves better as well.
4. Learning to Communicate Better Rubs Off
It might surprise you to realize that if you want to stop arguing and fighting in your relationship that it only takes one person to make the change. You have to decide if it’s more important to win fights or to get along. That doesn’t mean you have to accept being walked over, but you can end many fights by just refusing to take part in them. When you teach yourself better communication skills, you’ll learn how to talk to people in ways that keep them from going on the attack and escalating the issue.
5. Mirror the Behavior You Want to See
You might not learn about mirroring if you aren’t actively reading about self-help. But, as you learn more about yourself and how you want to be treated, you will learn how to act in such a way that demonstrates to others how you want them to behave. This works especially well with children. You lead by example in order to change the behavior of those who wish to follow you.
6. Learn to Compliment Others
When you study self-help techniques and how to build self-esteem in yourself, you’ll learn that an honest compliment can go a long way. As you feel better about yourself, and practice positive self affirmations, you’ll find that you have more good things to say about others too. As you compliment them, they will also feel better about themselves and a circle of positivity will begin.
7. Learn to Ask Questions the Right Way
Instead of trying to convince someone of a fact by debating with them, learn to ask leading questions. Questions that make the person think about their answers deeply will work a lot better than making demands on them. As you read self-help books and practice self-help, you’ll learn the right techniques.
8. Ask How You Can Make Someone’s Life Better Today
You don’t want to be a doormat but you do want to learn how to have a servant’s heart. It feels good to do things for other people willingly without force. When you put your friends’, children’s or spouse’s needs ahead of your own, they will do the same for you. Just ask the question: “What can I do to make it better for you today?”
9. Learning What Boundaries Are Helps Everyone
As you study self-help, you’ll learn more about maintaining healthy boundaries which will keep you from taking any of the other lessons you’ve learned too far in the wrong direction. Boundaries keep us from either being abused or being abusive to others. Obviously, this skill helps everyone involved.
PIN to Read Later!
As you seek to improve yourself, and put to practice the things that you learn, you’ll find that your friends and family will follow your lead as long as you aren’t too pushy. Instead of trying to recruit your loved ones into your whatever area of self help you’re working on, just be an example and eventually they’ll come around all on their own.
Recommended Self-Help Books:
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