I’ve never really liked them. The reading experience usually feels unenjoyable to me. Oftentimes, the takes are so glaringly ridiculous that I genuinely can’t believe somebody approved of the book being published at all. A majority of them feel like a bad patchwork of 2013 instagram quotes and arbitrary bullshit, or an unpolished, lazy pep talk about being tough and waking up early. Of course, this is a gross generalization and there are also a lot of well-written, interesting and well-researched ones (absolutely not The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, though). There are a couple that I found to be somewhat helpful, but I still couldn’t finish them. I didn’t finish Atomic Habits by James Clear because I started reading my friend’s copy when I was at his place, and never picked it up again, but I thought it was actually mildly interesting, so I might give it another shot someday.

I totally understand the feeling of dissatisfaction that you evoke. I think it’s mainly associated with the fact that the sense of gratification you were seeking out of reading those books isn’t immediately substantiated by a tangible upgrade in your individual experience, especially since you don’t really get any closure like you would after finishing a novel or a collection of essays for example. You feel like you’ve just come out of a calm cream-curtained yoga mom’s apartment to the middle of a busy roundabout held up by traffic and punctuated by miscellaneous noises, which is understandably overwhelming and confusing. I would much rather explore similar themes through any other piece of well-written media, that doesn’t read like a handbook to life.

Although, I have to say that it’s still not as homespun as this, and this comment is more geared towards the specific branches of self-help that I’ve personally been exposed to, which isn’t a whole lot because I dislike the genre; so take what I said with a grain of salt.

All in all, they’re definitely not for me, but I know people who say to have benefited from them; so I wouldn’t shun them from the realms of literature per se, but I’d prefer to keep them off my bookshelves.