I Hate The Cult Of Productivity
Productivity Culture focuses more on what influencers can sell you than if doing more work is actually good for you. People hesitate to stop and ask why they need to be “doing more.” Often, there is a finite amount of work to do and it’s not actually possible to be “more productive,” meaning that trying to always be productive isn’t necessary. Long term success when it comes to accomplishing goals and mastering skills is more about having the right skill sets, building sustainable practices, and finding work that is meaningful to you, regardless of how productive you are.
Understanding Survivorship Bias
Survivorship bias happens when we only see the successes (survivors) individuals and businesses have, which can lead to a warped perception of success rates.
Social media creates constant survivorship bias because people only share the good and successful parts of their lives in order to make themselves look better and trustworthy, naturally hiding the parts they don’t want us to see.
Most of the time, success takes a lot of effort and failure, but people on the outside don’t see behind the scenes. Don’t be fooled - continue to put in the work if you want to improve!
Why Is The Self-Improvement Industry So Full Of Scammers?
Often, the most popular “self help” books and theories are too general and vague to be really meaningful besides getting people to feel good about themselves. This is done on purpose - the more general the advice is, the more people can buy the product. The fitness industry is incorporated into a lot of the self-improvement industry because people assume that people who “look good” are happy. It’s especially easy for influencers on social media to have people believe their success because we only see pictures and snippets they want us to see, not the full story. Success and improvement at anything is a time consuming, high effort challenge that can’t be conquered with a book, set of supplements, or any single thing.