Podcasts are another area where personal development content has taken over. Current shows in my library include: Financial Feminist, The ADHD Women’s Wellbeing Podcast, and Solved with Mark Manson. More than once I’ve thought to myself, “maybe I should become a coach.” I’ve only gone so far as reviewing the International Coaching Federation’s (ICF) certifications.

A voice in the back of my mind questioned the legitimacy of coaching, so I dropped it. At some point, it occurred to me that my preoccupation with self-development might deserve a closer look. Why do I consume so much of it? What about others? What does this say about me and the larger social moment?

To understand why personal development is so attractive, it’s helpful to begin with a definition.

Personal Development Industry

The personal development industry is very big business. Precedence Research puts the global personal development market at 53.24 billion USD in 2025, with growth projected to reach 90.86 billion USD in 2035.

Precedence Research writes:

“The personal development market encompasses a wide range of products and services aimed at fostering individual growth, self-improvement, and overall well-being. This market includes offerings such as educational courses, coaching services, motivational content, mindfulness practices, and tools for skill enhancement. Individuals seek personal development to enhance their capabilities, mindset, and quality of life.”

Growth Market Reports outlines five main market segments: self-awareness, skill development, personal growth, motivation, and inspiration. They note that self-awareness is a rapidly growing segment “…as individuals seek to understand their strengths and weaknesses, and emotional triggers.” There have been enormous gains in personal coaching and training, which accounted for 36% of the market share in 2025, according to Precedence Research. Life coaching was worth a staggering 4.85 billion USD in 2023.

The largest consumers of personal development content are adults and, globally, North Americans. Women aged 25-54 account for 60% of self-help consumers, and 74% of self-help books in the U.S. are purchased by women. Interestingly, 92% of coaches identify as women, according to Gitnux.

Both Precedence Research and Growth Market Reports claim that the key driver of market growth is a cultural shift that increasingly recognises and values holistic well-being (physical, mental, and emotional). In Tom Anderson’s article, The Fascinating History of Self-Help, he explains that Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography ushered in the self-help genre and walks us through how the genre has changed over time in response to social and cultural phenomena. In other words, the topics that dominate the personal development shelves at your local library are a response to the specific anxieties and troubles of the cultural moment.

Oprah Daily lists 12 must-read self-help titles for 2025, which include The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (about relinquishing control of others and taking control of yourself), Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity and Finding Your Life’s Purpose by Martha Beck, and How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists by Ellen Hendriksen.

Forbes gives us The Top 25 Self-Help Books for Personal Growth, which includes How to Keep House While Drowing: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing by KC Davis, Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski, and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey.

Self-Help as Neoliberal Bootstrapping?

Three things stand out to me from a cursory review of the personal development market. One, self-help is highly profitable; two, it appears that women are far and away the largest consumers; and three, self-help and personal development are framed as individual pursuits.

Profit

Anytime big money is involved, it’s a good idea to ask whether those profiting from us have our best interests at heart. When I reflect on why I’ve consumed so much personal development content, I think it’s because I have always felt that who and how I am isn’t enough, and that if only I could find the right formula, I could diligently apply it and be fixed or optimised. Those who are selling me that fix profit from this feeling of being “not enough.”

I’m sure some authors genuinely want to help others, and that I’ve learned many valuable things from the self-help genre. Yet, there is this niggling sense that I’ve overconsumed and that it is not, on the whole, good for me. I have felt a sort of compulsion to consume content that tells me all the ways in which I’m wrong and what I need to do to be better. This is not dissimilar from the desire to purchase the newest skincare product, promising to smooth my ageing skin. Never mind if there is evidence to back that claim up.

On the one hand, I appreciate that, as a society, we are paying attention to our well-being and normalising once-taboo topics like neurodiversity, perimenopause/menopause, mental health, and trauma. On the other hand, these topics are incredibly sensitive—those of us who experience these issues are primed for exploitation because we may be in pain and absolutely desperate for relief. The snakeoil salesman can be awfully attractive.

It occurs to me that this content is often a more affordable, accessible, and less intimidating option than a qualified therapist or other mental health practitioner. Capitalism is all too happy to fill the gap regardless of the quality of content.

Women: The Target Demographic

I would hazard to guess that you, like me, are not surprised in the slightest that women are the target audience. Women are perfectly positioned to seek external advice, rather than listen to their own internal wisdom, as they are socialised, under patriarchy, to lack self-trust. “Patriarchy causes women to doubt their judgments regarding their self-concerned desires by encouraging cognitive deference and selflessness” (Borgwald, 2012, p.70). Women internalise the disrespect emanating from patriarchy and learn to second-guess and doubt their own knowledge, feelings, and judgment.

Borgwald (2012, p.73) argues that women struggle to attain what she calls epistemic personhood, which she defines as “…the ability to think autonomously, reflect on and evaluate one’s emotions, beliefs, and desires, and to trust those judgments rather than deferring to others.” I wonder, then, whether overconsuming personal development content deepens our lack of self-trust rather than growing our epistemic personhood.

Personally, I find it eternally challenging to parse a genuine and healthy desire for growth and self-improvement from the feeling of “not-enoughness” that has permeated my life. The easy solution is to seek out so-called experts, people who I believe are smarter, more experienced, and more trustworthy than me. In this way, I outsource life decisions to strangers who know nothing about my internal world and lived experiences. What I end up with is a slew of contradicting bits of advice that I have to sift through, which invariably overwhelms and exhausts me.

Individualism

It took me far too long to realise that much of the self-development content I was consuming was rooted in neoliberal logic and values—specifically, hyper-individualism. The underlying message is that no one will help you, so you must help yourself. And doesn’t this feel true in an increasingly unstable world? As late-stage capitalism plays out, we may find “evidence” for this notion in the progressive unavailability of our friends, family, and communities and growing inequality and resource scarcity. It may feel risky to rely on others, who themselves may be bought into the self-reliance mythology. The choice to depend on oneself alone seems like watertight logic.

There are at least two problems I can think of with this individualistic logic. First, while self-reliance and agency are powerful drivers of well-being (Card & Hepburn, 2023), they are only part of how human beings build resilience and grow as people. We also require relationships and community. In fact, our deepest learning and strongest resilience are built with others. Just because it is harder, in the midst of civisilational collapse (Wilson, 2026), to create and sustain community, does not eliminate the essential role community plays in our health and well-being. In our current reality, it is more important than ever to invest in community and relational well-being.

Second, hyper-individualism ignores and exacerbates the socio-political conditions contributing to the issues that personal development content purports to solve. For instance, loneliness, anxiety, grotesque wealth inequality, authoritarianism, resource insecurity, and a lacking social safety net. We operate within multiple complex systems that constrain our personal agency, whether we choose to be aware of that fact or not. For instance, no matter how hard we try, we cannot solo “hack” our way out of wealth inequality, racism, supply chain issues, or a lack of affordable mental health care. These are systemic issues that we are forced to contend with. The best we can do is make choices in response to systemic constraints. However imperfect our human communities are, they are our best insurance against the encroaching nihilism, polarisation, and fear that throw fuel on the fire, hastening even greater inequality, authoritarianism, and the general enshitification of life.

Moving Forward

So, does this mean that I’m eliminating all personal development content from my life? No, but it does mean I will be much more intentional about the content I consume. Importantly, there is a difference between self-help and personal development content. Self-help content says, “You alone are responsible for making changes to achieve X.” Personal development says, “You have unlimited potential for learning about yourself, others, and the world.”

The key for me will be balancing personal development with relational and community development. There is a series of questions that I will ask myself before taking a book home from the library or clicking on that YouTube link:

• Why do I want to consume this?

• Who is delivering the information?

  • What are their credentials?

  • What is their motivation for sharing the content?

• Who stands to profit from this content?

• Does the content rest on a hyper-individualistic logic?

• Does the content include a systemic lens?

• Does the content help me build and sustain community?

• Does the content help me to think critically and creatively?

• Does the content inspire me to live out the values I already hold dear?

• Does the content meaningfully support greater self-trust or does it encourage more external validation?

• Do I have the capacity to act on new insights, or am I simply flooding my mind with information as a substitute for making difficult choices and sustained action?

The personal development industry is big business, targets women’s internalised lack of self-trust, and is rooted in the neoliberal value of hyper-individualism. For those of us who want to live creative lives that foster both personal growth and a strong sense of community, we need to think carefully about what content we allow into our headspace. Personally, I’m intentionally bringing in more fiction, academic articles, art, and poetry, reflecting through my journaling and writing practice to engage in sense-making for myself. I’m moving from passive receipt to active creation. I’m also choosing to invest in relationships and communities—getting outside my own head more frequently reminds me that there is a whole world out there that is endlessly more fascinating and beautiful than the bit of meat sitting inside my skull or the limited perspectives proffered by so-called self-help “experts.”

References

How do I know this? As a cisgender, femme woman, I barely escaped a similar fate. I dared to suggest that boys and men are harmed by patriarchy, too - deeply harmed, even. More than a few women came unhinged. The subtext: How dare you centre men in a discussion about feminism? If homedude in the back had any thoughts of chiming in, this likely settled it for him.

This was the first time I noticed progressives policing other progressives. At the time, I felt deeply frustrated. How could these women not see that patriarchy, not men, was the problem? After this experience, I started seeing this behaviour everywhere. There seemed to be an inability to hold multiple truths simultaneously and an outright refusal to hear differing views. If we discussed harm to men, then that meant we were ignoring harm to women. If we discussed how racism is bad for white folx, then that meant we were ignoring harm to people of colour.

The full awakening didn’t come until much later, however. This was a liminal space for me. Throughout my undergrad and for years after, I thought of myself as a social justice warrior, viciously shutting down anyone who disagreed with my positions. Unlike Roosevelt, I spoke loudly whilst wielding a big stick. I took every opportunity to thump my perceived adversaries over the head with winning persuasion, such as: You’re a racist! You’re a sexist! Homophobe! I was that woman with the “If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention” button pinned to my denim jacket—Cringy, as the kids say.

This tactic, however, wasn’t reserved for folx on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Disturbingly, it was deployed with even more intensity against would-be allies and other self-described progressives.

With age, experience, and a lot of hard learning, I’ve come to believe that this dynamic is at the heart of our polarisation and the rise of authoritarian and fascist-leaning governments. The pushback against “woke” culture is not entirely due to a fundamental disagreement with the tenets of equity and justice. At least part of it, I’m certain, is because when progressives have opportunities to talk with each other or perceived outsiders - the other - they have no tolerance for difference. We rush headlong into admonishing them. We call into question their values, their way of life, and their humanity. Hey, come to our party! We’ll have crisps and onion dip and spend the afternoon telling you what a horrible person you are to make ourselves feel superior. Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

There is a better way. Professor and social justice activist, Loretta Ross, a Black woman, spent years working with Ku Klux Klan members, drawing them out of hate with care and respect. Admittedly, not all of us have hearts and minds this sturdy, but her experience is illustrative. Ross is leading a “calling in” movement, which she describes as a call out done with love (Ross, 2025). My earlier behaviour was entirely focused on calling out others - attacking them and putting them in their place. Ross warns, “…with this approach you’ve guaranteed one thing: with this blaming and shaming, you just invited them to a fight, not a conversation” (Ross, 2025). Is it any wonder that we find ourselves in such polarised and toxic times? Is it surprising that we are estranged from friends and family, retreating ever further into our echo chambers?

Wanting to hold people accountable for exhibiting harmful behaviour is a natural and needed impulse. Ross, though, urges us to consider how we do this. Her approach is supported by hard-won experience and science. Remember science? When we shame and blame others, when we come for them and their humanity, they shut down. Their prefrontal cortex literally goes offline, while the amygdala fires. They move into fight, flight, or freeze mode. Importantly, they are unable to listen and learn.

Watch Ross’ Ted Talk

I’ll be the first to say that some people’s behaviour is so egregious that no amount of calling in would be appropriate. Prison might be the right solution. Even then, there are countless stories of people who have done terrible things and come to see the error of their ways, becoming better versions of themselves.

Ross suggests that we first need to clarify our motivation for speaking up. (Ross, 2025). Most of us call out because we want to hold people accountable for their shitty behaviour, yes — but the underlying motivation is the key. At times, we want to punish or to persuade. In the spirit of The And of Everything, perhaps it’s wishful thinking that we can accomplish both by speaking loudly with that big ol’ stick. Other times, we are trying to signal to others that we are good. For example, “the good white person.”

Annie Ferguson’s article about white gatekeeping sheds much-needed light on the intricacies and impacts of calling out. Ferguson is focusing here on how white antiracist activists essentially shame and banish other white antiracist activists for perceived mistakes.

“Whites harshly judge and criticise themselves and other whites, holding one another to extreme and perfectionist standards for involvement in antiracist movement spaces and overtly or covertly removing offenders from community rather than allowing them to repair harm and improve” (Ferguson, 2025, p.2).

If we conceive of antiracist movement spaces as sites of community, meaning, purpose, and belonging for whites working to develop a healthy, antiracist, white identity (Helms, 1990), then the looming threat of “…abandonment by other whites…” (Ferguson, 2025, p.2) may become too much to bear. The consequences are often that would-be allies with unlimited potential for growth in their antiracist work opt out. At worst, they may be driven into the arms of more welcoming and less ethical movement spaces. At the risk of being obvious, here, doesn’t an antiracist society require white people to come on side? If people of colour are not responsible for doing this part of the work—they’re not—does it not follow that white folx need to support other whites on their antiracist journey?

I’ll be honest, I’m not a huge fan of Robin DiAngelo’s work — to be fair, she has done some really good work, but I fear that labelling whites as “fragile” is another form of blame and shame. The bigger story, in my view, is who among us is willing to hold their hands and bring them lovingly, yet firmly, along? Who among us is willing to affirm their humanity despite harmful words and actions? This is no easy task, and I worry there are too few of us willing and able to do this work. One needs to be emotionally sturdy, secure in one’s own identity, and operate from a place of love and humanity. That’s asking a lot of people who are in pain and exhausted.

In my professional, personal, and academic experience, having participated in and facilitated these spaces over the last 20-odd years, I can confirm that ill-equipped leaders have done real harm to individuals and justice movements. Harmful spaces are the result of leaders who haven’t, for whatever reason, done their own internal work. In other words, hurt people hurt people. Ross asks us to consider, “Are you in a healed enough space for somebody else’s feelings?” (Ross, 2025) Similarly, a mentor of mine once quipped, “You can’t be workin’ out your own shit on the people you are trying to lead.” If I’m insecure in my own white identity, such that I have to shame other whites to signal that I am “one of the good ones,” then I have no business leading such spaces.

The elephant in the room is trauma. Racism has traumatised, most obviously, people of colour, but also white people. Patriarchy’s most visible harm is obviously to women, but it deeply impacts men and kin beyond the binary. I have to wonder what ever happened to the man in the back of that feminist theory class. Nearly 20 years on, did he ever find a learning environment to support his curiosity about feminism? Or is he calling for women to be sent to breeding gulags (Hays, 2026)? Most likely, he’s suffering the fate of most American men—trying to eke out a life in a tiny box labelled “masculinity,” and doing the best he can with limited resources and zero support.

Trauma is a word bandied about, somewhat carelessly. Anything and everything, if the internet is to be believed, is trauma. Trauma, though, is not simply having hurt feelings, discomfort, or emotional pain.

“Individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life-threatening and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.” (SAMHSA, 2024).

It is a frustrating fact that those who care most about eliminating racism have lived experience, which often comes with trauma that can get in the way of effective organising and leadership. As a white woman who grew up in a transracial household—white mother, Black father figures—my racial trauma is secondary, and yet it matters. My white, biological father was absent, so the only father figures I knew were my mother’s two boyfriends over the course of my childhood, starting in infancy. They happened to be Black. So, on the one hand, I was raised by Black men who grew up in 1950s/60s America. On the other hand, I walked around the world as a white person. Perhaps this is why I feel an affinity for bi-racial and mixed race folx, but I digress.

What does this have to do with trauma? I learned quite quickly that being white is a liability for Black folx. I was a liability. I felt kinship with Black folx, but I was aware, early on, that there was an invisible line that I could never cross that separated us. How utterly disorienting for a child. Not only was it painful when I experienced white people staring at us eating burgers at the Red Robin, or well-meaning whites asking if I was OK when shopping at the mall with “G”, but it was destabilising to my own identity. I have to believe when G teased me — “What’s a little white girl know about that?”— he was consciously or unconsciously reinforcing that line. I can hardly blame him—structural racism has rules after all, and it was likely his way of protecting us both.

Trauma leads us to prioritise our safety above all else, unless and until we grapple with it. In an unhealed space, we are preoccupied with preventing others from bumping into our trauma, which means less focused attention on the larger work of the community and those we are trying to lead. In this unhealed place, we react, often in toxic ways, to others who wander too close to our wounds. It is understandable but ineffectual. I have not been immune to this. I have caused real harm to people, and that is deeply painful to me.

Recall the prefrontal cortex and amygdala and the fight, flight, freeze response? When we are activated - that is, when someone touches our trauma wound(s), this same dynamic plays out. My personal default response is typically to fight, and it has taken years of therapy and inner work to tame this impulse. Not only has this inner work benefited me personally, but it has, I believe, made me a more effective leader and guide, especially to other white folx who are earlier in their antiracist journeys.

First, I had to see clearly that my values of respect, belonging, and nonviolent communication were not aligned with my behaviour. Second, I accessed therapy and strong mentorship. Third, I had to practice in live spaces with real risk consistently. Finally, I had to believe and commit to the reality that my inner work is never done. My practice is never done—that’s why you’ll never hear me refer to myself as an expert. It’s like mediation. You get pulled away from your focus over and over, and it’s your job to keep returning to your intention, your values, and your purpose.

Complex problems demand complex solutions. We can no longer afford to retreat from others. We cannot build community and bridge divides with tactics that further fracture us. What we must do is build a “bigger we” as Professor john a. powell (lowercase his) urges. powell of the Othering and Belonging Institute at U.C. Berkeley promotes what he terms bridging as a way forward.

“The heart of bridging is listening to and learning from and about the person perceived as different or even as “the other.” Listening means hearing their story, not to confirm their facts or perspective, but to affirm their humanity. Listening is sometimes confused with agreement, although the former does not require the latter. The simple act of being heard has a powerful impact on both the speaker and the listener. Active and empathetic listening is perceived and felt as a form of caring and regard, and it builds trust. Remarkably, it may have a greater tendency to induce change or shift opinion than listening for persuasion, to change a person’s opinion. Listening to persuade is not bridging, because it does not convey care or build trust” (powell & Menedien, 2024).

Trust is the number one ingredient. We do not change our worldview under duress. We change our worldview when trusted guides and fellow travellers see our humanity first and allow us the space to learn from our mistakes. They say to us,

You made a mistake. That’s OK—I know this doesn’t define you, just as my mistakes do not define me. How can we learn together to do better next time? How can we help each other be aligned with our truest values?

We often labour under the mistaken assumption that the work is persuading others, when in fact it is building relationships based on shared humanity. We cannot arrive at justice and belonging for all — the beloved community that Dr King envisioned—with tactics that dehumanise and otherize.

References

Ferguson, A. (11 Aug 2025): White gatekeeping: how emotions and internalized white supremacy impact white antiracism. Ethnic and Racial Studies. DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2025.2541977

Helms, J. (1990). White racial identity development model. [PDF]. https://cme-learning.brown.edu/sites/default/files/media/2022-10/Cross%20Racial%20Dialogues%20Handout_1.pdf

powell, j., & Menedien, S. (2024, May 6). The practice of bridging. Othering & Belonging Institute. https://belonging.berkeley.edu/practice-bridging

Ross, L. (2025). Join the calling in movement. Lorettajross.com. http://lorettajross.com/callingin-online

Hays, K. (2026, February 17). Far right streamer nick fuentes says women should be put in “breeding gulags.” Truthout. https://truthout.org/articles/far-right-streamer-nick-fuentes-says-women-should-be-put-in-breeding-gulags/

SAMSHA (2024). Trauma and violence - what is trauma and its effects? https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/trauma-violence