Particle Data Platform
SOLVED with Mark Manson

Self-Help, Solved

4/1/20262 hr 11 min

We pulled over 2,600 studies and ranked 19 of the most common self-improvement techniques across three dimensions: research quality, consistency of results, and actual effect size. Then we sorted them into four tiers: legitimately works, works sometimes, probably not helping, and straight up bullshit. Microdosing landed in the bullshit tier. Crystal healing outperformed several "serious" techniques. And the number one most effective strategy is something so stupidly simple it's almost annoying.

We also get into why everything at the bottom of the list shares one thing in common, why the middle of the list is mostly a fancy placebo...

Clips

Calling Out Microdosing Hype
When Intuition Actually Works
A Woo-Woo Friend Gone Wrong
Venting Anger Backfires
Visualize The Process, Not Trophies
Energy Healing’s Odd Data Split
Eat The Frog’s Real Magic
Self-Help Books Actually Work
Action Beats Everything Else
Motivation Follows Action

Transcript preview

First 90 seconds

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  7. Mark Manson· Host0:29

    If you're listening to this podcast right now, chances are you have listened to multiple self-improvement podcasts. And if you've listened to multiple self-improvement podcasts [laughs], you have probably been told, like, 28 different things to do to improve your life. In fact, there's so much different advice f- coming at you from every different direction, that sometimes it feels impossible to know what is actually credible, what actually works, and what doesn't. And so here at the Solve podcast, what we do is we over-research everything. I've been in this space for almost 20 years. Drew, my co-host and lead researcher here, has been with me for over a decade. And in that time, we have dug deep into the science on so many different techniques, tactics, tropes, cliches, conventional wisdoms, that we decided to actually sit down and rank them. We took 19 of the most conventional, cliche pieces of self-help advice, things that you've heard a million times in a million different places, and we decided to go into

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