As a college student preparing to embark on the “real world,” success is always on the brain. In order to achieve what I desire professionally and personally, sooner rather than later, I often turn to a mindset that is plaguing our culture—the self-help obsession. 

I’m a list-maker; I have been since I was a kid. I have childhood diaries full of lists—bucket lists, to-do lists, things-to-fix-about-myself lists. Naturally my plan of action for gaining the success I want has recently been to consult lists. There is a plethora of articles on the habits of “successful” people out there, and after reading a great deal of them, I truly discovered how fruitless they actually are. 

I find people who all recommend the same things that are vague and completely worthless out of context. The breaking point when I knew I had to stop wasting my time on self-help nonsense came when I read some advice from the ever-pretentious Gwyneth Paltrow. The actress attributed portions of her success to her routines — the routine in particular, nightly Epsom salt baths. 

I came to the infuriating realization that most of the advice out there, especially Paltrow’s insights, are complete scapegoats from individuals who don’t want to admit the real reasons why they are successful. There is little genuine insight, and it is helping keep people from achieving all they can. 

The narrative that is often left out is the actual path to achievement. Donald Trump is an American icon for success. He is worth billions and has built his fortune in real estate throughout his career. He is not a success model for the “common folk” no matter what he attempts to get the American people to perceive. He began a company with his parents’ money, went into debt and then got out of debt with his father’s money. This is obviously unrealistic and unattainable unless you are born into wealth. 

Similarly, Paltrow had famous parents in the entertainment industry. This gave her an amazing head start in acting. Her success wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t rags to riches, and she fails to relate to “normal” people. 

There are countless other examples of individuals who rose to fame and fortune because of who they were born as. There are also true stories of “rags to riches” such as Trump’s own political rival, Ben Carson. However, once a certain level of success is attained, there seems to be a severe detachment from reality that occurs. Not many are willing to attribute success to luck when they have worked hard to get where they are. The perspective of the poor turned successful and rich is often particularly condemning because they tend to identify those who are not successful are lacking work ethic because they themselves got where they are through hard work. Luck is forgotten once at a position of power. 

A slew of articles all carrying a similar theme, “How to think like a rich person,” are especially condemning to the poor and middle class. There is a popular insinuation that poor people are poor because of their attitudes and habits — they think like “poor people.” Things like eating healthy and being able to get proper amounts of sleep and exercise — basically habits that innately derive from a source of money are often cited as reasons why poor people remain poor. Differing perspectives on money, such as “middle class sees money through the eyes of emotion. The wealthy see money through the eyes of logic,” criticizes an entire class of people who view money primarily as a survival tool out of necessity.  

The rules of success that are blandly assigned are completely devoid of the fact that our society is set up to cater to certain group of people and that those outside the lines don’t have it so easy. Success does not have a one size fits all label. Acknowledging the true barriers of the pathways to success such as lack of money, resources, connections, looks, natural personality, race, gender, religion, and bad luck is helpful insight.

Every success story is honestly nonsense. I wish people wouldn’t tell them. There is very little value in others’ circumstances unless they completely mirror your own. They just create despair and unrealistic expectations. 

Success is not given to everyone because they wear the right clothes to a job fair. Often, it’s not even persistence and the “work and try hard” method that paves the pathway.

Passion projects are easy when you have time, money and resources but unrealistic to the college students who are working all the time to pay tuition and living expenses. The student who works hard and barely has the time and energy to complete her assignments does not have the time to do the entire extra work it takes to stand out from the crowd and be successful according to most successful people who write on the subject. 

I’m not saying abandon hard work; I suggest just acknowledging that it’s often not enough. Building relationships with the people around you and developing passions and a self-motivated work ethic are all wonderful things — if anything, goals and a passion will bring you a lot of happiness. 

However, stop reading self-help articles that are irrelevant and unrealistic. Stop accepting advice from people who don’t understand your life and aren’t self-aware enough to acknowledge their own true path to success. Stop trusting the words and advice of others and dictate your own strategy for becoming the type of successful you want to be.