I am not a “Self-Help” person.

I generally bypass that whole part of the bookstore — in part because I always think Tony Robbins is going to leap off a book and bite me, and in part because my mom told me that Secrets were bad.

But at the heart of it, something about the language, or the promotional strategies, or the packaging of the obvious as mysterious, or nothing in particular as ultimately crucial… well, it gets to me.

When I express that to people, they often say, “Well, that’s just because YOU don’t want it, or it’s obvious to YOU. But different people need different things, and learn different ways.”

And I get that, I do.

But I was always better at learning by watching, and then doing — not by being told that I could accomplish a certain thing if I went about it a certain way. I would rather work alongside someone than read the guide they put together to help me do their job.

That’s probably why I believe that leading and teaching by example are two of the most powerful things any of us can do. And not even by saying, “Here’s how I do it!” but just… well, doing it. And letting people do it with you if they want.

This was a lesson driven home time and time again when I worked with kids.

You could take a megaphone and give instructions for a game, and about 10% of the kids would start the game knowing what to do. If you brought two staff members or two kids up and had them demonstrate the game, about 30% more would feel equipped to start.

But the only way the rest of them would learn is to run alongside another staff member or kid playing the game properly, and do exactly what they did.

When I was responsible for hiring my staff, I would try and figure out who were the megaphone people, who were the demo people, and who were the ones who liked to run alongside the kids in the field.

There would be a place for all of them, of course — but the ones that built the best relationships with the kids were the ones who taught less, and did more. Why?

Because when it came time for them to offer some sort of a lesson, their ability to model it made their words that much more likely to sink in. And more importantly, the words rarely became necessary. The model was more compelling.

They became the lessons they intended to teach.

This has been the most challenging thing for me as a writer.

I’m charged with articulating instructions and ideas for people in situations where words HAVE to be enough to get the idea across, or just asking them to do something… well, it gets things done.

I can’t necessarily step in and provide an example — all I can do is give them the tools.

I suppose that’s what self-help authors are trying to do, too, but the thing that rings so false to me is the level of promise that they give people, if only they would follow the right instructions, or check off tasks on a list, or simply believe something was possible.

But I can tell you all the right things and there’s a good chance you’ll still get it utterly wrong… like me with a set of IKEA instructions and an Allen key.

You might even get it wrong and think you did it right…. like me and dating for about 15 years.

Essentially, it sucks to issue directions when you’re a person who learns by example.

But it does make me think very hard about the way I give directions and the language I use… and the results I promise in the end.

I don’t want to make hard things sound too easy, or make a learning curve seem too flat, because I know that will just end up frustrating whoever has to take on that challenge. If it took me two years to understand it, I’m not going to expect you to get it in two days. And hell, you might figure out a better way to do it than I do. I’m just telling you what’s worked for me.

That, in turn, has had a huge impact on the way I write here, in this space, where I am not working, where I am being Meg.

I used to write blog posts about my life with a beginning, a middle, and an end. With a “what I learned” end, to boot. And I used to do it even when I hadn’t totally learned that lesson, or when I’d be leaving a lot of bumps in the road out of the story, or when nothing was as clean or linear as I made it sound. But I figured that was good writing — do A, and B happens, for better or for worse.

Simple, right?

As if.

Which is why when I get emails from women wondering what to do with news of their infertility, or people struggling with weight issues and body image, or emails from people wondering how to work professionally as a writer, or people wondering how the heck to deal with long distance relationships, I’m like… uh.

Did I make it sound like I had a clue what I was doing?

Shit.

Now I’m trying to figure out how to “write my example” — how just to be, and let you figure out if there’s anything to learn from my experiences and the stuff that I go through all by yourself. There might not be a damn thing.

Because I don’t know if I’m getting it right. I don’t have a blueprint. And half the time the things I think of as victories were pretty laden with mistakes, and vice versa. And as far as the conclusions that I’ve drawn about my life thus far?

I’ve reversed more judgments than the Supreme Court.

So here it is — I dunno.

All I can really do is be my best, try my hardest, and be as honest as humanly possible about how it all goes down… and leave it at that.

Which is probably why this post doesn’t have an ending.