Tell me, are there are really 12 million articles out there sharing the secrets of success, as Emer O’Toole claimed in her recent article for the Guardian? And be honest, what do you think about them?

I’ve been wrestling with this lately. If I air my opinions on the matter I risk offending many of my dearest friends, who try so valiantly every day to be a better person than they were the day before, and my cherished network of mompreneurs, which leaves no stone unturned in the search for better working practices.

But as the New Year approached, and the steady buzz of self-improvement mantras became a deafening rush of mindful imperatives, I found my hackles rising. There are only so many eye-opening new ways of thinking a no-nonsense Scottish person can take, before she battens down the psychological hatches and self-medicates with the age-old remedies of denial, alcohol, and doing things the way they’ve aye been done.

But avalanches tend to bury skiers who shouldn’t have been there in the first place. I do wonder whether I have willingly embedded myself in the very networks which regurgitate this stuff ad nauseum. Take LinkedIn, for example; what kind of Pulse article attracts the maximum attention? Let’s see, something about working, which straddles all the various professional fields, and offers to reward the reader for her trouble. Ah yes, let’s write about the secrets of success.

Then there’s my favourite go-to Facebook group, Amsterdam Business Mamas. I won’t hear a bad word said about it. 3,800 international mothers living in or near Amsterdam, led by the amazing Emmy Coffey McCarthy, support each other with high-level professional help and a wonderful sense of solidarity.

Inevitably, with such a concentration of working supermums, you will find many, many discussions on how to magic up extra hours in the day, and how to maintain razor-sharp focus when the teething baby is keeping you up at night. I, too, am in need of a time-warping miracle which will allow me to care for my children without guilt, while enjoying the professional freedoms I took for granted before they were born.

I have benefited many times from Amsterdam Business Mamas discussions; they pointed me towards Self Control, which helps me ration my Facebook usage, and to Toggl, for timing my various tasks. They impressed upon me the importance of valuing my own worth in monetary terms, something that doesn’t come easily to us Scots (“kent yer faither” – I knew your father – the ultimate Scottish put-down to keep you in your place).

So when I posted Emer O’Toole’s article, a light-hearted dig at the modern obsession with miraculous life-hacks, and it was met with offence from one member and silence from others – I worried that I had betrayed my allies, including those close personal friends who have made mindfulness and empathy their life’s work. I don’t want to betray them. They are good people, and the world definitely needs more of them. In fact, the more I see of the war-radicalisation-terrorism-war cycle, the more I see that empathy is the only way out.

So, I suppose my opinion is not as inflammatory as I thought it would be. There is a place for these discussions, from the practical productivity hacks to the all-encompassing life skills. But when it becomes a never-ending torrent of contradictory points of view, which all posit themselves as the only way forward, I think back to Doctor Spock’s wise words on parenting advice, and I know what to do:

“Don’t take too seriously all that the neighbors say. Don’t be overawed by what the experts say. Don’t be afraid to trust your own common sense.”

And one last thing: my heading is a classic Scottish case of two positives making a negative. If anyone ever says to you “Aye, right”, take note. You have just been taken with a massive pinch of salt.

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About Catriona
I love to tell stories. My career has covered many bases, but communication has always been at the heart of everything I do. From journalism, politics and PR to art and design; from broadcast animation to published picture books and copy editing, it’s all about making people look and listen, and love what they hear. 

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