Individuals can benefit enormously from various self-help products and techniques. Such products include books, audiotapes, videotapes, and more. Such techniques include sentence completion exercises, relaxation techniques, thinking exercises, and more.

However, today, many self-help products lack a valid philosophical base. Self-help products that are based on a primacy-of-existence philosophy are valid. Self-help products that are based on a primacy-of-consciousness philosophy are invalid. In other words, self-help techniques that logically arise from the facts of reality are valuable. But self-help techniques that arbitrarily arise from mystical notions are worthless—and may even be harmful.

For example, praying is based on a primacy-of-consciousness philosophy. Using mystical notions and mind-willed realities, one "solves" one's problems through prayer. In reality, however, praying does not and cannot solve problems. Instead, prayer prevents the conscious mind from exerting the effort needed to perceive reality and solve existing problems.

Choosing one's values, by contrast, is based on the primacy-of-existence philosophy. Using reality-based principled thinking, one consciously discovers and ranks the values one wants to achieve in one's life. This is a tremendously valuable self-help technique. It leads to clarity of thought, clear-cut decisions, and confident action, since one knows what one wants to achieve. Choosing values is not dependent on mystical notions or supernatural dimensions. It simply requires integrating the facts of reality into rational thoughts and ideas.

By differentiating valid self-help techniques from invalid self-help techniques, one can boost the quality of one's life. One can bypass losing techniques and apply winning techniques to make one's life joyful rather than painful.