After doing this type of work for over a decade I’ve come to believe that the majority of people we aim to serve fall into one of four buckets.
Bucket 1: I don’t need or want help.
I was once part of this group. I used porn daily and didn’t think it was an issue. And if it was, I wasn’t really concerned. It was fun, felt good, and that’s all I cared about. Unfortunately we can’t do much to help these folks because they don’t want help.
That’s just reality.
Bucket 2: I want help, but I don’t want to do the work.
This group, unlike the first, knows they have a problem and would like to be “fixed, but they don’t want to do the work necessary to get better. We’ve heard from these folks often in the past.
Understand that for years we answered people’s questions via email every day… for free 🙂
Literally hundreds of emails poured in each week which took a ton of time to sort through, reply, or just trash. This was a huge drain on our resources, but our thought process was, “Hey if people need help, that’s why we are here.”
So we spent hours each day reading, replying, and sometimes even calling people who “wanted help” with their recovery. I handled many of these people myself.
Sounded great. But there was a problem.
Despite our best efforts and the energy we poured into these conversations, almost every time the person we sought to help never did anything afterward. They never took our advice nor did they respond when we followed up to see how they were doing.
Why?
Because in most of these cases we were dealing with people who just wanted a shoulder to cry on or a place where they could confess all their secrets. But… They didn’t really want to do any work or be challenged to try something new.
This is why we stopped answering emails that came into our main account for the most part relying on automated processes to help guide people. Because we wanted to invest our resources in efforts that would lead to real life change and impact.
Bucket 3: I need help, and I’m ready to do what’s needed to get it.
The reality is those who wanted help (for real) get help.
- They join support groups.
- They become members of communities.
- They buy books, sign up for a workshop, or see a counselor.
Basically, they take initiative and are willing to take a chance doing something they haven’t tried before.
And that is why we made the decision to spend our time better serving this group because that way the energy we spent produced real fruit.
But here’s the thing…
What if you really want help and don’t know where to start?
What if you’ve tried in the past to get better, but those efforts only led to more disappointment? What if you’ve been burned by people and “experts” promising a fix but had no real answers, and now you just don’t know who to trust?
Welcome to the Bucket 4.
Bucket 4: I want help and will do the work, but I need some help getting started.
If that describes you, then you’re not alone. In fact, I would say that most people who give up on their recovery efforts do so not out of lack of desire or laziness, but out of ignorance and frustration.
We get this, and we want to help those folks too.
This was the main reason we launched our Office Hours podcast last year. Because we wanted to answer the legitimate questions people had about sex, porn, and masturbation. But let’s be real, answering questions on a video is not the same as taking time to hear a person’s story and then giving them the right information to help meet their needs.
That is why we rolled out a new service option for people needing some guidance.
In October, we began offering 1-on-1 help to those who needed a more “hands on” approach as it pertains to their recovery.
These paid one-time consultations are for people who…
- Are serious about getting help.
- Don’t mind investing in their recovery.
- Really need that personal touch or a push to get started with their recovery.
Understand, this is not something everyone needs.
But some people really want that 1-on-1 face time without getting into some sort of crazy expensive coaching program. And that’s why we are offering this.
To…
- Give people 1-on-1 guidance and a little push start to their recovery.
- Allow us to focus exclusively on the people we aim to serve – those who want real help.
- Help move people from Bucket 4 to Bucket 3.
So, if you are someone who needs help but rather just jump into a program or community and figure things out along the way, then do that. But if you are a person who prefers some personal guidance and help getting started, then check out our 1-on-1 help page here.
Regardless of what you choose to do, just realize that nothing in your life will change unless you do something to make it change. And if all you need is a little push to get started, then get that help, so you can stop feeling stuck and stagnant.
By the way, we include a free month of our online small groups for anyone who does book a consultation, which offsets 50% of their expense. You can find out more about our consults here.