Indeed; ordinary self-help books seem to be specifically written to match what people like: anyone can achieve anything and it takes not really that much effort. Support for that is usually in the form of anecdotes or quotes from famous people. A favorite is Einstein's "Imagination is more important than knowledge", which sums up the genre pretty good: it refers to some smart person, it tells somethings people like to hear -- but it is really misleading.

Of course you can pick up ideas from self-help book and see what works for you. Fight akrasia with PCT or the 7 Habits or whatever; that might be quite useful. It has however nothing to do (I hope) with the kind of LW-rationality.