It's a relief to no longer watch three English "gentlemen" (Alex, Phillip and the one who looked like Jaws in Moonraker) treat a group of young Australian women with utter disrespect. The men were referred to as "the beaus" - probably because spending time with them makes you want to tie a bow around your neck and strangle yourself.

And it's a relief to no longer witness butler Paul Burrell berate a group of naive Aussies over trivial issues. This is a man who wrote a tell-all book about Diana, the late Princess of Wales, and he's giving etiquette and decorum lessons? Learning decorum from Burrell is like going to James Reyne for speech therapy.

Finally, it's a relief to no longer feel compelled to tune in.

Australian Princess was the latest in a long line of shows designed to exploit our obsession with self-improvement. It's an obsession that has ignited a billion-dollar industry spawning everything from those Danos Direct Ab Machines to Dr Phil.

Shows like Australian Princess, Queer Eye, Backyard Blitz, Better Homes and Gardens, Extreme Makeover and The Biggest Loser lure us in with the ultimate ugly-duckling transformations and that pot of gold at the end of the transformation rainbow: perfection.

Happiness, we're shown repeatedly by hosts with really white teeth, is just a good haircut and a decent hallway lamp away. It's a hollow message and yet one we seem desperate to believe. But is our favourite Aussie Princess, the down-to-earth farmer, Wendy, really happier now because she knows how to curtsy? Let's ask her in a year when the hype has gone and Rove is no longer returning her calls.

So if being able to make your own redcurrant jam isn't bringing you the fulfilment you expected; if changing your bedspread hasn't changed your life, what will?

Change the World for Ten Bucks is a new book that offers a solution; 50 actions which, it says, will change the world and make you feel great. From turning off the tap while you brush your teeth and introducing yourself to your neighbours to recycling your old mobile phone and only boiling the water you need in the kettle, it's a book full of simple actions that can have profound consequences. (Apparently, if we all stopped overfilling our kettles we would save enough electricity to run the street lighting across Australia.)

The book's introduction claims that our life satisfaction was higher during the post-war rationing of the 1940s. Apparently, 90 per cent of Australians feel their lives are missing something - and it ain't a new sofa. But is this book just cashing in on our desire to be better citizens? Change the World for Ten Bucks is the product of We Are What We Do (wearewhatwedo.org.au), a global movement aimed at inspiring people to use their everyday actions to change the world.

Everyone involved with the book - both the Australian and UK versions - donated their services which means the book is on sale here for just $9.90, an amount that covers production costs only. Profit, you see, is not the purpose. "We live with more and more devices and technology that can connect us to other people, yet increasingly people are feeling lonely and isolated," says spokesperson Eliza Anderson. "We Are What We Do promotes the idea that we all can make a difference."

It's a sentiment echoed in Catalyst, another just-released book highlighting the power of the individual to be a catalyst for change. "When you watch the television news, or read a newspaper, sometimes you're left with the overwhelming feeling that life is against the little people; that they can't win," says author Madonna King, a Queensland journalist and broadcaster. "But that's not borne out in the 130 or more interviews I did for my book. I found that people in towns and suburbs across the nation now have more power to force politicians to act than perhaps ever before."

Politicians, says King, know we no longer trust them.