A subtle way of saying "don't look at me", if not just a really poor choice of words to say you're not putting your best effort on things (as if putting effort was really the key part of getting through things, which through my life I've been getting more and more skeptical).

Whereas it's true you can only help yourself sometimes on some specific tasks, it's ******** saying we could always do it (or when it's convenient to us), where and how should any effort be aimed, etc. Not only wrong but condescending (as if you never realized there's this concept called responsibility, you must be a freaking toddler to their eyes).

Others will like to judge how much effort are you investing on your problems or how much you should be able to put on them. "Only you can help yourself" is an euphemistic phrase telling you in your face that you're a pitiful, lazy and crippled monkey who's not really bleeding his parts for getting ahead of his trouble. No matter how "nicely" (or also "brutally honest", just another way of people for skipping insult permissions) put is that said, the meaning behind it leads to this perception of your situation.