Self-help books were written with the purpose of teaching readers the principles and skills for solving personal problems. The authors are trying to explain a solution or a process for how to help yourself improve in an important area of your life. Self-help books can address different areas of your life like psychology, stress management, finances, business, leadership, relationships, and motivation. The power in a self-help book is in the ideas that it can give readers that changes the way they think. Beliefs are the first step to changing your life as actions flow from what you believe. What you do determines your results as you create momentum and feedback loops. To help yourself you need to understand how to improve and change your life and what works to get you to your goals. Here are twelve of the self-books I have found to be the most life changing when read, understood, and the principles they contain systematically put into action in my own life.
Atomic Habits by James Clear: This book shows how your daily habits determine your destiny and how powerfully habits compound both positively and negatively over time to create results. Much of success is just small moves in the right direction that snowball into huge outcomes.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie: This classic book shows the keys to get people to both like you and how to persuade them to want to do what you ask of them.
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle: This simple but powerful book shows how to focus your mind and thoughts into the present moment where worry and regret don’t exist to find peace. The book’s goal is to get readers to stop emotionally time travelling into the future or past and staying mentally in the present moment where your energy and attention should stay focused.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey: Here are the seven habits that successful people have in common that accomplish big things in all areas of their life. Simple but powerful concepts that most people miss.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson: This book explains the power of only caring about what matters most to you and not caring about all the shit that doesn’t matter at all.
Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins: This classic book teaches that unlimited power can only be found over yourself and not other people or circumstances. True power is found within through self control, mental management, and focus. The chapter on simply writing down your goals changed my life forever when I was 19 years old, you must have targets to aim at or you won’t have an internal compass to navigate your decisions.
How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life by Scott Adams: The author shows the power in creating daily systems that lead to success. He believes systematic processes are the most powerful path to winning.
Outliers by Malcom Gladwell: This book explains the research showing that the biggest successes in any field likely spent 10,000 hours in practice learning, adjusting, and improving on their skills to be the best in the world.
Influence, New and Expanded: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini: This book shows the mental models that persuade people to behave in certain ways: reciprocity, commitments, consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. This is one of Charlie Munger’s favorite books.
Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine: This book shows the power of positivity in making people smarter in decision making and more influential in leadership and communication.
The Slight Edge by Jeff Olsen: This book explains how to get a slight edge over the competition and how multiplying them in many areas create a winning strategy in sports, business, and politics.
Positivity: Top-Notch Research Reveals the 3-to-1 Ratio That Will Change Your Life Paperback by Barbara Fredrickson: The book shows the powerful concept of creating a three to one personal ratio of saying positive things versus negative things. This can dramatically improve personal relationships and be good leadership in business.
These books can dramatically change the trajectory of your life if you take their concepts to heart and make life changes in thought, action, and beliefs.