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Realizing you need help is a great giant and the most important step into becoming a better person that you are. What are the self-help books that can aid self-development?
Different books serve different purposes; “The subtle art of not giving a f**k” by Mark Manson blew my mind away. It is one of the best book I’ve ever read. Key differentiator for this book is it takes into account the impact of social media in our lives. Most of the other popular self-help books were written before the advent of social media and this one book teaches lessons on how to deal with the overload of irrelevant information shared with us everyday through social media platforms. The title of the book itself says “ A counter-intuitive approach to living a good life” and there are plenty of examples asking people to use this approach. One of them is in the chapter “ Happiness is a problem” where the writer challenges the popular notion of always asking people to try to be happy and successful ( that’s what all the self-help books tell you). The writer says if you constantly feel and try to be happy, then you are actually telling yourself you are not happy or successful enough right now. You are actually focusing on the lack of happiness and success in your life. You are constantly reiterating that stupid fact to yourself which makes you more unhappy and unsuccessful. This needs to stop. Just be who you are. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
Books are so insanely valuable, and it’s really surprising more people don’t regularly make use of them. While many people talk about getting mentors, we don’t all have access to these successful people, that’s where books come in.
A great book is literally the equivalent of having a successful person sitting next to you, teaching you what they learned! How amazing!
Here are the 5 books that changed my life and will change yours.
1. Gates of Fire – Steven Pressfield
Gates of Fire is about the Spartans at Thermopylae and will ignite your inner desire to become a badass. If you want to talk about getting jacked up solely from reading, this is the book.
2. Mindset – Carol Dweck
In Mindset, Dweck discusses the two mindsets people have, growth and fixed. People with growth mindsets are FAR more likely to succeed than those with fixed mindsets. Don’t take this book lightly, it will change how you look at challenges and criticism.
3. How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
Regardless of the industry you go in, you will have to deal with other people.
Whoever is better able to work with people will succeed farther. This book teaches you the foundation principles for building relationships.
I re-read this book regularly.
4. The Four Hour Work Week – Tim Ferriss
5. So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Cal Newport
This book is the perfect transition after Ferriss’ book. While The Four Hour Work Week taught you to think differently, this book tells you that you shouldn’t necessarily go searching around for your passion. Instead, find something that you are very interested in and get REALLY good at it. By focusing all your energy to getting really good at something useful, you will be invaluable skills that will take you anywhere you want, and in the end your passion will come from you expertise.
This book will make you want to study and research new skills.