Self-help Books That Are Worth Your Time
Click here to skip the intro and jump straight to the list.
Answer the following questions with Yes or No :
- Do you often pick up self-help books from airport kiosks and day-dream about changing your life, but the book stays unread for months?
- Have you bookmarked pages like “99 smartypants bestselling books everyone should read to sound like a smartass” ?
- Has your office colleague gifted you a discounted copy of “The Heathen Rabbits of Slightly Defective Steeple”? And have you failed to read it? Come on nobody actually reads that book anymore.
If you answered Yes to even one of these questions, this article might be for you! Or jump straight to the list.
What are ‘good’ self-help books?
The ones that actually help you start doing something! Remember, it isn’t the readers, but the doers who achieve anything – small or big. In my opinion, a good self-help book must have certain qualities, and that is the basis of my selection :
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Readability – Some self-help crap is so boring, I feel I should write a book titled “101 Highly-Effective Strategies to Effectively Overcome a Boring Self-Help Book”
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Ease of availability – Depends on how readily available the book is (legally), and its price. I don’t recommend spending more than 400 INR for a paperback.
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Re-read value – Will you pick it up again? Will you find something new every time you read it? Or will it end up in raddi once you are done?
- Practicality – Is it logical and worth applying?
A word of caution : No self-help book will change your life. It won’t. It will present new ideas and tools, so make sure you only expect so much.
Let’s dive in!
#1 Psycho-Cybernetics by Dr. Maxwell Maltz
Dr. Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon who observed that people were battling more emotional scars than physical ones. He observed that these feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth were “the scars which we put there, ourselves.”
I do not recommend spin-offs of this book and newer interpretations because they venture off into things like “law of attraction” which I am not a fan of.
#2 Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl
What is the point of being alive? Read this concentration camp survivor’s account, and think again. Frankl states that life is never ‘meaningless’, you have the freedom of choice, and to find the meaning is your responsibility because that is what you live for.
This book is great if you feel despair and existential crisis. So, it is the ideal book for the year 2020.
#3 Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
A bit on the technical side, it takes patience to read this one. I figured that reading one chapter at a time, multiple times, makes more sense. Reading this book made me understand why our emotions are the way they are and what are their long-term impacts. The book tells you the “what” and “why”, then lets you figure out “how.”
Again, I do not recommend any companion books or spin-offs. The original is all you need.
#4 Mindset by Carol S Dweck
When I read this book I felt personally attacked, and didn’t finish it for a long time. This book highlights the difference between growth mindset vs fixed mindset. The growth mindset says “I can learn this, I am open to this” while the fixed mindset says “I do not have the natural ability to master this right away, so I won’t try.”
All you depressed gifted-children should read this book and re-live your trauma.
#5 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k by Mark Manson
It is the modern cliche self-help book, you will see stupid teens on Instagram posting this one with hashtags like #ilovereading and #coffeeandbooks.
The book isn’t stupid though, and that is why it is so successful. It tells you that a lot of things are not in our control and not worth our time, so stop wasting your precious f**s on them.
The best thing about this book is its simple language and straightforward writing. This is because most of it materialized from Mark Manson’s blog. I highly recommend you read it as well.
