Every day is a learning day and we try every day to improve ourselves a bit. Readers know that books are like our friends, and good friends help us improve.
So, here are the 10 Best Improvement books you should read:
- The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain, and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
- The Power of Now: Live in the Present by Eckhart Tolle
- Dopamine Detox: A Short Guide to Remove Distractions and Get Your Brain to Do Hard Things by Thibaut Meurisse
- Best self by mike bayer
- Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
- The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
- “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferriss
- When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
- Making Great Relationships
- Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
Area of Self-Improvement: Emotional Healing and Mental Health
It’s a great book to understand how trauma affects your brain and body, the book has been crafted so well that it stayed on the NYT Bestseller books for 5 years.
The book explains that trauma stays in 3 parts in a human:
- Brain
- Body
- Relationships
The author says that the majority of traumas can be avoided if we prevent child abuse and neglect. ACE: Adverse Childhood Experience that is caused by abuse, domestic violence, and mistreatment.
The higher the ACEs one encounters the higher rate of chances one has of heart disease, cancer, suicide, alcoholism, auto-immune conditions, and diabetes.
Almost 64% of the population experience ACE once in their lifetime and 16% experience 4+ ACEs. The higher the number of ACEs one encounters the higher the chances of mental and physical illness for the rest of their lives.
How to figure out if the trauma has been treated or not?
- You don’t rely on trauma-related coping mechanisms anymore and you’re not doing behaviors like self-destructive behavior, rage attacks, and substance abuse.
- You can integrate your memories with your body’s sensations.
The book also discusses multiple therapies and ways to deal with them depending on the specifics of the person. Well, there’s a lot in the book and to be honest, even I’m going to re-read it after completing this article.
The Power of Now: Live in the Present by Eckhart Tolle
Area of Self Improvement: Spiritual Awareness
Although not specifically about entrepreneurship or spiritual awareness, this book teaches living in the present moment, freeing us from fear and worry, which is crucial for leaping new opportunities.
The book talks and revolves around the following topics:
- You’re not your mind
- The Present Moment is all we will ever have
- Acceptance of what is
You’re not your mind—We think that the mind and its stream of thoughts are who we are, but we are way more than that.
We constantly keep on thinking, and the author asks
- If you can be free of your mind whenever you want to?
- Do you have an off button to it?
And if the answer is no, you’re unconsciously identified with the mind.
The Present Moment is all we will ever have. We constantly worry about either the past or the future, and that makes us struggle to stay in the present.
We don’t realize it, but most of the time, we are thinking of repetitive things. We should rather focus on now because we should do things considering the future, but it shouldn’t be occupying enough to take away our now.
Acceptance of what it is– Accept the moment as it is now when you resist it, you ultimately create pain for yourself because always there’s a difference between reality and our expectations and that is where resistance is.
Always acknowledge the resistance and see if you can change, improve, or remove yourself from the situation, and then act.
This is good for entrepreneurs, you can also read books every entrepreneur should read.
Dopamine Detox: A Short Guide to Remove Distractions and Get Your Brain to Do Hard Things by Thibaut Meurisse
Area of Self-Improvement: Improving focus and discipline
The book teaches us how our body responds to dopamine (pleasure hormone) and how to get rid of habits that give us dopamine rush which are not fruitful for us.
In order to get out of this cycle we need to build and develop long-term habits that give satisfaction and serve a purpose.
Steps to break dopamine-seeking habits:
- Identify the triggers and replace them with better activities
- Create an action plan to execute
- Self-discipline and commitment toward your goals
- Reward yourself when you reach your goals
- Stay focused on your goals
It is a short but practical book that can help improve your productivity drastically.
Best self by mike bayer
Area of Self Improvement: Self-Awareness
The author teaches how to be the very best version of oneself by walking through his journey and life as an example. The book has been broken down into 4 parts:
- Preparing
- Planning
- Practicing
- Progress
Preparing: You should prepare yourself for success by understanding your core values, and beliefs and by setting realistic goals with deadlines.
The author also talks about Best self vs Anti Self in the book for self-awareness:
- Best-Self: It is your version when you’re happy when you feel loved, confident, authentic, and aligned with your dreams and goals.
- Anti-Self: It’s you when your fear, insecurities, ego, and trauma take the charge.
Using this activity Mike wants you to observe how you react in both situations so that you’ll be aware when your best self or anti-self takes over.
Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Area of Improvement: Goal setting and rich mindset
The book was written 50years+ ago and it still makes sense. The book is divided into 16 chapters, every chapter has something incredible to learn from.
The book starts by saying that one should have a burning desire to achieve their goal and to convert that desire to reality do the following:
- Make a plan and immediately act on it irrespective of how unprepared you feel.
- Write down the exact amount of money or the level of anything you want to achieve.
- What are you willing to give to receive your desired amount?
- Give yourself a deadline to achieve the goal you’ve set for yourself.
- Write the above 4 statements and read them before you go to sleep and the first thing when you wake up read them as if you already possess all the things you desire.
This book will change your perspective and approach towards money and generating wealth.
The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
Area of Improvement: Personal Philosophy and freedom from approval
The book has many concepts from Greek philosophy and Adlerian psychology that teach us how to live freely, how to attain freedom, and how to see the actual world and not our version of the world.
The book starts by talking about the world that we think is very complex but in reality, it is not. It’s we, humans who are complex and who make simple things complex.
The author says that it is difficult to see the world without filters because depending on their past experiences and future expectations everyone sees the same thing differently.
Avoiding change and being with your old notions and beliefs stops you from seeing the actual world and that stops you from being happy.
Areas the book covers:
- Learn how to see the actual world without filters
- How to break yourself from the cycle of cause and effect
- Anger and how to manage it
- All the problems in the world are interpersonal relationship problems
- An inferiority complex is an excuse for not taking ownership and responsibility.
- You should have the courage to be disliked if you want freedom from people’s judgment.
"The 4-Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferriss
Area of Improvement: Productivity
Many of us are tired of the tedious workloads of corporate jobs but are also stuck in fear of risk. Then, you have to do this 4-hour homework. The book contends that the regular worldview of working tirelessly for a check is outdated, underscoring the significance of effectiveness over simple hecticness.
Ferriss encourages people to introspect and find out how they approach work. He tried to make them understand that they should focus on being practical rather than just efficient.
One critical standard of the book is the need to approve business thoughts thoroughly before adequate money management time and assets. Ferriss proposes participating in limited-scope trials or pilot undertakings to test the feasibility of ideas, permitting business visionaries to avoid resolving adventures that may yield different outcomes.
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
It talks about the science behind the question ‘When’ when are you least and most productive, when you should do things to get the best results and for how long, and when to take breaks to maintain the same rigor and energy in you.
The author says we usually operate under the assumption that our cognitive ability remains the same throughout the day, but that is not true; it keeps fluctuating, and this pattern is entirely different for early risers and late owls.
Dan Pink says that a person usually hits the dip around 7 hours after we wake up so if you have an analytical task prefer doing that in the initial 7 hours after you wake up.
The afternoon period is considered to be the most dangerous time as that’s the ‘Trough’ period as the productivity, and concentration drop so the author says to try to do things that don’t really require a lot of mental power.
Similarly, the author explains the rest of the parts of the day. Well, the story changes 180 degrees when it comes to late owls.
Making Great Relationships
The book is written by Rick Hanson and the book talks about how we can improve our relationships. Researchers say that we create and add value to a relationship every day by the efforts we put into it.
What does this book teach?
- How do you communicate well in all types of settings and situations?
- How do you stay focused so that conflicts don’t bother you deeply?
- How to see good in others even in difficult situations?
- How do you put your thoughts forward so that they’re more likely met?
- How to set and maintain healthy boundaries or resize relationships as needed?
You can also read the summary of Making Great Relationships.
7 Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
The book teaches how we can achieve success in all areas of life. 7 Spiritual Laws has been the NYT Best Seller book.
7 Spiritual Laws:
- The Law of Pure Potentiality: This law states that if you dissolve your ego then you can come to a state wherein you would allow yourself to connect with nature and the energies of the universe. These energies would help you find your true potential.
- The Law of Giving: This law says that the more we give, the more we get from the world. It is never possible that we’re short on giving as human’s true nature is of abundance. Every time giving need not be monetary; it can also be a gesture or service, done with a positive mindset and attitude.
- The Law of “Karma” or cause and effect: As the phrase says “What Goes Around, Comes Around” This law talks around the same to ensure that by our actions no one is hurt and gets uncomfortable because what we put out gets back to us.
- The Law of Least Efforts: This law says that things in nature remain the way they are but we humans try to bend nature or try to disturb something that is on auto-pilot and is in the most efficient form because we think that every time it has to be hard work. Since childhood, we’ve heard ‘work hard’ and ‘you need to grind’ but this law contradicts all those sayings. According to me, the law doesn’t say to not work but to work effectively, efficiently, and smartly.
- The Law of Intention and Desire: This law says that we should talk positively to ourselves and think positively because those words and those vibrations create energy around us. The universe would react to the energies you create and the universe would reward your optimistic behaviour and attitude.
- The Law of Detachment: This laws states that usually people have fear of detachment and when in mess we try to solve things without getting detached from our desires but getting detached helps us get rid of chaos and mess and lets us see things the way they are.
- The Law of “Dharma” or Purpose in Life: The author says that everyone has something in them that they can do better than rest of the world but for every unique talent there is a set of needs and when those needs match with your talent it creates a miracle. And he mentions that we humans are here to discover our higher self/ spiritual self to reach great heights.
Conclusion
I’m sure reading these self-improvement books on your journey will help you widen your spectrum and load you with immense knowledge that will help you in every aspect of life.