The Only Six Self-Help Books That Actually Changed My Life

Most self-help books are BS and I think you wouldn’t disagree.

They say the same thing over and over again, just in different words. And with the rise of self-proclaimed gurus, the number of self-help books out there has skyrocketed. With so much clutter out there, most of us are literally choking our brains with self-help advice with little to no results.

What’s more, the more self-help books you read, the more dissatisfied you feel with your current results because there’s always something lacking in your lifestyle. You start to feel there’s so much you need to do in this short life of yours that you end up doing nothing at all.

I know this because I’ve swallowed every self-help advice I got from others and laid my hands on every self-help book I possibly could. However, with all this reading, I’ve realized that you only really need a handful of self-help books to change your life. Read them over and over again and apply everything you learn into your life, only then will you actually see results.

That said, here’s a list of self-help books that worked for me in my life. Usually, it wasn’t every tidy advice laid in the book, but only 1–2 tips I picked and religiously applied that made remarkable changes in my life.

1. Becoming Bulletproof by Evy Poumpouras

Let me explain why I chose this one.

I’ve always been someone who would shrink and make herself small to accommodate people. I wouldn’t raise my voice even in threatening situations, always play the good girl, and get walked over like a doormat. The concept of boundaries and assertiveness was foreign to me.

Until I read this book.

Evy Pompouras, the author, is a former US Secret Service Agent so she obviously experienced a life of immense stress, pressure, and threats (imagine being responsible for the president’s safety) which makes her qualified to write about ‘becoming bulletproof’.

However, you don’t have to be in the Secret Services to experience extreme pressure. Life’s storms hit us every single day. Our mental capacities are tested in different ways which is why it’s become increasingly important for all of us (both men and women) to become bulletproof.

Becoming bulletproof is about strengthening both your physical armor and mental armor.

In this book, Pompouras talks about things like harnessing fear, mental resilience, developing the mindset of a secret service agent, influencing others, commanding respect, detecting lies, reading people- all the cool stuff that you can expect to learn from a pro secret service agent.

Part of the reason I picked up this book is that I was fascinated by anything that had to do with forensic psychology. But the book surprised me by teaching me so much more than that including techniques to physically protect myself in threatening situations, to be assertive, alert, and a legit badass.

All in all, this book resonated with me on another level.

Best takeaway:

“I’m a huge proponent of treating people with dignity and respect, but when it comes to your safety, don’t be worried about whom you offend. Manners and politeness have zero to do with minimizing risk and vulnerability. Don’t let being nice get in the way of being smart”.

2. Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

Most of us live our lives wrapped around our own heads. We are the center of our own universe. All of life’s problems revolve around us.

Our egos make us delusional.

These delusions are sometimes grandiose where we believe we are awesome (“I wrote a viral article”, “I gained 2K followers”, I did this, I did that, I, I, I…). We become consumed by the ego that tells us we’re better than we already are and distracts us from the real work.

Sometimes, ego plays a different card. It tells us all the world’s misery has befallen upon us, that we’re the target of all of the lives’ problems. Consequently, we can’t stop talking about our problems. Then there’s some of us who feel terrified of being around people because we think they’re thinking about us, that all eyes are upon us.

Ego paints a false picture of our own importance in our minds.

In reality, we’re just ordinary people, with ordinary problems with pretty ordinary lives. There’s nothing inherently extraordinary about us or our lives.

That’s why we need to stay humble and grounded in reality. We need to direct our focus on the task at hand, the work we’re here to do instead of getting lost in the enchantments of our ego.

Before I read this book, I made everything about myself. I thought people were noticing me everywhere I went, I thought every article I published on Medium was being scanned by hundreds of eyes, I would take people's remarks, both good and bad, personally. But the book taught me an important lesson: To detach my true self from my ego. To separate my work of art from my ego.

Best takeaway:

“There’s no one to perform for. There is just work to be done and lessons to be learned, in all that is around us.”

3. Atomic Habits by James Clear

This was one of those books recommended by DOZENS of people and I’ll be honest: the more it popped up on my social media, the more I ignored it because most books everybody is talking about are overrated in my opinion.

However, when I finally decided to give this book a shot, I was so grateful.

This is not one of those overrated self-help books. It’s based on practical tips and psychology. From achieving goals to building routines to taking actions, this book covers every practical strategy you need to build new habits and break old ones.

Now there’s a LOT of actionable content in this book and I can’t talk about every single thing. However, here are several pointers that stood out to me:

Instead of taking giant leaps and giving up halfway, focusing on improving only 1% better each day. By the end of the year, you’ll be 365% better.

If you really want changes in your life, build systems, not goals. Goals are the end result, systems are the processes that lead you to those results. With a system, you build a daily practice of taking tiny action steps that propel you to those goals. You also experience growth during the process.

You build habits by first carving an identity (e.g. I am a runner so I run every day).

Your surroundings trigger certain habits. If you tweak your environment, it becomes easier to build or break habits.

One cool technique I learned from this book that fundamentally improved my life is ‘stacking’ i.e. building a new habit upon an already existing habit. By applying this, I weaved several new habits into my existing routine. Never thought things could be so simple.

Best takeaway:

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”

4. Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday

Here’s another book by the same author but it deserves a spot on this list and I’ll explain why.

With the advent of modern self-improvement and the toxic hustle culture, the idea that’s being repeatedly sold to us is this: You’re not doing enough, so keep going.

You’re not positive enough, productive enough, rich enough, confident enough, successful enough…you’re never enough.

Consequently, we’ve become ‘hustlers’- people who are always on the go, chasing some arbitrary standard we’ve set for ourselves. No wonder, we're often burned out and unhappy with our lives.

The antidote? Reverse the clock, go back to Stoicism, the philosophy of stillness.

Stillness does not mean you sit in meditation like a yogi. Yes, you do the work but you do it slowly. You keep your life balanced. You distance yourself from the noise and distraction. You move forward in baby steps instead of taking giant leaps.

Stop killing yourself in the name of productivity. Having sleepless nights because you’re hustling for your dreams? Not sexy. Sitting hunched in front of your laptop for hours slowly morphing into a question mark? Uncool. You can keep ignoring your health but it will catch up with you later in the hospital.

The book is divided into three sections: Mind, spirit, and body. Stillness means giving attention to each of these areas and the book teaches you how.

Best takeaway:

Remember, there’s no greatness in the future. Or clarity. Or insight. Or happiness. Or peace. There is only this moment.

5. Psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

Not many people know about this book and that drives me crazy.

This book digs deep into the concept of self-image which in psychology means the picture you’ve painted of yourself in your mind (e.g “My face is too big, I’m ugly).

However, how you perceive yourself is different from how you actually are. Who you are is the reality, based on facts and evidence. But the brain doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality so it tells you a different story.

Most of us are walking around convinced that we are actually what we think we are. But here comes the interesting part. If you paint a clear mental picture of who you want to become, you can literally transform yourself. In other words, you trick your brain into believing you’re this new version of a person until you actually become it.

The principles taught in this book aren’t generic but embedded in psychology. So if you’re looking to transform yourself in 2021, this is an absolute must-read.

“Loneliness is caused by an alienation from life. It is a loneliness from your real self.”

6. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

If you’ve already read this book, I’m guessing you don’t even remember the seven habits.

If you haven’t, though, you’re missing out on the fundamentals of improving your life.

This is one of those books that you need to keep revisiting. The book lays down the seven habits that are the foundations of improving self and life:

Habit 1: Be proactive

Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind

Habit 3: Put first things first

Habit 4: Think win-win

Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood

Habit 6: Synergize

Habit 7: Sharpen the saw

Each of these habits is built upon the previous one meaning you can’t master one habit until you’ve mastered the previous one. If you notice, the very first habit is ‘be proactive’.

Being proactive means taking responsibility for your life and actions, focusing on things you can control, and ignoring things you have no control over.

This explains why I said this book is the foundation of self-improvement: You can’t become a better person until you build certain habits. And the first of these habits is becoming proactive i.e taking full responsibility for the state you’re in.

Without being proactive you’re only focusing on factors outside your control: the shitty people around you and their shitty attitudes, the weather, the government, your asthma, etc which is never going to bring change in you.

When I read this book as a teen, I resolved to become proactive. Since then, I’ve experienced remarkable growth. This is the first self-improvement book I ever read and I owe a huge percentage of my current results to it.

Best takeaway:

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”