I am usually pretty skeptical about books that offer 7 easy steps to happiness, personal improvement, etc, but just finished Eat, Pray, Love and I must say that I like the personal/spiritual insight that the author offered in the book. I am going through a period of self-questioning when I have the feeling that my outlook on/engagement with the world isn’t quite right, and this book struck true to me in a number of ways.
So can Dopers recommend any good self-help books that I might like? I am trying to improve my outlook on life and to become more positive generally. An objective person would say that my life is pretty decent, but I can’t seem to shake a feeling of negativity and frustration that is now affecting my work and relationships.
Shad Helmstetter’s Self Talk Solution is one you could try. A lot of it is about stuff like quitting smoking or improving a bad temper, but the overall point is about changing your perspective and taking control of how you think and feel.
If you liked Eat, Pray, Love then you might really like “Full Catastrophe Living” by Jon Kabat-Zinn, it’s about meditation/mindfulness and learning to live with the “full catastrophe” of life (“full catastrophe” is a quote from “Zorba the Greek”)
also “Learned Optimism” by Martin Seligman. Early in his career psychologist Seligman was known for his work in “learned helplessness”, later he thought “hey instead of studying the messed up people and trying to fix them, why not study the happy people and figure out what they’re doing and if we can copy it”. If you like that one, I think he went on to write a number of books along the same lines.
The only self-help book I’ve ever thought was really worth the paper it was printed on is Dale Carnegie’s classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. I highly recommend it.
Wait, that’s not true - I’m actually reading How To Avoid Falling In Love With a Jerk, which is technically self-help, and it’s very good and insightful.
Pema Chodron is a Buddhist nun who has a lot of good books out there. Start Where You Are consists of a lot of short chapters that are just right for reading at 3AM to settle yourself down when you are having one of those dark nights of the soul. You don’t have to be specifically interested in Buddhism, either.
Well I came in to recommend this one, so now I’ll just have to make it a second. I’ve read a number of books that try to address negative thinking, and this is the one that worked the best for me.
Anything by Daniel Goleman is amazing. His books social intelligence and emotional intelligence (but mostly social intelligence) really helped me out and helped by giving me a framework for things I vaguely understood intuitively but didn’t comprehend in concrete ways.