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Are you looking for personal growth?
If you feel the need to work on a specific skill, foster meaningful relationships, and impact people’s lives, personal growth is a strategic process with endless possibilities.
In contrast to self-help ideology, personal growth is a positive outlook on change and a willingness to make adjustments for a better tomorrow.
One simple and cost-efficient way to personally grow?
Read personal growth books.
Reading personal growth books can provide a growth blueprint, whether it’s learning how to positively influence others, how to improve your finances, how to enhance your career, and much more.
But with so many personal growth books available, how can you determine which ones are right for you?
We compiled a list of the best personal growth books on bookshelves today.
Even if you’re not an avid reader, taking five minutes a day to tackle a few pages can make a drastic impact on your personal growth now and in the future.
If you’re ready to make a positive change and jumpstart your personal growth journey, here are the best personal growth books to read today.
The 10 Best Personal Growth Books
#1: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen. R. Covey
In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen R. Covey outlines the essential habits that make personal and professional problem solving possible and teaches how altering your actions and habits can help you succeed at home and in the office.
In this personal growth book, you’ll learn effective habits, including:
- The importance of being proactive
- How to start with the end in mind
- How to properly prioritize
- How to create win/win situations
- The importance of first understanding and then being understood
- The importance of synergy
- How to sharpen your skills
- And more
With over 400 pages of insight and tools for implementation, this personal growth book will help you — just as the title alludes to — develop the habits of highly effective people.
#2: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
An iconic and timeless personal growth book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill has been impacting millions of people since 1937.
Hill spent years studying successful people — such as Thomas Edison and Henry Ford — and identified 13 common habits that impacted their lives.
The new and original versions of the book demonstrate the importance of habits like sticking with your decisions and surrounding yourself with motivated and intelligent people working towards a similar goal.
In his personal growth book, Hill provides you with:
- 13 common habits of millionaires
- The value of surrounding yourself with motivated people
- Steps to implement effective habits into your daily routine
- How to accumulate financial, spiritual, and material riches
If you haven’t read this classic personal growth book yet, check it out on Amazon.
#3: The Attention Revolution by Alan Wallace
It’s no secret that staying focused and lengthening your attention span is often difficult — especially in today’s digital and hundreds of notifications a day era.
Whether you work 20 hours a week or 60, your attention and focus greatly impact your productivity and output.
In the personal growth book The Attention Revolution, Alan Wallace exposes some of the reasons for modern inattentive minds and shares important insights to reverse this and expand the depths and powers of the mind through meditation.
Whether you routinely practice meditation or you’ve never tried it before, this personal growth book will help you strengthen your focus and attention span so you can maximize your productivity.
#4: How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Originally published in 1936, Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People was one of the first personal growth books of its kind and, nearly a century later, continues to serve as one of the most popular personal growth books today.
In the book, Carnegie shares essential insights on how to make the people around you feel valued and accept your way of thinking.
With proven strategies, Carnegie teaches you:
- Six ways to get people like you
- 12 ways to help others see your way of thinking
- Nine ways to change people’s behavior without them realizing it
- How to influence others
- How to successfully handle people
Between the proven strategies and easy-to-follow steps, it’s easy to see why leaders and successful individuals around the globe recommend this personal growth book.
How to Win Friends and Influence People is the perfect book if you want to change how others think and interact with you.
#5: An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield
If you’re looking for an out of the box personal growth book, how about one written by an astronaut?
In An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth, Astronaut Chris Hadfield reveals some of the key lessons he learned during his 4,000 hours in space and how anyone can apply the lessons to everyday life here on earth.
Some of the key takeaways from this personal growth book include:
- The importance of being prepared
- Taking the small stuff as seriously as the big stuff
- How to stay calm during crises
- The importance of learning how to take criticism
- Why you should be ready for anything
Hadfield’s An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth is a fantastic personal growth book whether you work in a fast-paced and high-stakes environment or simply want to equip yourself with the necessary tools to make it through an uncertain life.
With true stories and a refreshing outlook on living to the fullest, you’ll find it hard to put this unique personal growth book down.
#6: Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
Rich Dad vs Poor Dad: which one will you be?
Rich Dad Poor Dad, written by Robert T. Kiyosak, delves into the differences in assets and liabilities, the main obstacles to becoming rich, and the steps anyone can take to work towards wealth.
In this best-selling personal growth book, you’ll find:
- How to make your money work for you
- Ways to teach your own children how to prepare for a financially free life
- Easy-to-implement strategies that immediately contribute to wealth
- Why the rich don’t have to work as hard to make money
While it seems unconventional, Kiyosaki explains how the poor dad stayed in school, earned a degree, and found a decent-paying job but could never get ahead.
In contrast, the rich dad never graduated from school and still became a millionaire.
Rich Dad Poor Dad is one of the best books for financial freedom and growth because it teaches you how to let your money do the work and strategies for growing wealth and earning passive income.
#7: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
In an age with technology at your fingertips and notifications constantly buzzing, it’s hard to shut out all disturbances.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport offers invaluable insights on how to stay focused in any environment by offering four essential rules for fighting interruptions and keeping your mind focused.
In this personal growth book, you’ll learn:
- How to master difficult tasks
- How to commit to “deep” work
- Ways to block out everyday distractions
- How embracing deep work in personal and professional settings can lead to a focused and productive life
If you’re ready to avoid distractions and get to “deep” work, learn more about this personal growth book on Amazon.
#8: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
Does it feel like no matter how hard you try, things just don’t get done?
Your checklist grows larger each day, and you can never check off enough items.
Between your work and personal life, it’s often difficult to balance work and life while remaining effective in both areas.
Author David Allen outlines key strategies to help you achieve stress-free productivity in all areas of your life. Getting Things Done introduces ways to replace interruptions with mindfulness and stay completely devoted to every task.
In this personal growth book, Allen shares the following strategies to keep you productive and stress-free:
- Keeping an up-to-date weekly to-do list
- Maintaining a task list for each project or work assignment
- Using a designated place to write any fleeting thoughts while working
- Completing a weekly or monthly review of your tasks, goals, and achievements
If you’re ready to — just as the title alludes to — get things done, check out this personal growth book on Amazon.
#9: The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss is another best-selling and iconic personal growth book.
It teaches the importance of spending your time wisely.
Ferriss explains how instead of spending 40 hours a week on multiple tasks that don’t contribute to your overall success or wealth, you can spend 4 hours a week on the most valuable aspects of your job or career and still produce quality outputs.
His famous quote, “Doing something unimportant well does not make it important,” speaks volumes of the impact that meaningless tasks have on our daily work production.
Paired with this big idea, Ferriss preaches the importance of validating your ideas and having a plan before quitting your corporate job to travel around the world.
Before changing to a 4-hour workweek, ensure your new idea, job, or basis of income is validated by peers.
In this eye-opening personal growth book, you’ll find:
- 50 tips on how to achieve a 4-hour workweek
- How to overcome common obstacles keeping you tied to the office
- How to have multiple mini-retirements throughout your career
- The importance of following your dream and how to achieve it while still making money
#10: The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
In The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy, renowned publisher of Success Magazine, teaches the importance of taking responsibility for your choices and actions and how seemingly small moments can have a large impact, making it one of the best personal growth books to read.
If you find it hard to implement your existing knowledge to succeed or enhance your skills, this personal growth book is for you. You’ll learn the importance of:
- Creating a plan of action
- Implementing consistency in all aspects of life
- Working towards getting better
- Taking responsibility for every situation and in every relationship
Hardy shares essential compounding principles that show up in every area of life. From work to finances, to marriage — it’s the small things that matter.
The Bottom Line: Personal Growth Books
Personal growth books provide the necessary tools to implement a strategic process for growing specific skills and, whether it's in your personal life or your career, helps you grow.
Whether you’re ready to make a positive change in personal or professional areas of your life, it’s never too soon or too late for personal growth.
Reading personal growth books are a great way to equip you with the necessary steps to make a positive change and reach your personal growth goals.
Choosing one of these books will be the first step in a life-long journey of personal growth.
