11 Books for your Best Self

Originals, Flow, The Power of Habits, and much more

I’m Sara, and I’m a self-help, self-improvement enthusiast. I know and live the power of self-awareness, building your strengths, and improving your weaknesses. Here are 10 books that changed my perspective, sense of self, and improved my life in some way —

P.S. The first 9 of 10 authors here also have TED Talks, if you want to hear a bit about their work before you dive into a book!

For being happier at work: The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor

Shawn is a positive psychology researcher who teaches Harvard’s famed happiness course. He also happens to be one of my favourite TED talkers of all time. He’s come up with seven really practical principles to fuel success and satisfaction in work.

“Each one of us is like that butterfly in the Butterfly Effect. And each tiny move toward a more positive mindset can send ripples of positivity through our organizations our families and our communities.”

For building passion + perseverance: GRIT, Angela Duckworth

Angela Duckworth is a psychology researcher who found that “grit” is a better predictor of success than IQ or innate talent. You can do a quiz in the book to determine how gritty you are, and then she outlines four areas to improve your grit: interest, practise, purpose, hope.

“Grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be abandoned quickly and higher-level goals that demand more tenacity.”

For feeding your creativity: Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert knows we’re held back from creativity because of fear and insecurity, and takes us through some of her practises for breaking down barriers and curating more creativity for anything from writing a book to solving a work issue in a creative way.

“Let me list for you some of the many ways in which you might be afraid to live a more creative life: You’re afraid you have no talent. You’re afraid you’ll be rejected or criticized or ridiculed or misunderstood or — worst of all — ignored. You’re afraid there’s no market for your creativity, and therefore no point in pursuing it. You’re afraid somebody else already did it better. You’re afraid everybody else already did it better.” [this quote goes on much longer]

For the pursuit of big ideas: Originals, Adam Grant

Adam Grant is a social scientist and organizational behaviour leader with a few awesome books to his name. “Originals: How non-conformists move the world” focuses on ideas — how to develop them, recognize a good one, pursue it and bring others on board, and how, as a leader, you can support people’s ideas an fight detrimental groupthink.

“The greatest shapers don’t stop at introducing originality into the world. They create cultures that unleash originality in others.”

For greater openness + connection: Daring Greatly, Brene Brown

Brene Brown is an influential scholar and storyteller with a background in social work and a focus on shame and vulnerability. “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead” explores how shame holds us back from true connection, and that true connection is a basic human need.

“Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual lives, vulnerability is the path.”

For overcoming hard things: Rising Strong, Brene Brown

Brene Brown is an influential scholar and storyteller with a background in social work and a focus on shame and vulnerability. *This is my favourite book of hers.* Rising Strong takes us through how we react in difficult situations and conflict, and how we can best work through them to “rise” in the aftermath.

“When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t go away; instead, they own us, they define us. Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending — to rise strong, recognize our story, and rumble with the truth…”

For unlearning: Untamed, Glennon Doyle

Glennon is known for her other books chronicling her battle with addiction, eating disorder, and a struggling marriage, before she left all that behind when she found her true love and truest self as a gay woman. Untamed is about that story but also so many other stories from her growing up and all the relatable ways women are tamed.

“You are here to decide if your life, relationships and world are true and beautiful enough for you. And if they are not and you dare to admit they are not, you must decide if you have the guts, the right — perhaps even the duty — to burn to the ground that which is not true and beautiful enough and get started building what is.”

For better focus + productivity: FLOW, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly is a legendary theorist in positive psychology who coined the term “flow” to describe “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else matters.” This book describes what flow is, what happens to our mind and body while we’re in it, why it’s so powerful, and how to get it.

“The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen.”

For better habits: The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg

Charles Duhigg is a New York Times business writer. In “The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business” he explains what habits are, how they originally formed without us knowing, why common habit building attempts (like exercising regularly) is so hard, and the various ways we can transform our current habits to serve us better.

“The Golden Rule of Habit Change: You can’t extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.”

For understanding yourself better: The Four Tendencies, Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin writes books (mot notably The Happiness Project) and hosts a popular podcast (Happier) that focus on happiness, habits, and human nature. Through years of research and experience, she devised a personality theory called the 4 Tendencies which describe how we respond to inner an outer expectations — from new years resolutions to the big assignment your boss asked you to complete by end of day. You can do her free quiz and find out if you’re an Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, or Rebel, and find out how best to motivate yourself.

“The happiest, healthiest, most productive people aren’t those from a particular Tendency, but rather they’re the people who have figured out how to harness the strengths of their Tendency, counteract the weaknesses, and build the lives that work for them.”

For learning your unique strengths: Strengthsfinder 2.0, Tom Rath

Tom Rath is a consultant who focuses on strengths based leadership an performance. In Strengthsfinder 2.0, you can do a quiz to assess your top 5 strengths, read more details on each, and lean into those unique talents more.

“When we’re able to put most of our energy into developing our natural talents, extraordinary room for growth exists. So, a revision to the “You-can-be-anything-you-want-to-be” maxim might be more accurate: You cannot be anything you want to be — but you can be a lot more of who you already are.”