The 20 best personal growth books
Recommended literature if you are interested in reading personal development books.
Human rights, universal and inalienable, refer to those instrumental conditions that allow a person to achieve personal fulfillment. This term includes those freedoms, faculties, needs, institutions and other constructs related to basic primary goods. In other words, and although it may sound redundant, human beings have the right to be happy.
Personal growth and development are essential for long-term happiness, as they drive the refinement of one's personal abilities and potentials. This translates into well-being with oneself (self-awareness), ease of relating to others (emotional intelligence) and the ability to carry out complex tasks (perseverance). All this brings long-term benefits, but also self-esteem and a better ability to resolve conflicts in the moment.
Personal growth is essential for personal development, but as they say, we are not born learned. Therefore, in this opportunity we present you the best personal growth books. With them, you will learn in one way or another to detect your strengths and shortcomings: once you know yourself, you can begin to build the foundations of what you want to become.
Recommended personal growth books
Here are 20 books that have caught our attention in one way or another in the field of personal growth. From developing emotional intelligence to combating cognitive biases, among these pages you will find a series of vital keys to improving as a person.
1. Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman
The first step to grow as an individual is always to learn to understand others and act accordingly to what is expected of oneself. Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to this ability to recognize one's own emotions and those of others, to discriminate between feelings and learn to categorize them and, finally, to use all these concepts to guide one's own thinking and behavior.
The popularization and establishment of this term is due to the work that we show you here. Among its pages you will find the basis of the theories of emotional intelligence (EI) and you will reflect on its neurological basis and social importance.. Undoubtedly, a classic of modern psychology.
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2. Emotional Intelligence 2.0: strategies to know and increase your IQ
Goleman's book is essential to establish the foundations of EI, but it is also necessary to learn how to put them into practice. This book takes up this idea and offers 66 proposals to improve emotional intelligence, in the areas of self-knowledge, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
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3. Emotional intelligence in business, Daniel Goleman
If you are looking to learn how to manage your emotions in the workplace and become a good leader, this is the book for you. In it, personal growth is focused on business emotional intelligence, a social field circumscribed to its own needs and guidelines. If you want to be a good business leader, this is a must read.
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4. FACTFULNESS: Ten Reasons Why We're Wrong About the World and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, Hans Rosling
In order to channel personal growth in the right direction, it is necessary to recognize that the bias of negativity is present in every corner of our reasoning. Perhaps as a product of an evolutionary mechanism, when faced with two events of equal intensity, we always focus on the one that is negative versus the positive or neutral one, we always focus on the one that is negative as opposed to the positive or neutral one..
Hans Rosling shows us, with statistics and objective facts, how the negative bias disrupts our perception of reality and pulls us down as individuals. Nothing is as bad as you think, and this book will show you why.
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5. The book your brain doesn't want to read: How to Re-educate the brain to be happier and live fully, David del Rosario
Re-educating the brain is possible, and psychological approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy are based on this premise: everything that is learned can be unlearned, as long as the causes of the previous impositions are known.. In this work, David del Rosario (researcher and science communicator) turns neuroscience into a transformational tool that teaches you how to be happy based on neuroscience.
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6. Think Fast, Think Slow, Daniel Kahneman
In this work, Daniel Kahneman (Author) represents 2 different systems, which model how we human beings think in general. Special emphasis is made on the dichotomies between fast and slow thinking, and the immense amount of biases that affect the process of the former.
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7. Your Wrong Zones, Wayne W. Dyer
One of the most widely read self-help books in the world, which is an understatement to say the least. This work postulates the following idea, as groundbreaking as it is essential to know: if you are dominated by dissatisfaction, guilt and complex, do not project on others. Both the cause of these feelings and the engine of change are within you.. If you discover the "wrong areas" that prevent you from moving forward, you will be able to tackle them and start on the path of personal growth.
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8. A New World, Now, Eckhart Tolle
A cult work in the field of spiritual literature. In it, the concept of the role of consciousness, identified with one's ego, which should become the instrument of a different and deeper understanding of who we are, is put to the test. In order to grow as individuals and as a society, the conception of oneself and of what surrounds us must change.
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9. The Pathology of Normality, Erich Fromm
A beastly critique of the concept that today's capitalism and society have made of the "normal" and ethically accepted man.. We are the process of our socio-economic situation, an essential idea that we must take into account if we want to grow as people: unfortunately, the current functioning of the economic regime is harmful to individual mental conservation.
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10. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle
Another of the works that conceives growth as a more holistic whole on a spiritual level. With over 5 million sales worldwide, the author already cited in another book on this list has shown that many readers are interested in approaching their personal growth from a more internal, self and ethereal point of view.
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11. Lidérate: FASE method, the definitive method to become more productive, Agustín Peralt
Personal growth is not only based on achieving spiritual peace with oneself, since productivity also plays an essential role in what we conceive as "success". This book explains the basis of the FASE method, a series of techniques focused on productivity and time management. According to the author himself, with this methodology it is possible to increase production by 30%.
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12. The power of habits: Why we do what we do in life and at work, Charles Duhigg.
Understanding the way habits work at a psychological level is the first step to carry them out and not to fail in a routine. This book will introduce you a series of methods to avoid failing to put your habits into practice and, therefore, to grow in the and, therefore, grow in the area you want in each specific moment.
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13. I think too much, Christel Petitcollin
Rumination and cyclical thoughts prevent personal growth. Memories of mistakes and ramblings keep us anchored in the past, so we don't allow ourselves to look to the future. For those overstimulated and overthinking minds, this book is ideal, as it proposes a course in mechanics and piloting for super-efficient brains.
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14. Wake up, Anthony de Mello
Again, we return to works that try to focus personal growth on spiritual development. To become better and more efficient people, we must connect with our "spiritual selves", which will allow us to stop being at the mercy of our "spiritual selves". will allow us to stop being at the mercy of circumstances and take control of our own existence..
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15. Educating with Emotional Intelligence: How to make our children sociable, happy and responsible, Steven E./Friedl Elias, Maurice J./Tobias
Personal growth begins in childhood. The more emotional tools a person acquires in his or her development, the more likely he or she will be able to apply them and develop in the best possible way. This work makes special emphasis on the emotional intelligence in the infantile scope.
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16. Introduction to Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud
You may be surprised to see this eminence in the field of psychology in this list, right? Actually, many believe that in order to achieve personal growth it is necessary to master those tendencies, fears and repressions that populate our subconscious. If we bring to the surface all that we do not know that limits us, we can master it and expand our self-awareness beyond the superficial..
Undoubtedly, an essential work for anyone interested in the field of human psychology.
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17. Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Sigmund Freud
Another of the works focused on the study of psychoanalysis, in this case applying the bases in daily events. We assure you that many of your most anodyne behaviors will be reflected in these lines.
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18. The Seven Spiritual Laws Of Success, Deepak Chopra
A completely different approach to achieving personal growth. In this work, it is defended that development is obtained from the knowledge and learning to live in harmony with natural laws. According to the author, this balance brings a flowing stream of happiness and abundance into the lives of those who seek it.
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19. Self-Control, Kelly McGonigal
To grow as people, we must be aware of our impulses and learn to control them, not get carried away by our emotions or fall into cyclical consumerism. According to the author, willpower is a Biological function that can be improved through aspects ranging from nutrition to sleep or presence. Here you will learn how to take control of your impulses.
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20. Power without limits: The New Science of Personal Development, Anthony Robbins.
"Life will pay whatever price you ask." Under this maxim, Anthony Robbins is telling us that the failure in personal growth does not lie in the circumstances, but in our own attitude towards life.. This work tries to show us the true hidden power of the brain and how to channel it in the best possible way.
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What do you think about it? From humanism to emotional intelligence, negativity bias, impulse control, spirituality and psychopathology, here we have presented works that explore personal growth from various approaches. Surely one of them is for you: go to your nearest library or sales portal and begin your path to personal improvement.
(Updated at Apr 12 / 2024)