Editor’s note: This article was first published in April 2022. The original title said “TOP 2023” and the list heading “for 2023”, although the post is dated April 2022, so the year was removed from both. The health claims of Bruce H. Lipton and Joe Dispenza, such as thoughts healing illness at the cellular level, are disputed by mainstream science. This article is not medical advice.
This would be my ranking of the best personal development or personal growth books. I refuse to call them self-help books, because the idea of self-help is starting to take on certain negative connotations. Unlike other sites, I never recommend books I haven’t read, and I make sure to recommend personal growth books that truly help you grow on every level. They aren’t necessarily the bestselling personal development books or the best rated (by number of reviews), but they are, without a doubt, useful books that help.
I also make sure that the message, concepts and ideas in these books are backed by psychology or science. Books that tell you to think positive and want something badly enough so that the universe will grant it to you are no use to me, because I’ll be bold enough to say that the universe isn’t going to grant you a damn thing.
The benefits of positive thinking are well backed by science. That our thoughts influence our health and our success is also well backed by science. In other words, any message set out in the personal development books we’re about to name can stand up to its detractors on scientific grounds. And we shouldn’t forget their empirical basis.
This is my ranking of the best personal growth books that can help you get ahead in life and change the way you think and see the world. They aren’t necessarily listed from best to worst.
I know you’ll think some of the self-help or personal growth books currently among Amazon’s bestsellers are missing. And I have to tell you that a book being a bestseller doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t a lousy book.
See also: The five best books for changing bad habits
My best personal development books
1. Awaken the Giant Within, by Tony Robbins
Possibly the best personal growth book ever written. A book packed with stories of personal growth, as entertaining as it is useful. I’ve always said this book can bring the living dead back to life.
In my opinion, it’s Tony Robbins’ best book by far. Some say it’s a self-help book, but in my view it was a masterpiece.
Recommended for people who aren’t especially drawn to reading and, of course, recommended as the first personal development book you should read before moving on to others.
2. The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion
A book as short as it is hard. In it, the novelist and journalist Joan Didion tells us about the year she had to get through the sudden death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne. Eighteen months later, she also lost her daughter.
Grief is something we’ll all go through. We’re going to lose family members, and let’s just say this book gives you a different perspective on how to get through that time when nothing seems to make sense.
It isn’t a book I would have chosen to read, but it’s a book I’m now glad I read.
3. Your Erroneous Zones, by Wayne W. Dyer
This classic may well be the most widely read self-help book in the world. Over its 300 pages, Dr Dyer tries to help you find meaning in life by tackling the main causes of people’s unhappiness.
There are certain places inside us that block and paralyse us, among them feelings of insecurity or guilt. This makes us project our traumas, fears and dissatisfaction onto other people.
Throughout the book, Dr Dyer makes it very clear that the cause lies in you, and so does the solution. You simply need to become aware of what is blocking you and stopping you from growing as a person. And he does all this by pointing you to those zones inside you so you can make changes: the erroneous zones of your personality.
It isn’t only one of the most widely read personal development books, it’s also one of the best personal growth books ever written, along with Tony Robbins’ Awaken the Giant Within, although this one perhaps does fall into self-help territory. Even so, the message is tremendously good.
4. The Biology of Belief, by Bruce H. Lipton (personal development from science)
This is a book everyone should read before reading any self-help or self-improvement book, to understand the importance of our thoughts and beliefs. From a scientific point of view, the book explains how your thoughts can create cellular changes at the molecular level. In other words, you can make yourself ill or heal yourself with your own thoughts.
The mind and biological effects are connected. Essential reading to fully understand what people mean when they tell you “change the way you think or you’ll come to a bad end”. And I repeat: it’s a personal development book written from science, not from cosmic energy fairy tales.
5. You Are the Placebo, by Joe Dispenza (personal development from science)
With a message very similar to the previous book, though not the same, Joe Dispenza, again from a scientific point of view, asks a question: if an empty pill with no pharmacological power (a placebo) can work miracles in your body, what would happen if people believed in themselves instead of believing in external factors?
Throughout the book, with many examples and explanations, Dispenza tries to get you to apply what he calls the science of transformation. Your mind can do incredible things. Highly recommended, just like Bruce H. Lipton’s book.
6. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, by Mark Manson
Mark Manson has burst onto the personal development scene with this great work in the style of the giants of personal growth.
This great book, which at first seems set to criticise the messages of other personal development books, ends up taking a few turns that lead us to the messages of those very books, while at the same time being packed with stories that sum up the concepts.
Written in Mark Manson’s unmistakable style, direct, with no frills or flourishes and with his particular sense of humour, this is a book that won’t leave you indifferent.
7. Will, by Will Smith and Mark Manson (self-help and overcoming adversity)
Although it’s Will Smith’s memoir, the truth is that Will Smith’s career is a story of overcoming adversity in itself. As you read the book you’ll understand why. As I said in an article where I shared the most important lessons from Will’s memoir, it had been a long time since a book had hooked me the way this one did.
Of course, to be honest, Will is a world-famous actor whose work I’ve followed, and I love what he does.
That earns extra points when it comes to getting hooked on his early days. On top of that, you can feel the style of Mark Manson, who helped Will with the writing of this book, and that makes it sound even more interesting.
A personal development book I recommend.
8. Aprendiendo de los mejores (“Learning from the Best”), by Francisco Alcaide
If success leaves clues, Francisco takes care of condensing all those clues for us in an excellent digest of the thinking of the most successful people in the world.
Each chapter captures the way of thinking of one figure, and these figures range from Warren Buffett to the tennis player Rafa Nadal, by way of well-known names from the worlds of spirituality and business.
Aprendiendo de los mejores 1, 2 and 3 may be the most condensed work out there, given the large number of figures and ideas that Francisco explains in an understandable, accessible way.
Another advantage of these volumes is that you can jump from one author to another depending on where you are at the moment and the kind of motivation you need. We couldn’t leave Francisco Alcaide’s work out of my personal development ranking.
9. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, by Carol Dweck
The psychologist Carol Dweck answers many questions you’ve probably never even asked yourself. Among others: why do people act the way they do, and how should you act to improve your life drastically?
She talks about the two types of mindset we have, the fixed mindset and the growth mindset, and explains how to get rid of the fixed mindset and focus on the growth mindset, which is the only one that can lead you to success. A useful book on both a personal and a professional level. An excellent personal growth (personal development) book with the foundations of psychology at its core.
See also: Which books to read to become smarter and make better decisions
Featured image: Kathleen Ballard, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
