Since I can remember, I’ve sought out new knowledge in the areas of personal and spiritual growth.
To find this knowledge, I turned to books. I’ve read a lot of them over the years. Many of them had no more than maybe one or two good “tips” that I felt were valuable enough to retain in my life.
But a small number were impactful enough that I couldn’t give them away, so I kept them.
Here, I share five of my favorite books that have to do with personal growth and finding meaning in life.
5 Recommended Books About Personal and Spiritual Growth
1. Pulling Your Own Strings
by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
I loved listening to Wayne Dyer speak whenever PBS hosted him, and miss his helpful stories and reminders now that he’s passed.
I didn’t read this book until long after he had published it, but it’s a timeless one that is helpful for anyone who wants to improve their ability to deal with other people. (Isn’t that all of us?)
Dyer addresses all kinds of relationships, including those with your work colleagues, family, authority figures, and even yourself.
Favorite Quote:
“When you begin to develop your self-confidence, you will stop expecting everyone to want to hear your stories, as well as find solitude more acceptable. Your privacy is a very important part of your life, and it is necessary for your own sense of well-being.
Wanting to have everyone understand and share everything you think, feel, say, and do is a self-victimizing attitude. Additionally, not feeling a need to be understood, and keeping some things private, are ways of avoiding being pulled around by other people.”
Synopsis:
Wayne Dyer reveals how we all can prevent ourselves from being victimized by others and begin to operate from a position of power at the center of our own lives.
Asserting that we alone are responsible for how much we will be controlled by others, Dyer offers his practical plan for developing new attitudes toward the most common sources of victimization and manipulation, such as family members and authority figures in the workplace.
For example, families can be tremendously coercive and demanding. But they can also be an immensely rewarding part of your life. Dyer shows how to cope with the negative side and contribute to the positive.
In their working life, many people stay in unfulfilling jobs because they feel constrained by their present experience or because they fear change. Dyer shows that by being enthusiastic and flexible, you can find the work to be happy. Life, Dyer says, is a beautiful thing as long as you hold the strings.
2. Emotional Intelligence
by Daniel Goleman
This book was a total eye-opener for me.
Before reading it, I had been led to believe that there was only one type of intelligence—that measured in IQ tests.
This book opened up a whole other type of intelligence to me—emotional intelligence.
Right away I could identify people in my life who would have scored high on these tests; people who knew how to manage other people, who were good at putting people at ease, and who succeeded in life because of those abilities. I wanted to be more like them.
I also thought after reading it that we are doing our kids a great disservice by not teaching these sorts of skills in school along with all the typical academic skills.
After all, as my dad used to say, the only ones we have to live with are other people! Learning more about your own emotions, others’ emotions, and how to better manage both is necessary if you want to do well in life.
Favorite Quote:
“There is an old-fashioned word for the body of skills that emotional intelligence represents: character….If character development is a foundation of democratic societies, consider some of the ways emotional intelligence buttresses this foundation.
The bedrock of character is self-discipline; the virtuous life, as philosophers since Aristotle have observed, is based on self-control. A related keystone of character is being able to motivate and guide oneself, whether in doing homework, finishing a job, or getting up in the morning. And…the ability to defer gratification and to control and channel one’s urges to act is a basic emotional skill, one that in a former day was called will…
Being able to put aside one’s self-centered focus and impulses has social benefits: it opens the way to empathy, to real listening, to taking another person’s perspective….These capacities are ever more called on in our increasingly pluralistic society, allowing people to live together in mutual respect and creating the possibility of productive public discourse. These are basic arts of democracy.”
Synopsis:
Did you know that people with higher emotional intelligence tend to naturally cooperate better with their colleagues?
This is because they are more ahead in their communication’s game unlike others. They are not only easily capable of sharing their ideas with the rest of the group, but they are also able to hear, and most importantly, listen to what their team has to say…
It does not really matter what your vocation or craft is. Emotional Intelligence is a skill that translates in all spheres of life…
Going through these pages you will:
- Understand How Emotional Intelligence can help you make a positive impact both at work and in your personal life
- Learn Which Are The Core Emotions and learn how to read other people
- Be Able to Better Define Your Personal Values and never stress out when making a decision or approaching a particular situation
- Find Out How To Influence Others and get what you want without looking like a manipulative person
- Build Meaningful and Lasting Relationships based on mutual respect, empathy, and trust
Getting a diploma or graduating from university has its start and end date, but…
Knowing yourself and mastering your emotions takes a lifetime. The return of investment, however, to put it mildly, will be priceless.
3. Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself
by Osho
Becoming a fully mature adult isn’t easy, but it’s certainly a goal worth aspiring to and something I think we could use more of in today’s world!
This book talks talks about the value of becoming fully mature as we age, so that our wisdom and behavior match our years.
It also covers the benefits of aging and how we can age gracefully, helping us to appreciate rather than bemoan our age.
Favorite Quote:
“A mature person never commits the same mistake again. But a person who is just old goes on committing the same mistakes again and again. He lives in a circle, he never learns anything.”
Synopsis:
In a culture infatuated with youth and determined to avoid old age at all costs, this book dares to raise a question that has been all but forgotten in the age of Viagra and cosmetic surgery. What benefits might lie in accepting the aging process as natural, rather than trying to hold on to youth and its pleasures all the way to the grave?
Osho takes us back to the roots of what it means to grow up rather than just to grow old. Both in our relationships with others, and in the fulfillment of our own individual destinies, he reminds us of the pleasures that only true maturity can bring. He outlines the ten major growth cycles in human life, from the self-centered universe of the preschooler to the flowering of wisdom and compassion in old age.
Osho’s sly sense of humor runs like a red thread through the book, along with a profound compassion and understanding of how easy it is to be distracted from the deeper meaning and purpose of our lives—which is, ultimately, to flower into our own individual uniqueness and maturity with an attitude of celebration and joy.
4. I Know I’m In There Somewhere
A Woman’s Guide to Finding Her Inner Voice and Living a Life of Authenticity
by Helene G. Brenner, Ph.D.
We are all bombarded by many voices in our lives. Those coming from our families, friends, workplaces, communities, and societies often drown out our own inner voices, setting us up for a sort of inner civil war.
This book helped me to trust my inner voice more and to do a better job of listening to it and following its guidance.
Favorite Quote:
“Knowing who you are and what is true for you, and being able to say and act from what you know, is the first pathway to living from your inner voice. Unfortunately, many of us grew up learning that it wasn’t okay to be smart or to show what we know. We learned to act tentative and measured in the way we speak about our knowledge. In many situations, we simply don’t speak at all.”
Synopsis:
Based on her work with over a thousand women across the country, psychologist Helene G. Brenner has learned that women feel the impulse to accommodate, adapt and mold themselves to serve others at their own expense.
Her solution is an invigorating new approach to women’s psychology. The key to transformation, she explains, is not self-improvement, but self-acceptance—affirming and validating what we truly feel and experience and who we already are.
Dr. Brenner shows women how to discover and express what they truly want and value, guiding you toward your own Inner Voice. I Know I’m In There Somewhere will show you:
- How to embrace, rather than fix, the Inner Voice that has been there all along
- How to distinguish the Outer Voices (the expectations of the people around you) from Your Inner Voice (the voice of your true self that goes beyond intuition and guides you wisely towards what is right for you)
- What to do when you feel that the essence of who you are is being stifled by external demands and expectations
5. Man’s Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl
I don’t know if there is any story more powerful than that of a Nazi death camp survivor having the presence of mind to observe what he saw and experienced and go on to create one of the most influential books of all time.
I read this about the same time I was reading Eric Maisel’s books on creativity, particularly his works on finding creative meaning.
I don’t remember what brought me to this book, but it changed my outlook on meaning. For according to Frankl, man’s primary motivational force is his search for meaning.
Favorite Quote:
“Then I spoke of the many opportunities of giving life a meaning. I told my comrades (who lay motionless, although occasionally a sigh could be heard) that human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death.
I asked the poor creatures who listened to me attentively in the darkness of the hut to face up to the seriousness of our position. They must not lose hope but should keep their courage in the certainty that the hopelessness of our struggle did not detract from its dignity and its meaning.
I said that someone looks down on each of us in difficult hours—a friend, a wife, somebody alive or dead, or a God—and he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly—not miserably—knowing how to die.”
Synopsis:
This seminal book, which has been called “one of the outstanding contributions to psychological thought” by Carl Rogers and “one of the great books of our time” by Harold Kushner, has been translated into more than fifty languages and sold over sixteen million copies.
“An enduring work of survival literature,” according to the New York Times, Viktor Frankl’s riveting account of his time in the Nazi concentration camps, and his insightful exploration of the human will to find meaning in spite of the worst adversity, has offered solace and guidance to generations of readers since it was first published in 1946.
At the heart of Frankl’s theory of logotherapy (from the Greek word for “meaning”) is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but rather the discovery and pursuit of what the individual finds meaningful.
Today, as new generations face new challenges and an ever more complex and uncertain world, Frankl’s classic work continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living, in spite of all obstacles.