Best self help book you’ve read which has made a significant impact to your wellbeing?

[SleepQuest33]

Wasn’t sure where to put this question.

i have the habit of buying books and not quite finishing them. I’m keen to find THE ONE (book that is).

there are so many out there, which one has made a difference to your life? I like the sound of Mel Robins’ Let Them.

thank you!

I really liked let them, and I also loved atomic habits.

Like them on audio books best 😊

I don’t ready self help books as such but was drawn to one called help me. It’s written by someone who tried a different method of self help each month for a year. It was really interesting and worth a read.

Atomic Habits and Eat that Frog, both on Audible plus the physical book to write in😱

Audible! That may be what I need. Also like the idea of having the physical book to make notes!

so Let Them sounds like a good choice, as well as Atomic Habits.

The confidence to be yourself really helped me when I’d left an abusive relationship and lost my sense or worth

I like Unfuck Yourself which is kind of stoicism-based

I also like Re-Regulated by Anna Runkle

And the Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters

Anything by Stuart Wilde. Also A Return To Love and The Power of Now (which I am now listening to on Audible having first read it 20 years ago).

They helped me through a terrible bereavement.

Funnily enough I just watched Davina’s podcast on YouTube with Dr Steve Peters and absolutely loved him!

@WeeBookworm Im a big fan of stoicism and anything by Ryan Holiday so that sounds right up my alley!

Sunbathing in the Rain by Gwyneth Lewis. Helped a lot when I was very depressed.

Hardwiring Happiness Rick Hanson

I've heard a lot of good things about Stuart Wilde. Where would I start with him?

I’m not depressed as such, Im more after self love, self confidence, self improvement

Boundaries (by Henri Cloud and Nouen??)

It was long ago and I don’t know if it has aged, but it changed my life.

Impacts my parenting, my relationships, my work.

Whose problem is this? Who needs to resolve it?

I would second all of these. I’ve just finished Let Them and found it repetitive , rather dull and poorly written. The basic principle could have been summed up in five pages but she has stretched it into a book.

I read the Money Bible first but not sure if it is still in print. It’s more about manifesting but also very positive generally. Any of his books are great.

Love the sound of that! Thank you.

Self help for your nerves by Claire Weekes

Absolutely life changing for anxiety, but written in the 70s.

I'm a therapist so read a lot of books, dont rate a huge amount of the new self help books. The Happiness Trap is good though.

That’s good to know! Thank you.

I agree, Let Them is really overrated.

Burnt Out by Selina Barker. When I was burnt out. Some of the end bits are a bit preachy and PC - but there was very good practical advice, particularly at first about resting.

Not quite a self-help book but I read one called Emotional Vampires which was revelatory about how to handle difficult people, which was transformative for me both at work and in personal relationships. I also recognised some traits of my own in one of the descriptions (passive aggressive) and put some work into changing my own behaviour.

Boundaries helps with this because you know when to care about someone else’s opinion. You work out your own motivation- not to please my mother, but because it’s what I want.

It helped me realise that while some bodies look better in some clothes, no one is obliged to look good for other people. If I like the way I look, it doesn’t matter if DM thinks it’s a weird outfit or my bum looks big from behind.

She spends hours on her appearance and is very critical of those who don’t. Her problem. Not mine. Her standard, not mine. Her opinion, not mine, not relevant.

Bertrand Russell: The Conquest of Happiness

No awful American therapy speak, just calm, sensible advice in crystal clear prose. It's fascinating to read a self-help book by one of the 20th-centuy's major philosophers.

I also find a lot of non self-help books helpful. Patrick Fermor, for example, and even Brian Blessed, write with such fearlessness and joy that they change the way you see the world. Evelyn Waugh, on the other hand, is so vicious and unsentimental, and yet so funny and stylish, that he also lifts me. Even Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That helps. Actually, great literature generally is better than self-help – give me Dickens and Jane Austen over some awful, whiny, self-obsessed Californian guru any day.

Happy high status by Viv Groskop
Destination fabulous by Anna Murphy

Thank you for all the recommendations and ideas! Im making a list and will look them up, will read one during my holidays!