12 Best Self Help Books That Everyone Should Read in Lifetime

I have to admit that it is not easy to shortlist some of the best self help books of all time. I feel self-help encompasses spirituality, financial, physical, relationships, Mindfulness, and many more areas of our lives.

7 years back, I was not to be a regular book reader. I used to read only fiction, novels, and my coursebook. One day when I was looking at my friend’s book collection, I got a book named ‘The Alchemist‘ by Paulo Coelho and he suggested me to read that self-help book.

First I didn’t have the idea about self-help books, what they are, how they help etc. etc. But when I completed that book I realized that I want to read more books like that.

Till then I have read more than 20 self-help books. Now whenever I go to a book store, I check the self-help section for sure.

Today I am excited to give you a list of top 12 self-help books that have made a great impact in my life. For each book on this list, I give my highest recommendation to you to read this year.

Here are the best self help books for you:

1. The Secret By Rhonda Byrne

The Secret is a best-selling 2006 self-help book by Rhonda Byrne, based on the belief of the law of attraction, which claims that thoughts can change a person’s life directly.

Byrne highlights the importance of gratitude and visualization in achieving one’s desires, along with alleged examples.

Later chapters describe how to improve one’s prosperity, relationships, and health, with more general thoughts about the universe.

The main important thing is how people manage their healthy life along with their whole family.

2. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment is a book by Eckhart Tolle. The book is intended to be a guide for day-to-day living and stresses the importance of living in the present moment and transcending thoughts of the past or future.

3. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari is a self-help book by Robin Sharma, a writer, and motivational speaker.

The book is a business fable derived from Sharma’s personal experiences after leaving his career as a litigation lawyer at the age of 25.

The book develops around two characters, Julian Mantle and his best friend John, in the form of conversation.

Julian narrates his spiritual experiences during a Himalayan journey which he undertook after selling his holiday home and red Ferrari.

4. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist is a novel by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. The Alchemist follows the journey of an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago.

Believing a recurring dream to be prophetic, he asks a Gypsy fortune teller in the nearby town about its meaning.

The woman interprets the dream as a prophecy telling the boy that he will discover a treasure at the Egyptian pyramids.

5. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

Rich Dad Poor Dad is written in the style of a set of parables, ostensibly based on Kiyosaki’s life.

It advocates the importance of financial literacy (financial education), financial independence and building wealth through investing in assets, real estate investing, starting and owning businesses, as well as increasing one’s financial intelligence (financial IQ) to improve one’s business and financial aptitude.

The titular “rich dad” is his friend’s father who accumulated wealth due to entrepreneurship and savvy investing, while the “poor dad” is claimed to be Kiyosaki’s own father who he says worked hard all his life but never obtained financial security.

No one has ever proven that Rich Dad, the man who supposedly gave Kiyosaki all his advice for wealthy living, ever existed.

6. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

Think and Grow Rich was written by Napoleon Hill and promoted as a personal development and self-improvement book.

The book asserts that desire, faith, and persistence can propel one to great heights if one can suppress negative thoughts and focus on long-term goals.

7. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Morrie Schwartz is a sociology professor at University who is diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Morrie’s final days are spent giving his former student Mitch his final lesson of life.

The novel is divided into 14 different “days” that Mitch Albom spent with his professor Morrie.

Throughout these days, Mitch and Morrie discuss various topics important to life and living. The novel also recounts Mitch’s memories of Morrie as a professor.

8. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

The book talks about the habit loop is a neurological pattern that governs any habit. It consists of three elements: a cue, a routine, and a reward.

Understanding these components can help in understanding how to change bad habits or form good ones.

9. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a self-help book written by Dale Carnegie. The core idea of the book is that you can change other people’s behavior simply by changing your own.

It teaches you the principles to better understand people, become a more likable person, improve relationships, win others over, and influence behavior through leadership.

10. The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent

The Power of Positive Thinking: A Practical Guide to Mastering the Problems of Everyday Living is a self-help book by Norman Vincent Peale.

It makes use of positive case histories and practical instructions to propose the method of positive thinking.

Peale’s work describes how to achieve a permanent and optimistic attitude through unending positive conscious thought, usually through affirmations or visualizations.

Peale writes that such techniques will give the reader a higher satisfaction and quality of life.

11. You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay

You Can Heal Your Life is a self-help book by Louise L. Hay. The key premise of the book is that because the mind and body are connected, illnesses of the body somehow have their root causes in emotional and spiritual aspects of the mind and its beliefs and thought processes.

While modern medicine concerns itself with eliminating symptoms of disease in the body, using tools such as chemotherapy and other pharmaceutical drugs and various surgical techniques, Hay’s approach is to identify and work to resolve what she perceives as the mental root causes of disease.

Hay believes that the causes of “dis-ease” include stress and unhealthy thought patterns and beliefs about oneself, and postulates that the most fundamental way to affect positive change in the body is to change the way we think, using tools such as “mirror work” and affirmations.

12. The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

The Five Love Languages is a book by Gary Chapman. It outlines five ways to express and experience love between romantic partners that Chapman calls “love languages.” Chapman suggests that to discover another person’s love language, one must observe the way they express love to others, and analyze what they complain about most often and what they request from their significant other most often.

He theorizes that people tend to naturally give love in the way that they prefer to receive love, and better communication between couples can be accomplished when one can demonstrate caring to the other person in the love language the recipient understands.

If reading is not your regular habit or you have failed many times to adopt it in your habit, don’t worry. These handpicked famous book quotes will inspire you.

Which is your favorite self-help book that has changed your life? Feel free to share it with me in the comments section below.