From lowering your stress to finding love, check out our list of self-help books we recommend to kickstart your 2024, and change your life for the better!
Self-help Books to Kickstart Your 2024
The 5 Resets
Dr. Aditi Nerurkar
Drawing on years of experience as a renowned Harvard doctor and nationally recognised stress expert, Dr. Aditi Nerurkar has developed a science-backed approach to help us change our relationship with everyday stress. This book teaches a mindset shift about stress through five simple yet powerful resets – pillars of wisdom that bring together physiological and psychological coping skills and enable you to cope when things get hard.
Upshift
Ben Ramalingam
From his role as a globally recognised change-maker at the likes of the United Nations, the International Red Cross and the World Bank, Ben Ramalingam has a unique vantage point from which to identify the key principles that can enable anyone to use stress as an opportunity for change. We learn how a switch in mentality helps musicians dazzle huge crowds against all odds; how astronauts focus on originality to overcome life-threatening incidents; and how discovering a sense of purpose allows emergency health workers and aid experts to deal with unprecedented crises.
The Art of Risk
Richard Harris
Why do deep-sea divers, free climbers, and big-wave surfers take the risks that they do? How do soldiers and firefighters manage risk? What can we learn from how they prepare and what they experience, what can we take into our own lives? The Art of Risk has important life lessons as well as gripping stories: Harris shows that in doing ‘the hard thing’, we become more resilient and courageous. Angela Duckworth’s Grit meets Alex Honnold film ‘Free Solo’.
8 Rules of Love
Jay Shetty
The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Think Like a Monk offers a revelatory guide to every stage of romance, drawing on ancient wisdom and new science. Nobody sits us down and teaches us how to love. So we’re often thrown into relationships with nothing but romance movies and pop culture to help us muddle through. Until now. Instead of presenting love as an ethereal concept or a collection of cliches, Jay Shetty lays out specific, actionable steps to help you develop the skills to practice and nurture love better than ever before. He shares insights on how to win or lose together, how to define love, and why you don’t break in a break-up. Inspired by Vedic wisdom and modern science, he tackles the entire relationship cycle, from first dates to moving in together to breaking up and starting over. And he shows us how to avoid falling for false promises and unfulfilling partners.
Living The Artist’s Way
Julia Cameron
Living The Artist’s Way is a Six-Week Artist’s Way Program that explores the fourth essential Artist’s Way tool of guidance. Bestselling author Julia Cameron has inspired millions through creative recovery with her essential tools including Morning Pages, Artist Dates, Walks, and now, Writing for Guidance. Through the practice of morning rituals and the faith of listening, Julia takes us further and shows how we can set the stage to receive guidance in both our lives and creative art.
All You Need Is Rhythm & Grit
Cory Wharton-Malcolm
Think running isn’t for you? Running coach Cory Wharton-Malcolm challenges this idea head-on with this joyful love letter to running and motivational guide for beginners. Advocating running as an inclusive and community-focused activity, Cory shows us how to celebrate the incredible mind-body connection by getting your trainers on and starting your running journey from the couch to the end of the road and beyond
Free Your Mind
Laura Dodsworth and Patrick Fagan
Free Your Mind is your field manual to surviving the information battlefield. In this indispensable book, Laura Dodsworth and Patrick Fagan draw on interviews with mind-control experts ranging from monks to magicians, infiltrate cults and forums to uncover their most deceptive techniques and expose the hidden tactics used to influence you, from social media to subliminal messages. Learn how to recognise the nudges, dispel efforts to brainwash you and always question those who say the choice is yours. If you don’t control your mind, someone else will.
The Art of Explanation
Ros Atkins
Explanation – identifying and communicating what we want to say – is an art. And the BBC presenter and journalist Ros Atkins, creator of the viral ‘Ros Atkins on…’ explainer videos, is something of a master of the form. In this book, Ros shares the secrets he has learned from years of working in high-pressure newsrooms, identifying the ten elements of a good explanation and the seven steps you need to take to express yourself with clarity and impact.
Team Habits
Charlie Gilkey
We all know how important our habits are for personal productivity, success and happiness. But the truth is that we rarely work alone: reaching our goals depends on how effectively we work with others, and teams have their own habits that can help – or hinder – success. Here, productivity and teamwork expert Charlie Gilkey shows how to cultivate, implement and maintain the small habits that lead to big results for any team. No matter our job title or role, we all influence the people we work with, and the culture that we create: how we schedule meetings is a team habit, as is the way we cc, bcc or Slack each other, communicate our availability, set our boundaries and structure our days. They can make the difference between teamwork that feels like a struggle, and collaboration that empowers everyone to deliver their best. Starting with the Team Habits Quiz, and full of clear, applicable takeaways on everything from communication to morale to creating a sense of belonging, this book is essential reading for anyone who works in a team and wants to get further, together.