Bee Your Very Best Self by Hip Heart

I’m on vacation this week & early next, & my clients are doing some Show & Tell! Today I have the lovely Caitlin Donohue, an avid reader and aspiring writer who blogs about her love of books and reading on her blog commonreaders, weighing in on why self-help books rock & which ones prove that point!

Self-help books tend to get a bad rap. I have friends who duck in and out of the self-help aisles in bookstores–not wanting to be caught actually looking for a book on those shelves. There’s a memorable scene from Sex and the City, when Charlotte is looking for a particular title in the self-help section and encounters a number of pathetic, sniffling people crying into their books. I think she leaves without purchasing the book-not wanting to associate herself with “those people”.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. I love self-help books and I don’t think anyone should be ashamed for reading them! The term itself is empowering: helping yourself. By reading these books you are taking steps to arm yourself with information and inspiration to make your life better. There is nothing pathetic about it. Lately, this type of books have begun to fall under the category of “personal development”, which is perhaps a trend to rebrand the genre.

Whether you are an avid self-help reader, or skeptical about the whole thing, I wanted to provide you with some books that have helped me and that might be useful to you. So here is a round-up of some of my favorites.

Career Related:

What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles. This is a classic. It’s updated every year, and is full of quizzes, charts, and tons of useful information. I found it helpful for finding clarity, but it can also be overwhelming. (Michelle’s note: I threw this book across the room after the 3rd or 4th exercise, never to be opened again. But one of my close friends found her next career through the exercises, so ya never know!)

The Renaissance Soul by Margaret Lobenstein. Michelle turned me onto this one and it is fabulous. It’s all about the concept of a person who can’t choose just one thing career. It’s inspirational and practical.

Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher. This is very similar to the previous book, but provides a bit more practical tools to managing a variety of interests, hobbies, and career interests. Sher has also written a number of other valuable career related books.

The Networking Survival Guide by Diane Darling. Good basic strategies for networking, especially to find a job.

Organization and Productivity:

Getting Things Done, Ready for Anything and Making it All Work by David Allen. David Allen is known as the productivity guru in some circles. His method, known as “GTD” is followed religiously by many, many people. It is a very interesting method and I learned some great skills by reading his book. The next two titles are follow-ups to the first, and expand on his concepts!

Never Check E-mail in the Morning by Julie Morgenstern. A great book about how to utilize the mornings for maximum productivity. It’s about a lot more than just e-mail. Morgenstern has also written a number of other great books on organizing.

The One-Minute Organizer by Donna Smallin. Full of quick, small tasks you can do to organize your life and home. Not too overwhelming, because you can do just a little bit at a time.

Creative Home Organizer by Emilie Barnes. This one is great for those who like checklists. It takes you through each realm in your home and life and provides you with tips to be more organized and prepared in each one.

The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. Quickly becoming a classic. Personally, this isn’t my favorite–it’s pretty radical. But it provides some really useful tools and tips to help you dramatically increase your productivity and eliminate time-wasters.

Organizing for the Creative Person by Dorothy Lemkuhl. This book is great for those who think out of the box and for whom traditional organizational methods don’t usually work well.

Fish for Life by John Christensen and Phillip Strand. This applies a business strategy to personal life. It’s written in narrative form and provides some interesting ideas for improving your personal life.

Creativity:

The Vision Board by Joyce Schwartz. Full of great pictures and ideas of how to use vision boards to express creativity and realize your dreams!

Living Artfully by Sandra Magsamen. This book is full of ideas and inspiration for living life more creatively. I love it because it broadens the idea of what it means to be creative and makes is completely accessible to anyone. It’s all about bringing more love and thoughtful attention to your life and your relationships.

GROW by Lynne Franks. This is geared toward women and provides inspiration for making connections in our lives!

The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women by Gail McMeekin. The author interviewed dozens of successful, creative women, and provides tools and tips that she found to come up over and over again in her interviews!

Art Journals and Creative Healing by Sharon Soneff. Beautiful images and ideas for creative journaling as an outlet for difficult and joyful times in our lives!

Spirituality:
The 4 Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. It seems a little out there at first, but I would highly recommend this book. It’s about 4 basic principles that the author believes will dramatically change your life. It sounds “hippy dippy” as Michelle might say, but they are simple and direct. One is “Always do your best.” But he talks about how your best is different at different times depending on your circumstances, health, energy, etc. It’s short, but very powerful.

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. A classic. It’s a 12-week course in creativity and spiritual awakening.

If the Buddha… by Charlotte Kasl. This is a series of books including If the Buddha Got Stuck and If the Buddha Dated. The author applies Buddhist principles to current modern dilemmas!

Healing Anger by the Dalai Lama and Peace is Every Step by Thich Nat Hahn. I have a hard time describing these last two. They are written by Buddhist masters. Both write about mindfulness and forgiveness. It is a very different way of thinking than many of us may be used to. I have found that regardless of your religions beliefs (or lack thereof), Buddhist writings can be very useful and very powerful!

(I realize now that my spirituality section is heavy on the Buddhist writings. Let me know if you want some others. Religious and spiritual books take up more than half of my bookshelf space, so I have a little bit of everything.)

A cautionary note:

Yes, I own all these books. I’ve read them all, too. You would think then, with all that collected wisdom, I’d have my act together. This is not entirely the case. Sometimes, I spend too much time reading and not enough time acting. So, while yes, these books are immensely useful, they do not do the work for you. It is a lesson I am still learning.

I have tons of other titles too on a variety of subjects, so please contact me if you are interested in more titles, or if you want to hear more about a book listed here. Until then, happy reading!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 15th, 2010 at 1:23 am and is filed under Career Actions Activated, Creative Career Charge, Creative Career Cheer, Encouragement for Everyone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.