Top 20 Personal Growth Books

Human rights, universal and inalienable, refer to those instrumental conditions that allow the person to achieve personal fulfillment. This term includes those freedoms, powers, needs, institutions and other constructs related to basic primary goods. In other words, and although it sounds redundant, the human being has the right to be happy.

Personal growth and development are essential for long-term happiness, as they drive the refinement of personal skills and one's own potentials. This translates into well-being with oneself (self-awareness), ease of relating to others (emotional intelligence) and the ability to carry out complex tasks (perseverance). All of this has long-term benefits, but also self-esteem and a better ability to resolve conflicts in the moment.

Personal growth is essential for personal development, but as they say, we are not born learned. Therefore, this time we present you the best personal growth books. With them, you will learn in one way or another to detect your strengths and weaknesses: once you know yourself, you can begin to build the foundations of what you want to become.

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Recommended personal growth books

Here are 20 books that have caught our attention in one way or another in the field of personal growth. From the development of emotional intelligence to combating cognitive biases, among these pages you will find a series of vital keys to improve as a person.

1. Emotional intelligence, Daniel Goleman

The first step to grow as an individual is always to learn to understand others and act accordingly to what is expected of yourself. Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to this ability to recognize one's own emotions and those of others, discriminate between feelings and learn to categorize them and, finally, use all these concepts to guide thought and behavior own.

The popularization and establishment of this term is due to the work that we teach you here. Among its pages you can find the bases of the theories of emotional intelligence (EI) and you will reflect on its neurological bases and social importance. Without a doubt, a classic of modern psychology.

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2. Emotional intelligence 2.0: strategies to know and increase your coefficient

Goleman's book is essential to laying the foundation for IE, but you also have to learn how to put it into practice. This work collects this idea and presents you with 66 proposals to improve emotional intelligence, in the areas of self-knowledge, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.

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3. Emotional intelligence in the company, Daniel Goleman

If what you are looking for is to learn to manage your emotions in the workplace and become a good leader, this is your book. In it, personal growth is focused on business emotional intelligence, a social field limited to its own needs and guidelines. If you want to be a good company boss, this reading is mandatory.

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4. FACTFULNESS: Ten Reasons We Are Wrong About The World And Why Things Are Better Than You Think, Hans Rosling

To channel personal growth on the right track, it is necessary to recognize that the negativity bias is present in every corner of our reasoning. Perhaps the product of an evolutionary mechanism, faced with two events of equal intensity, we always look at the one that is negative versus positive or neutral.

Hans Rosling shows us, with statistics and objective facts, how negative bias upsets our perception of reality and pulls us down as individuals. Nothing is as bad as you think, and this play will show you why.

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• You may be interested in: "Personal Development: 5 reasons for self-reflection"

5. The book that your brain does not want to read: How to re-educate the brain to be happier and live fully, David del Rosario

Re-educating the brain is possible, and psychological approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy are based on this premise: everything that is learned can be unlearned, as long as the causes of the previous impositions are known. In this work, David del Rosario (researcher and scientific communicator) turns neuroscience into a transformation tool that teaches you to be happy based on neuroscience.

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6. Think fast, think slow, Daniel Kahneman

In this work, Daniel Kahneman (Author) represents 2 different systems, which model how we human beings think in a general way. Special emphasis is placed on the dichotomies between fast and slow thinking, and the immense amount of biases that affect the process of the former.

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7. Your wrong zones, Wayne W. Dyer

One of the most widely read self-help books in the world, said soon. This work postulates the following idea, as groundbreaking as it is essential to know: if you are dominated by dissatisfaction, guilt and complex, do not project on others. Both the cause of these sensations and the engine of change are in you. If you discover the "wrong zones" that prevent you from moving forward, you can tackle them and begin the path of personal growth.

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8. A new world now, Eckhart Tolle

A cult work in the field of spiritual literature. In it, the concept of the role of consciousness, identified with the ego itself, is put to the test. that it should become the instrument of a different and deeper understanding of who are. To grow as people and society, the conception of oneself and of what surrounds us must change.

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9. The Pathology of Normality, Erich Fromm

A brutal critique of the concept that current capitalism and society have made of "normal" and ethically accepted man. We are the process of our socioeconomic situation, an essential idea that we must take into account if we want to grow as people: unfortunately, the current functioning of the economic regime is detrimental to mental preservation individual.

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• You may be interested in: "Erich Fromm: biography of the father of humanist psychoanalysis"

10. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle

Another of the works that conceive growth as a more holistic whole at a spiritual level. With more than 5 million sales worldwide, the author already quoted in another book on this list has shown that many readers are interested in approaching their personal growth from a more internal point of view, their own and ethereal.

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11. Lead yourself: PHASE method, the definitive method to be more productive, Agustín Peralt

Personal growth is not only based on achieving spiritual peace with oneself, since productivity also plays an essential role in what we think of as “success”. In this work the bases of the PHASE method are explained, a series of techniques focused on productivity and use of time. According to the author himself, with this methodology it is possible to increase production by 30%.

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12. The Power of Habits: Why We Do What We Do in Life and at Work, Charles Duhigg

Understanding the way in which habits work on a psychological level is the first step to carry them out and not fail in a routine. This work will introduce you a series of methods so as not to fail when putting your habits into practice and, therefore, grow in the area you want at each specific moment.

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13. I think too much, Christel Petitcollin

Rumination and cyclical thinking prevent personal growth. Memories of mistakes and ramblings keep us anchored in the past, so they don't allow us to look to the future. For those hyperstimulated and over-thinking minds, this book is ideal, as it offers a mechanics and piloting course for super-efficient brains.

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14. Wake up, Anthony de Mello

Again, we return to works that try to focus personal growth on spiritual development. To be a better and more efficient person, we must connect with our "spiritual self", which It will allow us to stop being at the mercy of circumstances and take control of our own existence.

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15. Educating with emotional intelligence: How to make our children sociable, happy and responsible, Steven E./Friedl Elias, Maurice J./Tobias

Personal growth begins from childhood. The more emotional tools a person acquires in her development, the more likely it is that he can apply them and develop in the best possible way. This work places special emphasis on emotional intelligence in children.

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16. Introduction to psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud

You might be surprised to see this eminence in the field of psychology on this list, right? In reality, many think that to achieve personal growth it is necessary to master those tendencies, fears and repressions that populate our subconscious. If we bring out everything that we do not know that limits us, we can master it and expand our self-awareness beyond the superficial.

Without a doubt, an essential work for anyone interested in the field of human psychology.

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17. Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Sigmund Freud

Another of the works focused on the study of psychoanalysis, in this case applying the bases in daily events. We assure you that many of your most anodyne behaviors will be reflected in these lines.

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18. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Deepak Chopra

A completely different approach to achieving personal growth. In this work, it is argued that development is obtained from the knowledge and learning of living in harmony with natural laws. According to the author, this balance brings to the lives of those who seek it a fluid flow of happiness and abundance.

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19. Self Control, Kelly McGonigal

To grow as people, we must be aware of our impulses and learn to control them, not letting ourselves be carried away by our emotions or falling into cyclical consumerism. According to the author, willpower is a biological function that can be improved through aspects ranging from nutrition to sleep or presence. Here you will learn to take control of your impulses.

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20. Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Development, Anthony Robbins

"Life will pay whatever price you ask." Under this maxim, Anthony Robbins comes to tell us that the failure in personal growth does not lie in the circumstances, but in our own vital attitude. This work tries to show us the true hidden power of the brain and how to channel it in the best possible way.

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What do you think? From humanism to emotional intelligence, through negativity biases, impulse control, spirituality and psychopathology, here we have presented you works that explore personal growth from various approaches. Surely one of them is for you: go to the nearest library or sales portal and start your path towards personal improvement.