46 Best Self-Empowering Books To Read in These Turbulent Times

It gave me an insight into the Stoic Philosphy and the dangers of Self-Help books can have on us when things inevitably don’t work out perfectly. The book empowered me to try new projects like my blog and not be too hard on myself when things don’t work out exactly how I want them too.

For anyone looking to start with a book that doesn’t go straight into the deep end, I would suggest ‘It’s all in your head’. It’s a breakdown of real life lessons from the point of view of Russ, an artist looking to navigate the music industry and keep his head above the water. The best thing is it isn’t preachy in nature, and it’s really easy to apply the lessons from the book to your specific situation e.g. if you’re struggling with self doubt when growing a business (certainly something I struggle with on a daily basis).

To find the success you are looking for, you must first cultivate your self-belief. This is what you would learn in finding this book. According to Schwartz, successful people aren’t more talented or deserving than other people. We are all equal. Such people thrive because they have the drive and confidence powered by their self-belief.

I recommend this read to anyone that wants to get their financial life in order. It educates readers on how to identify self-employment opportunities, sourcing for investment capital, learning from mistakes, and more importantly, how to multiply their wealth.

In this book, Elizabeth draws on her past experiences, many of which are relatable to 30+ something year old women. On reading the book, not only did I learn to be less hard on myself for my so called ‘failures’, I found myself empowered, uplifted and motivated to view my challenges as learning opportunities and draw on my past experiences as fuel.

Shonda Rhimes is an absolute powerhouse when it comes to her roles as the creator, producer, and screenwriter of blockbuster television shows such as Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal. But what most people don’t know about this amazingly talented African American woman, is that she is painfully shy and hated the spotlight shining on her as a result of her success. In her book Year of Yes, she documents her struggles to overcome these limitations by saying yes to any invitations that come her way for an entire year. Her sincere honesty turns you into her biggest cheeleader as you flip each page, and you start to develop your own confidence and empowerment right along with her.

You can have more joy, less fear, and a brighter future in the era of the internet. In Happiness is an Option, you will learn four simple shifts that will allow you to thrive in these chaotic times, and better yet, why now is the time to usher in a new era! The division and outrage that grips society needs to yield to something that has served us since humans first walked the earth: discovery. We can rediscover what we all have in common and recognize how our differences can actually serve us. We can change the negative dialogue about the world around us, and with that, what’s possible in our future. Through remarkable life experiences, Dr. Lynda has learned how we can see ourselves, not as the victims of the internet’s chaos but as the solution, if we understand one fundamental secret of the web. The book released 9/1 and topped 26 Amazon categories including Happiness, Internet Culture, and Media Studies

As a shy and introverted person, I had long felt insecure about the fact that I get nervous around people, and chastised myself for my lack of charm and social grace. When I stumbled on this book by Olivia Fox Cabane, I got that rush of excitement that only seems to come when you’ve finally found the answer to a question you’ve been agonizing over. Cabane takes the scientific approach to dispel the myth that some people are just naturally charismatic, and only those lucky few will ever experience charisma. She examines what traits, characteristics and behaviors people associate with charisma and – crucially – offers science-backed ways you can develop them. It’s a great read, and one that helped me both improve my people skills, and feel better about not being a natural.

This book changed my life. It can be a very difficult read if you are not quite ready yet to accept the mind shift, but if you get it, wow! I have implemented most of the philosophies into my own life, in my own way and it has made such a difference. I also like this book because it is something that grows with you. Each time you read it, you have some kind of A-HA moment and thus is the gift that keeps on giving. I can thoroughly recommend it.

Before reading this book, you need to have an open mind about certain moralities as this book is a bit on the gray area. However, this book is informative on how to use your power responsibly and how to benefit from them. It can also teach you to recognize veiled power-tripping and how to guard yourself against someone who abuses power. This book tells stories about power, and it has a rich collection of historical anecdotes that you can get life lessons from. If you read it from a positive perspective without any thought of harming another person, you can surely wield this power and knowledge to make a difference in your life. Whether you are a fan of Sun-Tzu, Caesar, Goethe, and even Machiavelli, this interesting, no holds barred book is an excellent read.

If you think that you can be more efficient, yet you don’t know where to begin, reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a great way to start. Author Stephen R. Covey masterfully details how to become efficient and successful when working towards your goals. Of course, this is not a magical book that will solve all your problems and make your dreams come true. You need to be 100% committed and prepared to undergo a paradigm shift where you are resolved to change on a fundamental level. This book will change how you look at your life and how you see the world. Covey has written an empowering and a real eye-opener piece with this book. You can find overflowing wisdom and tips on how to change for the better on its pages. This book is a must-read for those who want to learn more about themselves and how to make a difference.

For those who are struggling with financial literacy, then reading Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad is a great way to start the journey. This book offers sound and realistic advice on how you can live better by handling your personal finances properly. This book uses creative storytelling by introducing two characters, the poor dad and rich dad. Both characters have a different perspective and have their own financial principles. This book is a good book on finances that won’t bore you to death. It is fun to read and very informative and gives advice and doable solutions that provide results.

Everybody has dealt with the temptation to procrastinate. It is a destructive human behavior that is a common struggle for almost anyone. This habit is commonly due to being overwhelmed by workload and feeling unsure as to where to start. If you often feel like this, then Brian Tracy’s Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time is an excellent book to read. This book advises on how to tackle big problems and helps with setting your priorities. It is not just about pointing out what not to do, but it motivates you to do the right thing. It is a positive and empowering book that talks to you and not at you. Brian Tracy did a marvelous job of digging deeper into why people procrastinate and how to fight its temptation. This book encourages you to be a better person and teaches you how to do it.

Dale Carnegie is a house-hold name and an excellent writer who made a name for himself in writing motivational self-help books. His works have stood against the test of time, and have provided amazing value for those who have read his books. His How to Win Friends and Influence People is definitely one of his best and most celebrated works. This classic book is amazing for introverts and those who struggle with their communication skills. Remember, communication is the key to improving your relationship with your friends and colleagues. So if you are having a hard time expressing yourself or finding the right thing to say, this book will definitely help you be a more confident communicator in the future.

I am recommending this book because it shows how to survive and thrive after being involved in different relationships. This book will have the reader, laughing, crying, and inspired. Surviving Broken Promises covers the life of Cassandra, a sixteen year old black female, up through the age of thirty-three. Cassandra’s character starts off young and naïve but she eventually progresses into a very intelligent woman. It tells how her life was drastically changed due to broken promises of boys and then men. Cassandra survived, endured and prospered through being a teenage mother, a battered wife, adultery, being the other woman, an inter-racial relationship and mental illness. One teen read this book and her mother, a doctor, was quoted in a newspaper stating that her daughter finally got what she had been trying to tell her and she felt inspired after reading it.

Battling negativity is a serious roadblock to achieving personal empowerment. This is especially during our devastating COVID-19 pandemic. The book, “Erase Negativity and Embrace the Magic Within” provides a way to help individuals to reduce their negativity and become happier. A practical guide on how to reduce negativity and embrace happiness. From meth addicts to multi-millionaires, the book offers powerful experiences of individuals who have faced dramatic challenges, but did not lose hope. Using these compelling biographies, as well as practical advice and simple exercises, the reader is guided on an internal journey toward adopting a more joyful way to live.

We are in a pandemic, a time where people are looking for inspiration and motivation as well as be empowered to pivot and move positively in the direction of a new and better normal. This book gives 10 tips or strategies that can be used immediately to take action action and live a more intentionally happy and satisfying life. Fear of making big changes often scares us and keeps us where we don’t want to be. Taking small, doable steps can help create happiness habits that last a lifetime.

I recommend De-Escalate: How to Calm an Angry Person in 90 Seconds or Less. This is my fourth book, now in its second printing, published in 4 languages, and has 120 Amazon reviews (over 70% are 5-star). I describe a powerful set of tools I have developed that can calm any angry child or adult almost instantly. The techniques are based neuroscience, not fake psychology. WARNING: These ideas and skills are very powerful and counter-intuitive to what you think you know about listening. Be prepared for a major mental shift about what your assumptions of human nature. If you want to be empowered to deal with anger, upset, political polarization, and strong emotions, this book is for you.

It is a book full of stories about people who set some big goals andachieved them. It is very motivational and inspiring. The book has 13 chaptersfull of positive ideas. Teaches the reader how to think big, how to thinkcreatively, how to cure themselves of the failure disease, how to believe inthemselves, and increase their attitude.

The author presents ten simple ways to get rid of stress indifficult times. Her ideas are unique, full of humor, and help the reader tolive life smiling and happy. Here are two of the ideas: create a song andsing about what you find annoying, create your own Sienfield comedy to accept easierthe difficult people.

The Courage To Succeed Success Secrets ofan Unlikely Four-Time Olympian by Ruben Gonzales. This is an autobiographicbook of sport man and his road to success.

This book is an excellent guide to shutting your brain noise. We let our brains run us mad most of the time, and never really stop to enjoy the space we are in. Always dwelling over the past, or fretting about the future. This book points out that the future is 100% unpredictable (so stop making up stories about what is going to happen when you have absolutely NO IDEA) and to stop worrying about the past because no amount of energy devoted to the past will change it. Instead, be in the now; be present – enjoy what you have right in front of you. Experience it, because in one second it is gone, and you will never have the chance to enjoy it again.

If fear of life, work, sex gets the best of you. You are a badass by Jen Sincero helps readers go beyond that fear. The engaging end-of-chapter exercises. sets this self-help book apart from the countless others that have tried to dispel fear and loathing. The book talks a lot about the ego and how to separate yourself from it. Once you begin to free yourself from that weight of expectation or need then you can start living your best life. The exercises are genuinely helpful and not some kind of high school burn bin wizardry. This book helps you view your life from different perspectives giving you a well rounded and much more empowered version of yourself.

This self help book will empower you into realising that it’s the reader who holds the key to their own happiness and wellbeing. It will help you recognise and achieve your true happiness. It is an easy to read book, but the words are profound and will stick with you for a really long time. This book will give you the skills to look at the world from a completely different view.

This book will provide you with enough willpower to master all the things you would like to change or strengthen and it will also give you the confidence so that nothing will stand in the way of your fulfilment. This book also has a section on health eating too, so it’s really a two for one book. Bargain!

This self help book is one of several from the collection by Thibaut Meurisse. These books will help empower you into realising your own potential and help you reach a higher level of achievement. This one book in particular has really impacted my life for the better. It has opened my mind and helped me to realise that I am not the only one who benefits from my change; my positive change will help those I am around too.

This book is fantastic and a must read for everyone. It helps you realize what is holding you back from your true potential. We all know how to love somebody, but we don’t know how to love and value ourselves fully. This book isn’t the easiest to get into, but after a few pages I was hooked. This insightful book is liberating and packed full of wisdom.

This book written by Martin Luther King Jr. is an absolutely fantastic read and one of the most important and influential books ever written. The information given isn’t at all sugar coated and tells the truth of what happened to enforce the Civil Rights movement. The fact that this contains a letter written from when Martin Luther King Jr. was in Birmingham Jail is honestly brutal and haunting and really shows the importance of that time. It’s quite hard to read at times, knowing the struggle, and I think it’s worse in the present knowing what eventually happened to Martin Luther King Jr., but in the same sense it is empowering as it makes you want to be active and help make a change.

With Winning In Mind by Lanny Bassham is my favorite self-empowering book to read. This book should be required reading for athletes, entrepreneurs, business people, and anyone else who wants to win in life. Lanny Bassham breaks down his process for achieving winning results. These are the same techniques that Lanny developed to win a gold medal in the 1976 sommer Olympics. Lanny’s mental system teaches the proper mental approach to reprogram your brain to perform at a high level when the pressure is on, and success is critical. With Winning In Mind is an easy to read book that provides examples that can be implemented over time for greater success, happiness, and performance. Read this book to learn how to set goals and improve your performance through self-discipline.

Published by Charisma House, Goodbye, Yesterday! not only gives readers the tools to reshape their future, but it also shows them how to reframe the narrative of their past. While they can’t change the past, Dr. Trimm shows readers how to recreate the vision they hold of their past experiences. She identifies the key ingredients as shifting your perspective, particularly how you see your past, and changing the story you tell. She also shares the powerful steps required to reset your mind and renegotiate your future. Dr. Trimm breaks down the meaning and roles of transition in our lives, including loss, grief and crisis, and how they can be used as a catalyst rather than hinderance, in life. Goodbye, Yesterday! motivates readers to see opportunity in every circumstance and embrace transitions as they often lead to expansion. Goodbye, Yesterday! discusses the significance of time and shows the reader how to make an impact with only a fraction of a second. This book enables readers to reestablish their dominion in a world of chaos, redefine their destiny, and realize their full potential. Goodbye, Yesterday! is the guidebook for the new decade, empowering readers and giving them the tools & power to close the door on yesterday, maximize their present and future, and change the trajectory of their lives.

This read goes far beyond its title. “Rest” has empowered me to use time to my advantage as opposed to drowning in it. I have always been an “on the go” kind of person. This type of person is featured in advertising, praised at work, and appears in our favorite films. This type of person is also exhausted and, in my case, unhappy. Pang’s book opened my eyes to the idea that rest has nothing to do with laziness. I’ve heard this a million times before, but this book was the click. Turns out that for me rest did not mean to sit on a couch, or take a nap. For me, rest meant to put my phone on silent, and draw for an hour. It meant to take 15 minutes a day to practice Spanish. It meant to do 20 minutes of yoga before breakfast. No emails, no dishes, no talking. Just working on myself. Since I’ve read this book over 2 years ago, I’ve changed the way I do things, and for the first time in a long time, I am happy with where I am at. I am healthier and I have more work regardless a world pandemic. I am in a new relationship where my partner respects me as much as I respect myself. I am still the sought out professional I’ve worked so hard to be, expect now I smile more.

There is nothing any of us can do during our lifetime that is more impossible than just being alive – there is no failure once life has been achieved – once I figured that out – I stopped complaining and started to enjoy every moment – failure is imposed on us from outside – it can be used for motivation or completely ignored – operating this human machine is the most wondrous thing we could ever hope for – when you consider the millions of things happening in our bodies right now to keep us alive – truly nothing else matters. Step to a Happy LIfe explains how the human body is the most amazing machine in all the universe and that once life has been achieved there is no failure. The book continues with DRAMA INSURANCE. The book explains how to deal with most dramas that a human may experience in their day to day life. If you know what to do before drama shows up then drama is nor drama it’s just entertainment.

The Law of Creation is a self-empowerment resource/tool many readers are calling a Creator’s Manual. It is a unique, comprehensive book thatdemonstrates the Physics and Science behind the power of Manifestation. Based on 18 Universal Laws, The Law of Creation clearly and methodically explains how moving from negative thoughts to affirmative living, removes any limits and ‘reboots the mind’ for greater success, joy and happiness.

Home improvement projects have disempowered homeowners for generations. In fact, home improvement projects consistently rank in the Top 3 Consumer Complaints nationwide – for decades now. Grace’s book is a phenomenal, accessible guide to empower homeowners to tackle home improvement projects. Grace struggled with her own rollercoaster home improvement scenario, where she felt undermined by a demeaning and unethical contractor. She realized so many homeowners deal with this same thing. The reality is that home improvement projects aren’t just a physical task – they’re an emotional issue for the homeowner – and people are consistently feeling disempowered through this process. Grace enables homeowners to take home renovation projects into their own hands, and it works wonders – she has received so many testimonials from readers who finally feel in control of their home – and their life. For couples, it’s even a fantastic way to strengthen the relationship, because you’re literally building a life together. With COVID-19, many people are redirecting their wedding or travel budgets into home improvement – Grace’s book makes that process as smooth as possible, helping people find control during a time where many of us feel like we’ve lost it.

Chances are school didn’t teach you about personal finances, let alone how to run a business. If you’re tired of slaving away in your business in the hopes that you will “make it” one day, this is the book for you. Mike Michalowicz quickly cuts through the crap such as the “investing to grow the business” myth. Step-by-step he provides a roadmap as to how to turn your business around and turn it into a profit making machine. Best of all, once you’ve implemented all the principles a massive weight is lifted off your shoulders and you finally get to enjoy the life you want and deserve. Try it!

Mitch Williams’ book, A Call to Magic, takes readers on a journey of magic and inspiration and explores practical suggestions on how to bring real magic into everyday life. But it also goes beyond the normal self-improvement range where most self-help books stop, and expands its scope to include potent ways of making a difference in the world around us. Williams makes a potent argument for how transforming ourselves can be the beginning of positive transformation in the world.

Don’t let the title fool you; this isn’t just a business book. It has many actionable steps that we can use in everyday life. One of the things I have struggled with for a majority of my life is feeling like I need to push myself to be an extrovert in certain situations and then feeling depleted afterward. This book forces you to be honest with yourself about how you respond to certain situations and gives helpful tips about how to overcome those fears. I recommend reading it even if you aren’t an introvert. It will help you to better understand and relate to your friends and colleagues who are.

The Balance Of Life is a self-care book that allows the reader to look within themselves to make The Balance Of Life, The Happy Quotient: ositive changes to enhance the reader’s life. No one said that life would be easy and while we cannot control other people, we have the power to change ourselves. These changes improve our self-esteem and allows us to become a role model for our family and our community that God created for us.

What do you think of when you picture self-care? Images of bubble baths and lit candles most likely come to mind, but have you ever stopped to think about how you can practice self-care for your soul? If you don’t know where to start, luckily Becca Anderson has you covered. In her book “Badass Affirmations” Becca provides pages and pages of daily affirmations and quotes from incredible women to inspire you to take the necessary steps to being the best you that you can be.

We’ve all heard the famous quote, “well behaved women seldom make history” and Becca Anderson’s “Badass Women Give the Best Advice” completely embodies that statement. Imagine having the comfort and self-esteem boost you get after having a talk with your girlfriends without ever leaving your couch. If you’re feeling lost and need some advice then look no further than Badass Women Give the Best Advice.

The literary world would simply not be the same if it weren’t for women writers. From Jane Austen to Judy Blume, women have been telling their stories and using their beautiful imaginations to bring stories to life on paper for centuries. Becca Anderson’s “The Book of Awesome Women Writers” details the lives and accomplishments of all your current and future beloved female writers and the numerous lessons they have all taught us.

Raising the next generation of rule breakers and ground shakers is no easy task. We all want a better world for the next generation and those of us with children especially feel that weight. You may not know where to start but lucky for you Farrah Alexander’s “Raising the Resistance” will give you the tools you need to effectively and lovingly incorporate activism into parenting.

In a year of landmark events (a pandemic, a revolution, smog-free days in Los Angeles) everyone has a story. There’s never been a better time for women who want to feel empowered to document and explore these historic moments in writing. Brenda Knight and Nita Sweeney have crafted a writing journal to help writers do just that. With author quotes to serve as inspiring and instructive prompts on every page, this journal provides the perfect space. It also makes a fabulous gift.

At 49 years of age, grief-stricken, chronically depressed Nita Sweeney takes up running with her dog in an attempt to find a way out of the darkness. Her running and mental health memoir of pounding the roads with her canine companion will entertain and motivate any reader who has ever fallen into deep despair. Whether or not readers want to follow in her footsteps, they will enjoy reading about her journey.