The Easiest Way to Massively Improve Your Life
Stop trying to change your life. It won’t work unless you change yourself first. Focus on changing yourself and your life will change as a result.
How do you change yourself? Learn. It’s that simple. The more you learn, the more you grow and change. What got you to where you are, will not get you to where you need to go. When you develop, so will your life.
If you’re serious about achieving things like good relationships, health, wealth and the development of your passion and purpose, you need to grow constantly. To always be a student. The quickest way to grow is to learn from others who have come before. Don’t re-invent the wheel.
What’s one of the easiest ways to internalise the knowledge and experience of others quickly? Books. Books consolidate lifetimes of wisdom and knowledge into bite-sized morsels of life-altering gold.
Also, books essentially cost nothing. If it costs you £5 for a book and it irreversibly changes your life for the better, I’d say that’s money well spent, wouldn’t you? Skip the overpriced, poisonous mocha-frappu-chappa-latte-chino and change your life instead. Or enjoy them side by side.
Which books to choose though? There’s a lot out there. The way I discover new books is to find people who have achieved the things I want in life and see what they read. Most successful people who blog have a recommended reading list.
Below are a few books I would personally recommend that have had an impact on me. Enjoy, as you wave goodbye to the life you once had.
Do The Work / The Art of War / Turning Pro — Stephen Pressfield
Hands down three of the most important books I’ve ever read. A must if you want to develop your passion into your profession.
Deep Work — Cal Newport
Understanding and prioritising depth over distraction, a great companion to the books above.
Vagabonding — Rolf Potts
This is the travel book. Do you want to travel, but something is holding you back? Are you a little scared or not sure you can afford it? This book will show you the way.
The Four Hour Work Week — Tim Ferriss
Open up your mind to the possibilities available to you, especially if you feel at all stuck, trapped or pressured into a career or lifestyle that you never chose.
The Fast Diet — Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer
This book totally changed my relationship with food. I’ve also recommended it to friends who’ve lost enormous amounts of weight using the principles demonstrated within.
Never Eat Alone — Keith Ferazzi
Understand the importance of relationships and how to cultivate a large network of friends. I consider this the updated version of Dale Carnegie’s classic “How To Win Friends and Influence People”.
On the Shortness of Life — Seneca
Required reading for every human being on the planet. If you read one ancient philosophical text, make it this one. It’s short and packed full of practical life advice.
The Power of Habit — Charles Duhigg
What day to day activities do you want to change? Everything we do is a habit, good or bad. This will teach you how to change your bad habits into good ones.
The Four Hour Body — Tim Ferris
This is the book on diets, exercise, sex etc. If you want to improve your body in any way at all, this is your go-to reference and guide.
The 48 Laws of Power — Robert Greene
Read it if you want power and read it if you want to protect yourself from those who would try to take power from you. Also, it demonstrates the principles with stories from history, which I absolutely loved.
The Lean Start Up — Eric Ries
This is the business book. The principles can — and should — be applied to almost every endeavour in life.
If you’re interested, here’s a list of the books I’ve read this year so far (as of posting on the 12th of August 2016):
- Never Eat Alone — Keith Ferazzi
- The Art Of The Idea — John Hunt
- Small Giants — Bo Burlingham
- Manage Your Day To Day — 99U
- The Lean Start Up — Eric Ries
- HTML and CSS — Jon Duckett
- Deep Work — Cal Newport
- Zero To One — Peter Thiel
- The Four Hour Body — Tim Ferriss
- Chasing A Croatian Girl — Cody Brown
- Do The Work — Stephen Pressfield
- Do The Work again!
- The War Of Art — Stephen Pressfield
- The War Of Art again!
- Turning Pro — Stephen Pressfield
- Turning Pro again!
- Anything You Want — Derek Sivers
- The Warrior Ethos — Stephen Pressfield
- Purple Cow — Seth Godin
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