Top 10 Self-Improvement Books You Need to Read in 2025

The importance of reading books

When I was a young(er) boy, I used to read for quite a significant time every day. Most of the time I would be reading football magazines or fiction books that were tailored to children, as they were usually quite easy reads. But then, as I hit my teenage years, something magical happened: I suddenly became way too cool for books. I suppose you could say I was too busy living the early 2000s teenage dream: texting my friends on my flip phone , while watching reruns of 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'.

So what, you may be thinking, not everybody needs to enjoy reading books! There are plenty of hobbies out there, so why should I choose reading? This is of course a valid point, however, you may be missing out on all kinds of benefits that you might have been unaware about. The benefits of reading include, but are not limited to: stress reduction, enhanced creativity and imagination, and the improvement of memory.

As I made my way through my very own 'roaring twenties', I started to rediscover my enthusiasm for reading and ended up demolishing 'A Song of Ice and Fire' by George R.R. Martin. If you know, you know 😉. Despite the fact that I was thoroughly enjoying my reading, I started to have a realisation. I was spending a lot of time reading fiction books and thus learning about things that were not taking place in the real world. Relaxing entertainment? Certainly. Educating myself? Not particularly.

This moment of understanding made me change my genre and since this moment I have almost exclusively read non-fiction literature. I am a big fan of experiental learning, but life is simply too short to be able to learn solely from experience. Ain't nobody got time for that! Eleanor Roosevelt described this in the following manner:

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Ok, ok, we get it. HOW ABOUT THE TOP 10 LIST?!

Oops, it seems I got a little carried away with my storytelling. Without further ado, I present to you my top 10 self-improvement books that you must read in 2025. The books are in no particular order and cover a wide variety of topics related to your health, habit creation, mindfulness and your professional development.

1 Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

Chris Voss uses his experiences as a FBI Hostage Negotiator to guide you through

conversational and psychological tactics that can help you better understand other people and improve your negotiation skills.

Obviously most of us will not be in life-or-death style negotiations, but most of the techniques that Chris discusses can also be translated to situations such as asking for a (better) raise, discussions with your partner, or sales calls.

A devil's advocate could be tempted to argue that conversational and psychological techniques could be regarded as manipulative. However, the reality of life is that conflics will arrise throughout your life and that it is therefore important that you know how to deal with these situations in a manner that doesn't cause distress for either party. One of my favourite quotes from this book is one that focuses on the importance of understanding and the danger of assuming:

"If you approach a negotiation thinking that the other guy thinks like you, you're wrong. That's not empathy; that's projection." - Chris Voss

2 How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Dale Carnegie

As the title suggests, this book by Dale Carnegie aims to help readers brush their anxiety and worries aside in pursuit of a better life.

According to Dale, "the best possible way to prepare for tomorrow is to concentrate with all your intelligence, all your enthusiasm on doing today's work superbly." By focusing on tasks in 'Day-tight Compartments', you can alleviate the stress that comes from looking too far into the future. French philosopher 'Montaigne' famously described this concept in the following manner: "My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened."

The solutions based methods of Dale Carnegie are easy to understand and can be applied to various real life situations. An example of one of the pearls of wisdom in his book is the following excerpt from a Mother Goose rhyme:

"For every ailment under the sun, there is a remedy, or there is none. If there be one, try to find it. If there be none, never mind it." - Dale Carnegie

3 Right Thing, Right Now by Ryan Holiday

Right Thing, Right Now is the third installment of Ryan Holiday's excellent 'stoic virtues' series,

that sources great ideas from stoic philosophers and brings them into the 21st century.

The aim of this book is to instruct readers how to live with integrity, how to seize the moment, and how to do the right things at the right time for the right reasons. Holding yourself and others to high moral standards can make sure that the moral fabric of society remains intact.

How would you behave if the whole world was watching you? If you ask yourself this simple question before acting, you are destined to make better decisions for yourself. In other words: if we are trying to hide what we are doing, we probably should not do it.

"Life is not meaningless for the man who considers certain actions wrong simply because they are wrong, whether or not they violate the law. This kind of moral code gives a person a focus, a basis on which to conduct himself" - Hyman Rickover

4 Breath by James Nestor

Who would have thought that such an advanced species would need a handbook on how to

breath correctly? Not me, that's for sure. James Nestor's fascinating deep dive into the history of a 'lost art' and the science behind it is thoroughly interesting and eye-opening.

The 'breathtaking' facts and nuggets of knowledge help the reader understand what the implications are if you don't breathe properly, some of which will shock you. One of the side effects of improper and inefficient breathing is snoring and sleep apnea. Sleep apnea can lead to bed-wetting, ADHD, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, and more ailments.

In 'Breath', James Nestor also describes the mouth breathing experiment he conducted with Anders Olsson (a Swedish breath therapist) and what the results were of said experiment. A must read if you are concerned about your current and future health.

"They key to optimum breathing and all the health, endurance, and longevity benefits that come with it, is to practice fewer inhales and exhales in a smaller volume." - James Nestor

5 Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone

During our lives we often face moments where we need to have conversations that we dread.

We need to tell our housemates to clean up after themselves, we want to ask for a raise, we want to tell one of our employees that they are not performing, and so forth.

Most of the times these conversations turn very personal, very quickly and occasionally turn into verbal warfare. In 'Difficult Conversations', Douglas Stone discusses the importance of the 'unsaid' words, the crucial factor of other people's feelings, and that conversations should not be about who is right and who is wrong.

The tips and tricks that are offered in this book will help you turn challenging situations or explosive interactions into productive dialogues that benefit you and the person that you are having the interaction with.

"Delivering a difficult message is like throwing a hand grenade. Coated with sugar, thrown hard or soft, a hand grenade is still going to do damage." - Douglas Stone

6 The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle's 1997 bestseller 'The Power of Now' is an absolute classic in the field of

spirituality and mindfulness. The main principle of this book is that "the more you are focused on time - past and future - the more you miss the now, which is the most precious thing that there is."

Obsessing over things that happened in the past and constantly anticipating what will happen in the future can cause what Eckhart Tolle calls the 'anxiety gap'. The voyage towards true 'presence' is quite a complicated one, but the ideas presented in this book provide the necessary tools to start your own journey.

The ability to separate yourself from your thoughts and become the person who watches 'the thinker' is such a powerful idea and has helped me personally to deal with negative thoughts that happened to pop up in my head.

All that you ever have to deal with, cope with, in real life - as opposed to imaginary mind projections - is this moment." - Eckhart Tolle

7 Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek

Good leaders are few and far between. Managers, captains, politicians, and other people in

positions of power are often tasked with leading many individuals through good, but also challenging times.

In 'Leaders Eat Last', business influencer and eternal optimist Simon Sinek describes what characterises great leaders. Outstanding leaders are excellent in creating safe spaces for their followers, they understand the value of people over profit, and know exactly how to get the best out of the individuals they work with.

As the title suggests, leaders make sure everyone has eaten first, before they tuck into their share of the meal. By putting aside their respective egoes and focusing on the cohesion of the group, leaders can achieve fantastic results.

"When the people have to manage dangers from the inside of the organisation, the organisation itself becomes less able to face the dangers from outside." - Simon Sinek

8 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do by Amy Morin

If anyone knows a thing about resilience and being mentally strong, Amy Morin does. When

she was twenty-three years old, her mother died suddenly from a brain aneurysm, a few years later her husband died because of a heart attack, and another couple of years later her second husband's father died because of cancer.

To say the author has experienced her fair share of trauma is an understatement. Drawing from these challenging experiences Amy Morin provides the reader with '13 Things' you must not do to be a mentally strong person.

Without downplaying the emotional reality of trauma, the author tries to tackle destructive behaviours such as wallowing in self-pity, holding grudges, focusing on things that you can't control, and various other pitfalls. Essentially the message of this book is the following: be an ally to yourself and don't sabotage your existence.

"I knew that time doesn't heal anything; it's how we deal with that time that determines the speed at which we heal." - Amy Morin

9 Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

Why we sleep? So that we are not tired, obviously! Yes, but aside from that obvious benefit,

sleep is a type of wonderdrug that can help you improve your mood, your memory, your productivity, your immune system. Imagine how much such a drug would cost if a pharmaceutical company decided to sell it! After reading this book you will realise that pulling all nighters and skipping sleep is not as cool as it sounds.

Furthermore, besides being uncool, it can also be very dangerous. Scientists studying airplane cabin crews discovered that parts of their brains had physically shrunk and that their short-term memory was significantly impaired because of time-zone travel. Moreover, cabin crews also had much higher rates of cancer and type 2 diabetes than the general population. If that is not enough of an incentive for you to get your 8 hours in per night, then I do not know what is!

"Every hour, someone dies in a traffic accident in the US due to a fatigue-related error." - Matthew Walker

10 Atomic Habits by James Clear

Atomic Habits is a personal favourite of mine, as it is one of the first self-improvement books I

read. James Clear's 'clear' way of describing how habits work and how you can tailor them to maximise results makes this book a must-have for anyone interested on embarking on a self-improvement journey.

When people think about self-improvement, they often think of huge, seismic changes to their lives. However, it is often the 'tiny, invisible' changes that wield the best results. To improve the efficiency of these small changes, James Clear also highlights the importance of having good systems over grinding. For example, if you have an addiction to video games it is easier to avoid playing if you hide your Playstation in a cupboard than if you have it in plain sight in your living room.

"It doesn't matter how successful or unsuccessful you are right now. What matters is whether your habits are putting you on the path towards success." - James Clear

Disclaimer: This list is based on my humble, subjective opinion. Your 'must-read' list might be totally different — and that's okay!