The Top Ten Personal Development Books

Personal development books aim at helping people improve themselves and their quality of life. Personal development books are really about self improvement. Through personal development, a person can become happier, more focused, and more successful. Personal development books can be about almost any topic that will aid a person in taking charge of his or her own life. For example, you may find personal development books on personal finance, goal setting, parenting skills, conflict resolution skills, and/or productivity. There is no end to the topics that can be covered. What all personal development books have in common is that they help the individual to focus efforts on gaining control of his or her actions, to be able to achieve results. Personal development books seek to have the individual take responsibility for the self. Once this is achieved, the individual is able to focus and pay attention to different areas in his or her life, and cause positive changes and meet personal goals. Personal development books are helpful because the individual becomes more satisfied in life, by being able to make things better. Personal development books provide insight, and how to use that insight to achieve results. For example, the individual might have had problems with finances. Through reading a personal development book about personal finances, the individual can learn how to take control of his or her finances, and achieve financial success. Or, a person may have conflicts with friends and family. A personal development book about conflict resolution can help the individual get along with friends and family and improve these relationships. Here are ten top personal development books:

1. Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman. This book discusses how emotional intelligence is more important than intellectual intelligence in determining whether a person is successful. By gaining emotional intelligence skills, one can improve the quality of their relationships and life. Some qualities of emotional intelligence include self-motivation, compassion, and empathy for others.

This book talks about how poor relationships can prevent one from having success in other areas, such as one's career. There is guidance in the book as to how to go about improving one's emotional intelligence, even for children. To do this, the author goes into the understanding of one's own feelings, which leads to the ability to be able to take control of these emotions and focus them into productive activities. The author also teaches how to read other peoples' emotional responses to relate to other points of view. In turn, this understanding can help one be able to work with someone else and come to mutual agreements on decisions.

I highly recommend this book. The information is presented in a clear, easily understood format with direct instructions on how to go about understanding and developing emotional intelligence. The book has solid ideas that are formed into clear cut beliefs and directives. The book is of incredible quality, and the information is extremely effective. I do believe that my background in psychology and years of bartending experience helped me to understand what this author was talking about and relate. Someone who has no background in relationship issues might need to read the book a few times before grasping everything entirely. I do feel, however, that even a beginner to the subject will find many of the topics and discussion useful.

2. Get the Edge, by Tony Robbins. Any book by Tony Robbins is worth reading. His books are mainly aimed about taking charge of one's finances, but each of the books also deals with goal setting. In this book, the author talks about his personal experiences of times when he had financial difficulties. The book goes on to tell about when he decided to make changes, and how he went about making changes to improve his personal finances. The author also gives examples of other people who have had tough roads to travel but have been successful doing so.

Reading a Tony Robbins book such as Get the Edge is very motivating. You feel a connection with the author and with anyone mentioned in the book. If someone else can come from financial desperation, so can you! The book's quality is unquestionable. As for the effectiveness of the information, the stories bring the idea of the book to life, and help readers relate to what is trying to be conveyed. This is a must read book.

3. Remembering Wholeness by Carol Tuttle. This book is about how all individuals are whole, and how we sometimes get off track of our wholeness. The book talks about energy, and how an individual's energy may be blocked, as well as how to unblock the energy. The book has many chapters that discuss such things as disease, depression, negative emotions, and how unblocking our energy and freeing our minds can get rid of many physical ailments.

Remembering Wholeness is a good book to read because it separates each idea into a chapter and gives examples of personal stories. You can read each chapter separately and realize the theme to that chapter that has to do with wholeness. The book's quality is high, because of how the book is organized. As for effectiveness, the book effectively conveys the energy theories and shows vivid examples of the theory. One is then exposed to how to heal and become whole. The book can take some time to understand for those who have never been exposed to this type of information. I was lucky enough to personally be exposed to it in a psychology of personality class at Shepherd College with the great professor Irving Tucker. Many find this book spiritually motivating as well, although any one not religious or spiritual will still get alot from it.

4. The Law of Attraction by Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks. Although this book is based on religious/ spiritual principles, it is still an excellent read for those who are nonspiritual/ nonreligious. The book helps us understand how we attract what we focus on and think about. If we think we'll be rich, we become rich. The book is aimed at helping people develop the skills to think about what it is that is desired to be achieved, and to make this happen. The book is easy to read, and it gives clear examples of how to work its principles. The quality of the book is high, in that the book is easy to understand and follow.

5. Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. This book is about building wealth. However, like Tony Robbins' books, it also talks about achievement in general. The interesting part of this book is that the author actually interviewed successful people like Theodore Roosevelt and Graham Bell. This makes it interesting and helps its effectiveness. The book quality is high in that you can tell many years were spent compiling the stories you will find from the interviews with famous people. The book has easy to understand instructions on how to achieve goals. Even though the book was not just written this year, the principles in it surpass time.

7. Forgiveness, by Michael Henderson. I found this book to be personally motivating because one of my main road blocks in life has been to stay angry at people about everything. This book talks about how to get past the anger and hatred and forgive, so that one's energies are freed for other pursuits. The book is good in quality, as it tells stories of different people who were wronged by others and were able to forgive. These examples make the book effective in what it is trying to show. Forgiveness shows how to recreate peace and hope in people who have turned toward hatred and resentment. This book would be useful for anyone who is holding on to a grudge that is affecting his or her daily life.

8. You Just Don't Understand, by Deborah Tannen, PhD. This book explores the bridge between men and women, and how men and women can understand each other so they can have effective communication. By understanding the opposite sex, you will be able to fulfill more of your own dreams and goals when you are met with open arms instead of resistance when working with men or women. The book is highly effective in getting the point across of how to understand the opposite sex. However, I will admit that I don't know that men will ever totally understand women or vice versa! As for quality, the book easily explains how to understand the opposite sex.

9. Fit for Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. Some may not see this book as a personal development book, but rather as a weight loss or healthy eating book. However, I feel that personal development includes being able to take control over one's eating habits and weight, and think this plays a major role in self improvement and self empowerment. This book gives guidelines of how to eat and when to eat, not just what to eat. The insights provided have been tested over time with the authors, and I thus find the quality of the book very high. The book is effective in showing how to take control of your eating habits. It does this through showing what is behind the principles in the book, and then how to make them work. The book is very well organized.

10. I Hope You Dance by Mark D. Sanders and Tia Sillers. This is a simple little book that is very precise and to the point. If you actually get involved in your life and take chances, you will find the success you seek. If you don't have alot of time to read a book that takes days or weeks to finish, this one can motivate you to enrich your life in a few pages. The book really talks about what is in the song I Hope You Dance sung by Lee Ann Womack. We find that she didn't write this song, but was allowed to sing it by the two authors of this book and the song. As for effectiveness, the book is able to give you hope from just one reading, and it can be read over and over again anytime you are lacking in inspiration. The quality of the book is above average, with its on point examples and words to live by. I highly recommend reading this book and listening to the song.