Notes from the Shelf

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I’ve meandered over the years in the self-help/personal development category, and it’s been a mixed bag for me. Some books have been transformative guides while others have been full of clichés, but I still occasionally pick one up, hoping to find gems that truly resonate. Below I share three books that made me question why I picked them up in the first place, as well as three books that have earned a permanent spot on my shelf.

Three Self-Help Books I Hated:

I do want to add a caveat, that while I hated the books below, they were mostly due to the way the information was presented within the book. For each one, I still found at least one thing that I l could apply to my own life going forward, so no shame if you loved these books! All of them are fairly highly rated on Goodreads for a reason, they just didn’t work for me compared to other self-help books I’ve read.

For the first book, I’m sure this will be an extremely unpopular opinion, but I absolutely hated The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I gave it 1 star. I found it so annoying that the lessons were so drawn out. Everything was spoon-fed to the reader through the protagonist constantly asking for more clarification; it was like the message of the text was hitting you over the head constantly. The only reason I finished it instead of DNF’ing it was because it’s a very short book. Still, I would not recommend reading it unless you want to be led to the conclusion with your hand held the whole time. Save your time and just read the summary.

Second, for a similar reason to The Alchemist, I didn’t like The Servant by James C. Hunter. I gave it 2 stars. It is pretty much the exact same formula of having someone meet a mentor who walks them through the lessons by holding their hand the whole way, with the protagonist asking over and over to explain. Again, it is a very short book, but it could be even shorter if it just got to the point right away. I again recommend reading the summary if you want to get the points of the book without wasting time reading it, since I do think some of the overall themes are helpful for personal development; I mostly have an issue with the way the content is delivered.

For the last book, I found Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism by Fumio Sasaki to be depressing. I gave it 2 stars. I’ve read a few minimalism books, and this one took it to the very extreme. An ideal room for him would be totally empty and there’s many items he only has one of, like towels. It was very unrealistic to me. The whole book focused mostly on his own life; it would be hard to apply much of what was in the book to anyone else’s life, so it’s confusing this is classified as personal development. Also, for it being about minimalism, the book is pretty wordy. Might be a translation issue, but the book could’ve probably been distilled into a few key points and not published as a book but instead a blog post or YouTube video.

Three Self-Help Books I Loved:

For the first book, I loved Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence by Chris Mamula, Brad Barrett, and Jonathan Mendosa. I gave it 5 stars and I reference it all the time for making personal finance decisions and goals. I’ve read a dozen personal finance books and this one has by far been the most helpful in breaking down the different paths to financial independence. I really like that they don’t preach only one way to FI and give you different approaches that have worked for other people. There are also some activities at the end of each chapter to help you apply that chapter’s key points to your own life. They also have a podcast under the same name; I highly recommend listening to it.

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Second, Designing Your Life and Designing Your Work Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans have been so helpful for my own life. I gave them both 4 stars. I did read both, but they are very similar in the approaches, so I would recommend picking one to check out and not getting both. Designing Your Life focuses on your life in general and Designing Your Work Life focuses on your career, so for me in my current situation, I found the Designing Your Work Life book to be most helpful. It wouldn’t be hard to cross-reference either into more specific areas of your life. Each one does have a workbook as well, but you can just read the book with a notebook for your own answers to the activities in the book.

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For the last book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman was a great read. I gave it 4 stars. I would warn that it can come across as a bit depressing depending on your mindset since it’s talking about the average human lifespan being shorter than you think. Throughout the book is practical advice for making the most of the time you have here, doing the things you really want to accomplish and cutting out the distractions. Reading this helped me develop my yearly goals as well as five-year and ten-year goals. Reading this was one of the reasons I finally took the leap and made this blog.

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Let me know any personal development books you would recommend!

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