12 of the best self-development books for your ideal version of yourself

The finest modern-day tips for living your best life

You may not need a new year to reorient your mentality, but January can sometimes feel like the ideal time for a fresh start.

Whether you want to let go of the past, want to get a promotion at work, or want to turn your personal life in a new direction, these books provide a feast of professional advice, sympathetic inspiration, and game-changing drive.

Here, we look at 12 fully contemporary self-development books to help you plan for a more rewarding 2023.

Dr Julie Smith

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?

Dr. Julie Smith, a clinical psychologist, became a social media celebrity by giving people with concrete, practical insights and advice to better their mental health. In her book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?, Dr Smith makes therapeutic practises accessible for anyone – because they should be, right? – and asserts that the tools presented in the book are “not therapy skills, [but] life skills”.

The book’s goal is to educate readers on the intricacies of how our brains operate in an accessible and consumable manner, empowering us to take control, build resilience, and cultivate good mental health. ‘Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?’ is a fantastic place to start if you’re seeking for lightbulb moments and practical advice on what to do with them.

Roxie Nafousi

Manifest

We’ve all seen the orange cover: Roxie Nafousi, the queen of manifestation, has produced something memorable with her debut book, Manifest. It urges us to take control and provides us the methods to do so – through what Nafousi defines as the “seven steps to living your best life”.

While frankly revealing intimate details of her own life experiences, Nafousi debunks manifesting fallacies and equips us with all the skills we need to attempt it for ourselves and create the lives we truly desire. In Manifest, science meets personal experience, and we have no doubt you’ll be dipping in and out of it long after you first pick it up.

Roxie Nafousi’s second book, Manifest: Dive Deeper was released in January, but we recommend starting here first for the full experience.

Vex King

Good Vibes, Good Life

Vex King’s contemporary perspective on the law of attraction is enough to make any sceptic think twice. Everything, including ourselves, has its own energy, according to King. Our bodies vibrate with this energy, and the vibrations might be high or low depending on the emotion: negative emotions produce low vibrations, while pleasant emotions produce high vibrations.

King explains in Good Vibes, Good Life how boosting your frequency may attract more positive to you: pleasure fosters joy. But the method is realistic; it’s not as simple as resolving to be optimistic from… now. It’s about dealing with what has to be dealt with, prioritising self-care, and conquering everything that is keeping you back.

Sarah Knight

The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**K

You could need a f**k budget if you’re feeling overwhelmed, uninspired, and anxious. Sarah Knight advises readers to explore where they may be using too much energy, whether it’s via unwelcome duties, people pleasing, or having a ‘bikini physique’ (no thanks), and to redirect that energy somewhere, where we genuinely want to. We are challenged in The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k to reconsider where and how we spend our time and refocus on how we want our lives to be. We might all benefit from spending less time on some activities or with certain people, and Knight’s no-nonsense approach will assist you in determining what truly important.

Elizabeth Day

How to Fail

Elizabeth Day’s inspiring book carries the message of her famous podcast. Half memoir, part inspiring advice, it’s all about learning to accept failure in order to accomplish more effectively.

Day reminds us all that failure is a necessary element of success if we can utilise it to develop. The fundamental concept of How To Fail is that knowing why we fail makes us stronger in the end and is a crucial part of our experience as human beings: we all fail, and occasionally going wrong may be a good thing.

Laura Jane Williams

Ice Cream for Breakfast

In Ice Cream for Breakfast, Laura Jane Williams inspires us to find our inner kid via a lighthearted but thought-provoking study of what it means to be an adult.

The book invites us to rediscover our inner child and make more time for play by using tales from Williams’ experience as a nanny. Remember when you were a kid and you were completely enthralled with dolphins and didn’t care what other people thought? It never occurred to you that people thought it was a unique passion, and you had no qualms about telling everyone about it just because you wanted to? Please, more of it.

Glennon Doyle

Untamed

“Who were you before the world told you who to be?” Glennon Doyle’s Untamed, a profound investigation of women’s indoctrination, asks, and it’s a wake-up call. Doyle encourages us all to be bold by sharing experiences from her own life and lessons learned to help us unleash our genuine inner selves, untamed.

The insights Doyle delivers in Untamed are written with exquisite compassion and strong intensity, and they give life-changing revelations for readers who are open to the thought that the genuine you may not be present in your day-to-day existence – and once you know this, you will want to locate her.

Alain de Botton

The Course of Love

We’re always interested in what Alain de Botton has to say as one of the world’s best intellectuals. The Course of Love debunks the ‘happily ever after’ fiction we’ve all been sold by exploring marriage in its most chaotic, beautiful, modern-day form.

The book gives a secure sense of familiarity through realistic, real-life experiences and learning possibilities based on them, in order to assist all of us in nurturing our relationships in authentic ways. It’s not always romantic or attractive, but that’s the finest part about it.

Bessel van der Kolk

The Body Keeps the Score

Bessel van der Kolk has dedicated his life to researching the influence of previous emotions on us and how we might overcome them. Each of us has gone through experiences we’d prefer forget, but our brains and bodies don’t. Van der Kolk explains his life’s work in understanding the very real influence that major stress can have on us long after it’s past, sitting in our bodies and frequently wrecking havoc on our lives in The Body Keeps the Score.

The Body Keeps the Score gives us practical tips and information on how we can release the past from the very fibres of our bodies, live more fulfilling lives, and truly leave our past experiences behind.

Farrah Storr

The Discomfort Zone

It’s human tendency to choose things that are familiar to us, but is that actually where we thrive? Farrah Storr, former editor-in-chief of Elle UK, has written an insightful guide on face our fears and finding strength in facing them head on. Her book presents a flexible strategy that allows you to experience the fear and do it anyhow.

Storr believes that “brief moments of discomfort” help us grow and get to where we need to go, and that by exploring our discomfort zones, we may accomplish great things.

Mo Gawdat

That Little Voice In Your Head

Mo Gawdat’s personal narrative about the loss of his kid is both terrible and inspiring – though he wouldn’t call it that. Gowdat is brimming with insight on how to optimise our thoughts for pleasure – which, sadly, isn’t necessarily the default for many of us.

The idea of Gowdat’s message is that by knowing how our brains operate, we can manufacture happiness for ourselves: we can overcome negative self-talk, shift thinking processes, and leverage our brains’ predictability to reprogram them for positive. That Little Voice in Your Head, based on neuroscience, simplifies our most complicated processes and what it means to be human, and allows us to “adjust the code” that runs our brains.

Héctor García and Francesc Miralles

Ikigai

Ikigai, which means “a reason to live” in Japanese, is a word that we should all have in our vocabulary. Ikigai itself is about balance, and that’s what the book aims to help readers achieve. Bringing together your needs, wants and desires isn’t always practical – perhaps you’re passionate about something you’re trying to turn into a career, or you’re unsure on what your purpose is – but García and Miralles make it refreshingly simple to find your joy.

Ikigai also explores how making choices to prioritise wellness and lead healthier lifestyles can help us to live longer, providing practical tips on how small changes can have big effects.

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