The Five Best Self-Help Books to Make Life Fun Again (PART I)

Seven years ago my life changed in an instant. I awoke in the middle of the night, sweating, heart racing, thinking I may be having a heart attack at 27 years old. I had been heavily drinking earlier that night, which was normal for me back then. My entire body was seizing up and I had tears in my eyes. For the first time in my entire life, I experienced a suicidal thought that I couldn’t pass off as just a silly part of the human experience. I thought the thought, and for the first time it felt like a viable choice in that terrifying moment. That evening set my life in a new direction that I never could have predicted.

Objectively, at the time, my life was checking off all of the boxes: I was making plenty of money, had a beautiful apartment, enjoyed lots of fun evenings with lots of friends, owned a luxury car, and had no problem attracting women to date. Something inside was completely amiss, though, and it all came crashing down that fateful night in my $2000 bed. I had no substance, no self-respect; and I was sinking fast. It was the first of many rock-bottom moments as I struggled for years to “change” without really changing.

What that time of life did do, though, was create an inner resolve to understand my own psychology. I needed to dismantle everything I thought mattered in life and rebuild from a foundation of integrity. It’s a process I’ve been tending to ever since; now, nearing my 34th birthday, I can confidently say I know exactly what afflicted me and the steps anyone feeling similarly needs to take in order to rebuild.

If you can relate to this age-old struggle, then you have two options: find a qualified mentor who has done the work and enroll in his/her class, or go get a library card and start reading voraciously. That’s it. Sitting around trying to think your way out of perpetual dissatisfaction will only perpetuate your dissatisfaction. If that sounds paradoxical to you, then you inherently know why it doesn’t work: whatever you give your attention to becomes bigger; therefore, if you get to the point where the exit ramp of life feels like the only option, it’s because you’ve given your attention to negative thoughts for so long that they’ve become beliefs. This means they’ve “latched on” to your opinion of all aspects of life, including the worthiness of living at all. You are sleepwalking, living in a fog, wearing rose-colored glasses—whatever metaphor you want to use. You are causing your own dissatisfaction without knowing it—creating a prison in which you feel like you exist at the effect of life. Without a feeling of conscious determinism, we devolve into apathy and nihilism, which is a belief that nothing matters. These feelings totally dominate our mass consciousness in the form of social media, the corporate news complex, and the political machine. It’s a sad spectacle that can only be overcome by going “up,” rather than “through.” Humans rarely choose the path of least resistance, though.

Finding someone who understands you and will work with you is the exact opposite of feeling apathy. The responsibility of showing up and giving life a fighting shot will invigorate you in ways that are indescribable. If I could do it all again, I would have spent some of that money I thought mattered so much on a capable teacher; the results would have shown themselves much quicker and it likely would have saved me from other gaffes that would follow.

But I decided to learn through reading, and over the course of many years I have read a few dozen self-help and self-development books. The journey became a loving obsession that’s starting to bleed into my career and shape every aspect of my life. If you want to learn the material so completely that you feel comfortable teaching it one day, then there is no substitute for doing the reading work. This doesn’t mean, however, that you have to work hard instead of smart.

I know all of the buzzwords and strategies, and I can instantly spot well-meaning but unsustainable advice (a lot of which exists in this space). Ironically, the most pervasive calls to action in modern self-help rely on an empowered version of apathy and nihilism, which, as we know, actually undermine the process of allowing spirituality into your life. You must care how you feel if you ever care to break free from your own mind-made limitations. Trying to become carefree isn't the same, even though it sounds delightful.

What I’m really saying is that this knowledge is esoteric—it’s been the same forever, passed down from teacher to student in different ways and different cultures, and nobody has a copyright on absolute truth. If you care to seek it and truly transform your outlook, health, and good fortune, it is there for you. But it can be difficult to know where to start since so many options exist. The key is to find writers who rely on universal truths, instead of writers who try to chase every painful emotion to its root. Remember, whatever we give our attention to gets bigger.

I believe these five books will never lead you astray. They will never ask you to take a step backwards in order to somehow experience an emotional payoff, nor will they simply beckon you to the common sense maxims of life like hard work and sacrifice, which sound nice but often produce lackluster results. If you commit, you can absorb the knowledge that has affected me most profoundly, and thereby expedite the process of actualization much more quickly than I experienced. With the extra time you save, I encourage you to find a coach or mentor who can help pinpoint your personal sticking points so that you may release the resistance that plays over and over in your head daily like a record.

It’s time to dive in and do what others won’t, so that you may experience a life that others can’t. Come back soon for PART II, where I’ll list the books I recommend and explain a little about each of them.

T.K. Sanders is the author ofThe Integrity Method: Rebuild Your Identity, Create Your Fortune. Go to www.inforlife.club for more information on personalized coaching.