Well soon we will be wishing a merry Christmas to all our loved ones and friends. To me it is a wonderful time of year full of joyous moments and time to spend with those that you love. For me to see my own daughter sitting holding on to my granddaughter surrounded by beautifully wrapped presents and seeing the excitement in her eyes, while the happiness of parenthood radiates through her for the first time on a Christmas day, is just something I can’t wait to behold.
Among the many things I love about Christmas, is the feelings that it brings. The happiness, excitement and joys. It’s a time of giving and receiving. There’s something about this time of year that makes you think anything is possible.
Right now we’re all running around trying to find the perfect presents to bring joy to our loved ones. Christmas wish lists have been crafted and our gift shopping has begun.
Having two daughters I don’t have to think far beyond beauty and hair products, clothes and chocolate. I won’t have many problems filling their Christmas stocking with the things on their Christmas lists. In truth I love to do this.
But as the person I am, I look beyond the mere material things, and ask what would they really want in the forthcoming year. If they could make a wish for anything in the world, what would it be?
Many of you that read this blog would answer for yourself that you need hope. Particularly you hope that next year will be better for you.
Well throughout my life people have often asked me how have I retained my positivity, my belief in myself even when I have gone through times of hardship and struggle. I can answer that easily. I have my mum to thank for this. It was her who introduced me to personal development at the age of 13. That is when she gave me a Jose Silva book, and said read this it will help you. It changed my life, it truly did. I quickly turned from a shy kid with no friends, to a very confident teenager surrounded by friends who wanted to be with me. My school work improved dramatically and generally I became a totally different person. To this day personal development has been fundamental to my life and has made me the person who I am, providing me with many of my best attributes and strengths.
So everyone you know, your children, nieces, nephews, friends, partners, parents, grandparents, they all want to be inspired to live their dreams and accomplish things in their lives that at this moment in time seem so unachievable. How can you help them?
I am sure each of them will be making New Year’s Resolutions on January 1st 2013. Another year will be over soon, Christmas will be gone, and new dreams will be put into place.
Don’t you owe it to those that you love to not let the opportunity of Christmas go without bringing them something that can help bring these dreams closer to reality?
What am I suggesting here today?
Below I am giving you a personal list of ten of the self-help books that have helped alter my life. There are thousands of motivational books out there, but these ones in my opinions stand the test of time. They really have made a difference in my life.
1. The Silva Mind Control Method
The million seller that introduced me to the world of personal development. This life-transforming book introduces the Silva Mind Control Method showing you how to overcome tension, bad habits, emotional insecurity, and even illness with the techniques of Mind Control, and how, with “creative visualization,” you can master the ability to “see” what you desire … then make it happen!
2. The Secret
This is the book that changed my life in my 40’s and brought about a major redirection which has created my success and happiness. The book introduces you to the law of attraction and how to harness its power. I learnt a three-step creative process for manifesting dreams namely Ask, Believe, and Receive which has impacted my life like nothing else before or since.
This self-help book focuses on physical wellbeing through mental training. Louise L. Hay explains how thoughts are the main driving force of one’s body’s mechanism. She provides practical guidance on how to get rid of one’s negative thoughts and unlock the mind’s potential to heal any illness. Louise Hay was diagnosed with cancer, but she states that she applied the techniques described in the book to cure herself, and this book gives you the ways to heal illnesses and make life better for yourself.
4. Man’s Search For Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust
Being of Jewish ancestry this book touched me greatly. He survived the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau. He lost everything including his wife, father, mother, and brother who perished in the camps. Frankl discovered that man’s ultimate desire in life is to search for purpose—a purpose that resonates with his desire to live. Through his book, Frankl offers readers the insight that suffering cannot be avoided, it can only be conquered. He insists one must learn to cope with struggles positively, find meaning in them, and move forward with a renewed sense of purpose.
5. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
The book first introduces the concept of Paradigm Shift and prepares the reader for a change in mindset. It helps the reader understand that there exists a different perspective, a viewpoint that may be different from his own and asserts that two people can see the same thing and yet differ with each other. It then introduces the seven habits of effectiveness, which I found a great benefit both in personal and business life.
6. Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity
This is in my mind the best book on time management showing how to increase your productivity and sharpen focus so as to excel at the things you have to do—and want to do. Allen provides methods for stress-free performance explaining that only when our minds are clear and our thoughts are organized can we achieve effective productivity to unleash our creative potential. A must read for those stressed out by the demands of their daily life.
7. The Success Principles: How to get from where you are to where you want to be
This is one of my favourite personal development books. Very little flannel, just direct and unbelievably brilliant principles for us to follow to get our life and careers on the right track. The Success Principles offers 64 practical and inspiring principles to get any person from where they are to where they want to be. I’ve read this book multiple times, and still refer to it frequently.
The message in this book is simple, thinking big can bring big results. It shows you how to set high goals and exceed them in a big way with an easy, step-by-step approach. He explains that visualization adds value to everything and thinking big means training oneself to see not just what is, but what can be. This book is a classic motivational and self-help book, that simply teaches us that you just need to learn and understand the habit of thinking and behaving in ways that will get you the results you desire.
9. Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway: How to Turn Your Fear and Indecision into Confidence and Action
Everyone has their own list of fears which seem to run through their lives. This book shows how to become powerful in the face of those fears by grabbing hold of them and moving forward with your life. You will learn how to let go of the victim mentality, the secret of making ‘no lose’ decisions, how to expand your ‘comfort’ zone, how to create more meaning in your life…and much more.
10. Unlimited Power: The New Science of Personal Achievement
If you’ve been to a Tony Robbins seminar you’ll have been inspired for life, I was. I love all of his books. . If you have ever dreamed of a better life, Unlimited Power will show you how to achieve the extraordinary quality of life you desire and deserve, and how to master your personal and professional life.
So that’s my list, 10 awesome authors, 10 brilliant books. My suggestion wrap one up and put it it in a Christmas stocking for a loved one. Bring inspiration this Christmas by giving the gift of a self-help book, it may not be their favourite present, but it could well be the one that changes their lives.
If you follow the links they’ll take you into amazon, I do get a commission, not a lot mind. That’s not the purpose of this post. So please buy them from anywhere, but do someone that favour bring them the inspiration that Christmas deserves.
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