142 Personal Development Books to Read in 2025

Updated by Renee Powers, Dec. 12, 2024


Are you a fan of personal development and self-help books? This is one of the most popular genres of books year round, but we see a spike in the sales and reading of these books right around the new year. While we believe that setting goals and doing inner work on ourselves can be done year round, the month of January feels like a fresh slate to try something new. Like Dr. Carol S. Dweck informs us in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, there’s no better way to change your life than to cultivate curiosity and strive to grow personally and professionally.


Self-help books have been around for as long as books have been written. We could easily count early philosophers like Plato and Aristotle among the first personal development authors. The field grew in popularity with classic self-help titles like How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Therapy is always a great choice, but it seems like this self-directed inner work never goes out of style!


PangoBooks has a wide array of personal development books from our thousands of sellers. You’ll find some of the most popular, best-selling, most liked, and long enduring books on the Self-Help category page. But to help you achieve your specific resolutions, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite sub-categories of this genre to unearth a few lesser-known self-help books that will help you become the best version of yourself. Whether you’re a skeptic or a true believer, there’s something for everyone on this list!

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Start with the inner work.

Any contractor will tell you that a good house requires a strong foundation. Then you can build your home on top of that. Any flight attendant will instruct you to put on your oxygen mask for attending to others. It’s in that vein that we suggest starting your self-help journey with your heart and mind. Before we can even set our goals, we need to get into the right headspace! Our top pick in this category is Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff. This book will give you the inspiration to treat yourself with the respect and love you deserve, which will ultimately motivate you to work hard towards becoming the best version of yourself possible. Looking for something a little more hands-on? The Happiness Project is author Gretchen Rubin's collection of trials and errors in seeking a more balanced, mindful, and yes, happy life. It's a best-seller for good reason!

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Set some goals and get motivated.

Your next step to creating meaningful change in your life is to get really specific about your goals. What kind of positive impact would you like to make on yourself and the world around you? The key to seeing your new year’s resolutions through is to create small habits that move you closer to your goals. Atomic Habits by James Clear is the perfect place to start. In this book, the author shares what makes a good habit and the science behind habits that stick. Check out some of our favorite books that honor the process of goal-setting, positive mindset, and productivity that don’t feed into the ick of hustle and grind culture below.

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Learn the science behind it all.

Creating good habits is only one avenue towards positive changes in your life. There is plenty of science out there to support your endeavor of personal growth. Books like Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman and Good Anxiety by Wendy Suzuki utilize cognitive psychology and neuroscience to ground their claims in evidence-based research. Thus, this section of our list is for the skeptical – no matter what your opinion of the self-help industry may be, the science and rigorous research of these books are hard to deny!

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Heed the bumps in the road.

We will never avoid relational conflict on any journey we take and one of the hallmarks of personal development literature is to actively work through and within those conflicts. We suggest starting with Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg to build on the lessons you learned in Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff mentioned above. This book will help you identify communication patterns that are harmful while empowering you to communicate your emotions, ideas, and concerns in a fruitful and honest way in any situation.


Whether you’re raising an anxious teenager (Parenting the New Teen in the Age of Anxiety by John Duffy) or dealing with family members who frequently overstep (Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab), there is sure to be a book out there to help you feel a little less alone in your specific situation.

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Be kind to your body.

The general rhetoric around goal setting tends to revolve around weight loss, but we’re not here to endorse any diet or exercise regime. What you do with your body is your business! Instead, we suggest taking a moment to deeply consider your relationship to your body, your mind, and what your definition of wellness means. We suggest starting with The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor, which will help you unlearn some of the social pressures and narratives about our bodies. We’re inundated with messages to lose weight, get fit, eat healthy, be more mindful, have great sex, and make lots of money. But what happens if we slow down and investigate those messages? These books will help you answer that question and become more attuned to your body and mind’s needs.

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Self-care is a necessary part of self-help.

It would be so interesting to see how many people add “less stress” to their yearly goals because it’s likely higher than we could ever imagine. We live in a burnt out, overworked, overstimulated world and it’s unlikely that we’ll be changing any time soon. So how do we operate within those systems without losing our minds? Jenny Odell has a plan for How to Do Nothing, so you might as well start there! This book posits that the technologies around us sucks us of our attention and we all know that what we focus on is what flourishes. Doing nothing allows us to reset our attention to what is more aligned and meaningful in our lives. Level up your personal development toolkit with a few of our other books about stress management and self-care.

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Explore spirituality for everyone.

For many, body, mind, and spirit are inseparable. So for those of us who love a little woo-woo and spirituality in our quest to become better versions of ourselves, this section is for you! However, even if you think spirituality isn’t quite your cup of tea, we encourage everyone to start with The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. This book won’t encourage you to buy crystals or dance naked in the moonlight (though you can if you want!). Instead, the author focuses on the act of being present through mindfulness and meditation, leading us to be more grateful, more peaceful, and more aligned with our values in each moment. There’s a reason this book has been a bestseller for years and has been translated into over 50 languages! No matter your flavor of spirituality, there’s a self-help book for you.

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Practice as a family.

The family that makes resolutions together sticks together! Personal development books aren’t just for adult readers. There are charming and helpful books for readers of all ages who may be dealing with any number of concerns. Whether you’re hoping to cultivate a family meditation practice (The Power of Meditation by Kamesha and Zachary Seagle) or your kiddo is dealing with fear and anxiety (Guts by Raina Tegemeier), there’s almost certainly an age-appropriate book out there! We’ve surfaced some incredibly helpful books for children and adolescents around difficult topics and mental wellness, so consider adding one of the following books to your home library.

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Do the work.

So you’ve set your goals, you’ve gotten inspired, you’re motivated to start, but you just need a little extra structure. That’s what guided journals and workbooks are for! It’s no secret that a regular journal practice can help you become more mindful and insightful but an empty notebook can be intimidating. Guided journals like Start Where You Are by Meera Lee Patel can be beautifully illustrated with prompts to help you tap into your innermost thoughts and feelings. Some journals focus on specific topics or goals while others are applicable to any number of achievements. We’ve curated some of our favorite broadly useful journals and workbooks below.

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Learn from others

One way to generate some motivation is to open yourself up to being inspired by others. After all, if they could achieve great things, why can’t you? From memoirs to essay collections, stories that inspire are always welcome on PangoBooks. 

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