Life-Changing Literature to Help Kick Start Your Year

A new year dawns, and so it’s the time to think about resolutions, a new you, reinventing your life… whatever you want to call it. Believe it or not, books are a great way to help you think about changing your life and set yourself up for a better year.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig is a great place to start. A father and son tour across the United States, but the story is not too important here. What matters more is the conversations between the two – numerous philosophical discussions about the way humans see the world, what is good and bad and all other manner of human values. One of the overriding lessons here is the value of committing to and caring about the things you do. You should do what you need to do, and take pride in doing it.

Books are a great way to help you think about changing your life and set yourself up for a better year

If Creativity by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi doesn’t offer you year-defining advice, nothing else will. In this book, noted psychology Professor Csikszentmihalyi interviewed more than 90 ground-breaking people across a number of disciplines, eager to find out what they have in common, and what it takes to be creative and successful. It’s a really interesting read and, to leap ahead to the end, the answer is effort. If you’re curious and driven, willing to pursue the things that interest you and believe in your intuition, you too can be successful.

Loath as I am to suggest a self-help book, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale deserves a mention because of the success it had in 2016 – Peale was the favourite pastor of President-elect Donald Trump. It is essentially a guide to thinking better – the idea is that if you believe things will turn out well, refuse to believe in defeat and think that you can achieve anything you want, things will turn out well for you. Regardless of what you think of him, it worked for Trump – he never took no for an answer and always continued on, assured of his own correctness. Maybe, in 2017, it could work for you too?

If you’re curious and driven, willing to pursue the things that interest you and believe in your intuition, you too can be successful

And let’s end with an inspiring tale, and one that is worth a look even if you’ve seen the equally enjoyable film starring Tom Hanks. In Forrest Gump by Winston Groon, Gump relates some stories from his life, from ping-pong championships to working for NASA. He doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life, but is always willing to try new things and thus winds up in all kinds of adventures. Throughout his life, despite his low IQ, he views the world as it is and offers an incredible amount of wisdom – a tale of a life well-lived may offer a lesson or two for you.