11 min read
8 chapters
10x Is Easier Than 2x
Dan Sullivan & Benjamin Hardy · 2023
A radical reframe that says chasing a 10x goal forces the ruthless focus and letting-go that a \"sensible\" 2x goal never will.
Personal Growth books
Meaning, self-worth, and creative work — the shelf people return to when something needs to change.
The shelf
Every title below carries a note on why it earns its place. Read or listen to any of them in the Clif app.
11 min read
10 chapters
12 Rules for Life
Jordan B. Peterson · 2018
Practical rules for bringing order, meaning, and responsibility to your life.
12 min read
9 chapters
A New Earth
Eckhart Tolle · 2005
The book that reframed personal growth as a species-wide shift in consciousness: showing that the ego isn't who you are, and that seeing through it is the whole point.
11 min read
9 chapters
All About Love: New Visions
bell hooks · 2000
It reframes love from a feeling that happens to you into a chosen practice, and insists there can be no love without justice.
10 min read
9 chapters
Awaken the Giant Within
Tony Robbins · 1991
A comprehensive system for taking control of your emotions, decisions, and destiny.
8 min read
8 chapters
Big Magic
Elizabeth Gilbert · 2015
Encourages living a more creative, fearless life by releasing perfectionism and fear.
11 min read
8 chapters
Bittersweet
Susan Cain · 2022
In a culture obsessed with relentless positivity, this is the permission slip to feel your longing and sorrow, and to discover they are the doorway to connection, creativity, and love.
8 min read
8 chapters
Bullshit Jobs
David Graeber · 2018
Provocatively dissects pointless modern jobs and pushes readers to question the meaning of their work.
11 min read
8 chapters
Creative Confidence
Tom Kelley and David Kelley · 2013
Two brothers from IDEO and Stanford's d.school argue creativity isn't a rare gift but a capacity anyone can rebuild, and hand you the design-thinking habits to do it.
11 min read
8 chapters
Ego Is the Enemy
Ryan Holiday · 2016
The sharpest, most historically rich case that your real obstacle isn't the competition or bad luck, it's the voice in your own head that needs to feel important.
9 min read
9 chapters
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
Susan Jeffers · 1987
A classic on moving through fear to act with confidence and ownership.
12 min read
9 chapters
From Strength to Strength
Arthur C. Brooks · 2022
The uncomfortable truth every high achiever dodges: your professional decline is coming sooner than you think, and the fix is to stop fighting it.
11 min read
8 chapters
Goals!
Brian Tracy · 2003
A no-excuses operating manual that turns "someday" into a written, dated, measurable plan you act on today.
11 min read
8 chapters
High Performance Habits
Brendon Burchard · 2017
Success isn't a personality trait or a hack, it's six deliberate habits anyone can practice on purpose, backed by the largest study of high performers ever conducted.
11 min read
9 chapters
Ikigai
Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles · 2016
A gentle field guide to the Japanese secret of a long, joyful life: find the reason you jump out of bed each morning, and keep it moving.
11 min read
8 chapters
Living Forward
Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy · 2016
Most people spend more time planning a one-week vacation than planning their lives, this book hands you the template to reverse that.
11 min read
8 chapters
Loving What Is
Byron Katie (with Stephen Mitchell) · 2002
It hands you a four-question scalpel for cutting stressful thoughts loose from reality, and the peace that was underneath them all along.
12 min read
9 chapters
Man's Search for Meaning
Viktor Frankl · 1946
Foundational logotherapy text on finding purpose through suffering, a timeless psychology classic.
11 min read
8 chapters
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Lori Gottlieb · 2019
A therapist gets dumped, ends up on someone else's couch, and quietly proves that the person treating you and the person being treated are the exact same kind of scared human.
11 min read
8 chapters
Originals
Adam Grant · 2016
Debunks the myth of the fearless visionary and hands you the evidence-based playbook for having original ideas and actually getting them accepted.
11 min read
9 chapters
Presence
Amy Cuddy · 2015
Your biggest moments aren't lost to a lack of talent but to a lack of presence, and Cuddy shows you can summon it in about two minutes.
12 min read
8 chapters
Principles
Ray Dalio · 2017
The billionaire founder of the world's largest hedge fund hands you the exact operating manual he used to turn painful mistakes into a compounding machine for good decisions.
11 min read
8 chapters
Psycho-Cybernetics
Maxwell Maltz · 1960
A plastic surgeon discovered that the face that really needed changing was the one nobody could see, and turned that insight into the blueprint every modern visualization and self-image method still runs on.
10 min read
9 chapters
Steal Like an Artist
Austin Kleon · 2012
A pocket-sized permission slip that frees you to start now by embracing the liberating truth that nothing is original and every creator is a remix of what came before.
8 min read
9 chapters
The 12 Week Year
Brian P. Moran & Michael Lennington · 2013
Compresses annual planning into 12-week sprints to drive focused, urgent execution.
12 min read
9 chapters
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Stephen R. Covey · 1989
The timeless principle-centered framework for personal effectiveness and proactive prioritization.
12 min read
9 chapters
The Artist's Way
Julia Cameron · 1992
The book that reframed creativity as a spiritual birthright anyone can recover, and handed millions two absurdly simple daily tools to do it.
8 min read
8 chapters
The Confidence Code
Katty Kay & Claire Shipman · 2014
Blends science and stories to explain how confidence is built through action.
12 min read
10 chapters
The Courage to Be Disliked
Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga · 2013
Uses Adlerian psychology to show how to free yourself from others' approval and change.
10 min read
8 chapters
The Defining Decade
Meg Jay · 2012
Influential guide urging twentysomethings to be intentional about love and partner choice.
8 min read
7 chapters
The Four Agreements
Don Miguel Ruiz · 1997
Four simple agreements for personal freedom and breaking self-defeating beliefs.
12 min read
13 chapters
The Magic of Thinking Big
David J. Schwartz · 1959
A timeless guide to raising your self-belief and the scale of your goals.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Mountain Is You
Brianna Wiest · 2020
It reframes self-sabotage not as weakness but as a misguided form of self-protection you can decode and outgrow.
11 min read
9 chapters
The Road Less Traveled
M. Scott Peck · 1978
A landmark that redefined love as an act of will rather than a feeling, and argued that facing life's pain, not dodging it, is the only road to becoming whole.
11 min read
9 chapters
The Road to Character
David Brooks · 2015
In a culture that has forgotten how to build inner life, Brooks resurrects the older, harder tradition that treats character as something you construct through struggle, not something you are born with.
11 min read
9 chapters
The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
Nathaniel Branden · 1994
Branden replaces the fluffy "feel good about yourself" myth with six concrete daily practices that actually build a self worth respecting.
10 min read
9 chapters
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Mark Manson · 2016
Mass-market psychology of choosing what to care about, reframing acceptance and emotional priorities.
12 min read
9 chapters
The Success Principles
Jack Canfield · 2005
It distills decades of what high achievers actually do into 64 blunt, do-this-today principles, starting with the one nobody wants to hear: nothing changes until you take 100% responsibility.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Surrender Experiment
Michael A. Singer · 2015
The rare memoir that field-tests a spiritual idea over forty years, letting go of personal preference and watching life build something you never could have planned.
11 min read
10 chapters
The Untethered Soul
Michael A. Singer · 2007
A guide to freeing yourself from inner chatter and limiting emotional patterns.
11 min read
8 chapters
Wishcraft
Barbara Sher · 1979
The original how-to-get-what-you-really-want manual, insisting your buried wishes are trustworthy data and your isolation, not your discipline, is the real obstacle.
9 min read
10 chapters
You Are a Badass
Jen Sincero · 2013
An accessible, motivating kick-start for building self-worth and creating the life you want.
11 min read
9 chapters
Your Erroneous Zones
Wayne W. Dyer · 1976
The book that launched modern self-help still lands because its radical premise, that you choose your own feelings, hands responsibility for your happiness back to the only person who can act on it.
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