Books have the amazing ability to guide you, comfort you, open up your heart and mind, and transport you to another place. Sometimes, they take you on a journey and leave you forever changed. Here are the 5 books that completely transformed me:
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
This book talks about how tiny habits can add up to a monumental life, and how success is the sum of your positive habits. Before this book, I was all about lofty goals and new year resolutions. After reading this book, I became more focused on acquiring positive habits and letting go of negative ones. Instead of grand gestures and giant leaps, I learnt to focus on steady baby steps taken consistently. While I still set goals, my way of achieving them is now through tiny habits. It is through these small habits, I have been able to reclaim the joy of reading, despite two kids, a busy household and a demanding career. I have been able to overcome and prevent debilitating neck and shoulder pain. I have learnt to practice daily gratitude which helps me feel happier. These are just a few among many other habits that have positively contributed to my life. Now I always remember - "If you can get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up 37 times better by the time you’re done."
2. The One Thing by Gary Keller
This book taught me the value of focus. Before this book, I used to take pride in my ability to multi-task. However, this book made me realize that your brain can’t really do two things at a time. It merely switches between the tasks, causing you to pay a switching cost, which actually leads to cognitive impairment. In simple words, multi-tasking makes you less smart! In this complex and hyper-distracted world, it is important to be mindful about who and what you give your time, attention, and energy to. Now, I make focus a priority and I sometimes actually manage to resist scratching the itch to do something else while I am already doing something. While I haven’t yet learnt the art of singular focus, I have learnt to be vigilant of constant attention switching and distraction. So, if you are tempted to do too many things at a time, remember - “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.”
3. Deep work by Cal Newport
This book completely upended the way I thought about productive work. Before this book, I was all about efficiency and getting 20 things done from my to-do list. I used to respond to emails in the shortest possible time, always keeping my inbox current. This book brought home the fact that anything meaningful or worthwhile will require you to be in a distraction-free environment, deeply focused on one subject. The work that comes out of deep work will be the most valuable work that you would produce. While I can hardly claim to be doing deep work all the time, yet I have become more aware of my time spent doing busy shallow work, and I have learnt to create some pockets of deep work. I have reaped rewards in terms of being able to create original work in my domain and finding deep satisfaction, during periods of deep work. As Cal Newport wrote – “Human beings, it seems, are at their best when immersed deeply in something challenging.”
4. 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman
As the famous 85 year-long Harvard study shows, relationships are the single most important factor in your happiness and longevity. I have always valued relationships, yet this book showed me that in some ways, I had been approaching relationships all wrong. Before this book, my mantra was – “Treat others the way you wish to be treated”. After this book, it changed to – “Treat others the way THEY wish to be treated”. This book talks about different love languages or ways in which people perceive being loved or cared for. Often people express love in their love language instead of the language of the other person with whom they are communicating, creating a gap. This book hit home the fact that key to better relationships is knowing what the other person values and expressing yourself in that person’s language. This book has dramatically altered my communication with my spouse, and helped me understand my very-different-from-each-other children. This book has taught me to approach relationships not just from my own point of view, but also from the point of view of the other person. Has it been worthwhile? Indeed - “Nothing has more potential for strengthening one’s sense of well-being than effectively loving and being loved.”
5. Peaceful Parent, Happy kids by Laura Markham
If you are a parent, you will agree that while parenting might be the single most rewarding and meaningful thing in your life, it is possibly also the most confusing and challenging one. I hit my rock bottom as a parent during Covid when I found myself stressed, frustrated and screaming at my kids all day long. I felt that my kids had been replaced by screen zombies, who wouldn’t listen to anything I said. While I recognized that things were hard for them as well as me, yet I couldn’t figure out how to break out of the cycle. So, I turned to this book, which taught me the importance of remaining calm, and focusing building and nurturing connection with my children instead of trying to “fix” them. Taking the learning “Parenting isn’t about what our child does, but about how we respond” to heart, I focused on my managing my own behaviour. Fast forward 3 years, while I still don’t have a good solution for managing my kids’ screen time, I see some positive changes in my children. I have more patience, acceptance and better connection with my children. My children refer to me as the before and after version, and they unequivocally prefer the after version. My spouse on the other hand remains skeptical of my still-new gentle parenting approach. Do I feel better and more peaceful as a parent? A resounding yes! Will my kids turn out better with this approach? Well, the jury is still out!
So, that’s my story of biblio-powered metamorphosis. I invite you to go on your own journey of discovery and transformation with these books or any others that catch your attention, invite you or challenge you to think differently. For who knows, they might hold the key to change you for better, forever…
(Article originally published at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-books-changed-my-life-neha-verma )
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