Whether you’re looking to achieve a New Year’s resolution or simply trying to improve your life in some way, the best self-help audiobooks can help. However, there are so many out there that it can be difficult to know where to begin.
This list of audiobooks which could change your life for the better. They cover everything from cleaning out clutter to building a financial safety net. Check them out now and start working on your productivity, happiness, finances, and discipline.
Audiobooks for a Simpler Life
Clearing out clutter and refocusing your mind can have a profound effect on your life. These self-help audiobooks simplify different areas of your life to help you gain more focus and clarity from day to day. Check out our article about the KonMari method to learn more about simplifying your digital life.
1. Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki
Fumio Sasaki isn’t a self-help guru, and he’s not an organizational expert. He’s also not an ultra-hip startup founder based in Silicon Valley. He’s just a regular guy who decided that he didn’t need to own so many things.
Goodbye, Things includes practical advice on how you can reduce the amount of stuff that you own. This self-help audiobook is about his journey and the remarkable ways his life changed after embracing Japanese minimalism.
Download: Goodbye, Things on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
2. Essentialism by Greg McKeown
Once you’ve decluttered your space, you can start decluttering your mind. Greg McKeown encourages readers to stop pursuing everything and start the disciplined pursuit of less. It’s a method for developing the mindset to understand what’s important and where you should spend your time.
By focusing on tasks, projects, and priorities, instead of possessions, McKeown helps readers clear their minds. And that results in better focus, more discipline, and more effectiveness. While this audiobook is often discussed as one of the best self-discipline audiobooks for business people, the ideas are applicable to everyone’s lives.
Download: Essentialism on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
3. The ONE Thing by Gary Keller
Gary Keller’s idea is simple: find the one thing you’re working toward and pursue it relentlessly. He says this is the surprisingly simple truth behind many extraordinary results. Doing it, however, isn’t as easy as it sounds.
When you’re focused on what’s important, you ignore the things that are unnecessary, spending more time on the tasks that get you closer to your goals. This self-help audiobook is one of the best tools in helping you do that.
Download: The ONE Thing on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
4. Everything That Remains by The Minimalists
Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus are The Minimalists. They have been preaching the importance of intentional living since 2010 and Everything That Remains is your guidebook to follow their lessons.
In this audiobook, The Minimalists propose that the things you own actually own you. And you can waste your most valuable asset—time—organizing them, worrying about them, and collecting more stuff. Even if it doesn’t add value to your life. Change this way of life through minimalism; the benefits are seemingly endless.
Download: Everything That Remains on Audible | Apple Books
Audiobooks for More Productivity
We’re all looking for ways to get more done. These audiobooks take you beyond to-do lists and productivity systems and address the deeper systems underlying productivity.
5. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
While our conscious minds are capable of some pretty amazing things, it’s our underlying habits that drive much of who we are and what we do. There are plenty of habits that make people successful. And changing your habits is the key to your own success.
Charles Duhigg walks readers through some fascinating science in his search for the power of habits. He shares stories of some of the most successful people of our time, from Howard Schultz to Michael Phelps. And he shows how “keystone” habits form the foundation of success.
Download: The Power of Habit on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
6. Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy
Procrastination is a productivity killer. If you’re wasting time when you could be working, you’re sabotaging your own success. Eat That Frog! gives you actionable strategies for defeating procrastination so that you can get more done in less time.
The title comes from the saying, “If you start your day by eating a live frog, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’re done with the worst thing you’ll do all day.” Yes, it’s weird. But when Brian Tracy applies it to modern life, you’ll see that it’s an apt metaphor and can transform your productivity.
This is why it’s one of the best self-discipline audiobooks of all time.
Download: Eat That Frog! on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
7. Deep Work by Cal Newport
Technology has made it harder to focus on what we’re doing. We’re constantly bombarded with notifications, tempted by addictive social media, and thrown off track by relentless emails. In this audiobook, Newport discusses the importance of “deep work,” a state of distraction-free focus on a cognitively demanding task.
With a mix of practical strategies and reflections on modern culture, you’ll learn to understand the nature of deep work. It may force you to consider some alarming new suggestions: like the idea that serious professionals should quit social media.
Download: Deep Work on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
8. Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
If you’ve ever felt in tune with what you’re doing with a profound sense of enjoyment, you’ve experienced what Csikszentmihalyi calls “optimal experience” or flow. In Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, he outlines the idea that consciously ordering the information that enters our subconscious can engage us in a flow state.
If you’re interested in psychology, this is one of the best self-help audiobooks to listen to. It backs up its claims with scientific results and explains why optimal experience is so important for research. It will also help you conquer chronic inattention in your life to become more deeply involved in both your work and leisure time.
Download: Flow on Audible | Apple Books
Audiobooks for a Better Life
Many of the best self-improvement audiobooks are broad in their scope, taking on a variety of issues. The selections below, however, are more specific, targeting your stress and happiness.
9. Unwind! by Michael Olpin and Sam Bracken
Stress permeates every corner of our lives. It affects our work, our relationships, even our health. If you can reduce your stress levels, you’ll see all manner of improvements. Unwind! is focused on seven “paradigm shifts” that will help you think and act differently in all areas of your life.
It’s not like any other stress-reduction book you may have read, and the changes that it makes in how you view the world and your relationship with it may very well change your life. This is a short self-help audiobook, but it’s a powerful one.
Download: Unwind! on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
10. The Shallows by Nicholas Carr
You won’t find this one on many lists of the best self-development audiobooks. But Carr’s exploration of what the internet is doing to our brains may well make you think differently about all aspects of your life. When you see just how big the effect is, you can’t help but change how you live.
Carr argues that every piece of information technology carries an ethic. And that the ethic carried by the internet isn’t doing us any favors. It’s a difficult look in the mirror, and even though you might not call it a self-development audiobook, we think it deserves a spot on this list.
Download: The Shallows on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
11. 10% Happier by Dan Harris
Dan Harris is a news anchor whose environment became so stressful that he had a panic attack live on air. This audiobook tracks the journey he took following this episode, which led to him embracing meditation. Check out these meditation and relaxation apps if that sounds like something you’re interested in.
Harris isn’t mystical or spiritual. Instead, he created this audiobook to show that anyone—even cynical news anchors—can benefit from meditation. When asked why he pursues meditation by skeptical colleagues, Harris explains to them that it makes him about 10 percent happier. And it could make you happier, too.
Download: 10% Happier on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
12. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
Regardless of how the title makes it sound, this self-help audiobook doesn’t aim to make you stop caring about everything. It aims to make you stop caring about those things that aren’t important to you. We can only give our attention to so much, so choose wisely where to spend your emotional energy.
Manson highlights a lot of inherent problems with self-help books by recognizing that the desire for change implies unhappiness with your current situation. This is one of the best self-development audiobooks to listen to because it helps you find happiness with your life as it is.
Download: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
Audiobooks for Wealth Management
Money, or the lack of it, is a common topic addressed in self-help audiobooks. There are lots of approaches to take to the topic, but these audiobooks offer time-tested advice that is useful to people from all walks of life.
13. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
Despite the title, this isn’t all about teaching your children personal finance lessons. It’s about how wealthy people think differently about money than non-wealthy people. And how those distinctions can help you move from the latter group to the former.
It’s not a new book—Rich Dad Poor Dad came out in 1997—but the advice is timeless. Kiyosaki helps you rethink assets and liabilities, one of the foundations of personal finance. And with that rethinking, you’ll see how you can become wealthy without needing to make a ton of money.
Download: Rich Dad Poor Dad on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
14. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
Some of the oldest advice for managing your money is as useful now as it was in Babylonian times. Clason’s audiobook outlines basic financial principles that the richest men in ancient Babylon followed. You can follow these principles too to gain more control over your financial situation.
The lessons include setting money aside to pay yourself, making your money work for you, and becoming a person of action. They may sound simple, but it’s easy to slip into common traps, like letting your lifestyle expand alongside your income. This is a life-changing audiobook and one of the best at helping you avoid financial missteps.
Download: The Richest Man in Babylon on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
15. The 4-Hour Workweek by Time Ferriss
This audiobook isn’t for everyone and you probably shouldn’t follow it to the letter. But there are some incredibly valuable ideas to be gained from it that can help you escape the typical work-life, make your money go farther, and re-define your wealth.
The core idea is that your wealth doesn’t depend on the size of your paycheck. Instead, it comes down to how long it took you to earn that money and how far it can take you where you live. You can get a lot more bang for your buck in Thailand than you can in New York. All you need to do is earn in dollars and spend in baht. Thanks to the internet and Ferriss’s advice, you can do just that.
Download: The 4-Hour Workweek on Audible | Apple Books | Downpour
Don’t Let Yourself Get Distracted
The best self-help audiobooks will help you make positive changes in your life. But audiobooks aren’t the only options available to you. The problem with them is that they make it easy to get distracted with other tasks and lose focus on what you’re listening to.
If you find that keeps happening to you, take a look at the best YouTube channels for self-improvement and motivation. That way, you’ve got something to watch while you listen to the wise words of advice.
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