24 Self-help Books for 12 Months of 2025 (Part 1)

Before we start, let me ask you some questions! Have you done your new year resolution? Is “To read more” or “Finish one book a month” on your list? If yes, you’re on the right place.

I also have this on my list and I’ll share about my new year resolution next time.

Now I know you will read more in this year but do you have the list of books you’ll read in this year? Maybe yes, or maybe no. But most people don’t have exact books they’ll read in 2025.

And I didn’t have the book list last year. My plan was to finish 12 books in 2024 but I had no idea what books I want to read, and I didn’t have any resources to easily access the books (I only read them in digital form) And Guess how many books I ended up finishing! FIVE! Yes, only 5!

That’s why I decided to make 24 Self Growth Books list this year! So, my plan is to finish at least two books a month so that at the end of 2025, I’ll finish 24 books. (Let this be a reminder to plan exactly! Don’t let yourself have any excuse to fail an habit)

But without an exact plan, an exact list of books you’ll read, it’ll be an excuse for you to end up reading less than you’re planning to.

WHY Self Improvement books?

I know some of you are a big fan of romance or any types of fictions. However! you need to improve yourself in all areas of your life through reading. That’s why the top successful people are encouraging us to read more, to develop ourselves.

It’s 2025 now, time to be serious about yourself and reach your highest potential. To do so, you need to read personal development books.

All the books in my new year bucket list are all non-fiction and more for personal development. That’s why I decided to share the list here.

My 24 books list

(I attached the amazon links for all the books, so you can easily access to them and start your reading for 2025)

1. You Are the Brand – by Mike Kim

Why This Book: This book is about building personal brand. And most people don’t know that we all are brand. Yes, you’re the brand, your stories, your experiences, your skill, lifestyle, everything is your brand. And there’s only you in this whole world. And this book shows how to brand yourself.

I’m trying to start my content creation journey with this blog, Youtube, and TikTok. And I need to know how to brand myself and learn about this area. Especially if you have a plan to start a personal brand business, content creation career, or want to be self-employed, this book is what you must read.

2. Master Your Emotion – by Thibaut Meurisse

Why This Book: This book is obviously for personal growth. You can see the reason in its name itself. You need to master your emotion in this complex world. We have no control over the outside world but our emotion and feelings, our inner world. This books show how to reprogram your negative emotion into positive one.

For me, I want to feel peaceful all the time and I’m sure this comes not from what’s happening outside, but how we see them inside. And I’m sure this book will teach me to see everything from a different perspective.

I mean who doesn’t want to feel peaceful in one self. If so, this book will help you.

3. Games People Play – by Eric Berne

Why This Book: Communication skill decides how you’ll be successful in your all areas of life, business, relationship, family, friends, everything literally. This book will show you the games people play in communication psychologically. So, it’ll increase your awareness in people, relationships, and yourself too and guide you how to improve those areas.

This classic self help book is so popular and I believe it’ll teach us ways how to analyze those games and how to play it better than others.

4. Dark Psychology Secret – by Daniel Hollins

Why This Book: Dark psychology! If you know some dark psychology, you can make everything under your control. Psychology has that much power. You can control people’s thoughts, views, perspectives, and decisions. But also to aware who is using it to you. Reading this book is not to manipulate others but to not be manipulated. And in one way or another, those practices are useful.

5. The Diary of a CEO – by Steven Bartlett

Why This Book: If you want to be a CEO or someone who’s making loads of money, you need to learn from someone who’s already successful in that field and making so much money. That’s why I choose this book. It’ll teach you 33 laws of Business and life.

I’m sure we’ll have so many insightful lessons from this books. Ngl but the title is so catchy too. Like “the diary” feels like we’re about to read the diary or the life of a CEO. So, it’ll be worth it.

6. This is Marketing – by Seth Godin

Why This Book: Before you complain why you should read it when you’re studying computer science or anything, let me tell you one thing. Everything in the world is about marketing. Marketing is not about a subject or a career, but something we use in our daily life. Making your CV is a personal marketing, persuading your friend to go to a restaurant is a marketing, and so on. It’s the most important thing in business world too. So why don’t we learn it?

Fun fact: I’m also a marketing student. So, I love it anyway.

7. The Power of Letting Go – John Purkiss

Why This Book: There are things that are holding you back from reaching your goals or from becoming the best version of you without even you realizing them. To live in full potential of you, you need to let go of certain things. This kind of self growth book will teach you what kinds of things are holding you back, how to let go of those things, and becoming more aware of yourself and environment. This is the definition of personal growth for me.

8. The Four Agreements – by Don Miguel Ruiz

Why This Book: The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book), it is published in 1997 and still one of the top books in self help books. The reviews say this book shows 4 principles that will lead us to the real freedom and to live the best life fully. So, I think it’ll be a personal guide for inner peace and personal growth. And it’ll make your life to be more happy too.

9. Zero to One – by Blake Masters and Peter Thiel

Why This Book: This book is to improve your life, especially in business and career. It shows how to start from nothing to becoming something. This book is written by entrepreneur and investor, so they’ll spill all the information about starting a business. That’s why it’s a must-read personal development book for those who want to start a business. This is so modern and give insights on the future predictions of technology involvement and business world. So, it’s good for business people.

10. Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind – by Shunryū Suzuki

Why This Book: We are living in the world full of distractions. Our mind is messy most of the time even when you’re reading this, your attention will be at something else. You might be thinking about something now. That’s the reason we need to read this book. This timeless spiritual book is about living life with mindfulness, openness, simplicity, and awareness. This book will be good for you who love to start learning about meditation and mindfulness. You’ll learn about meditation and inner peace.

11. Quantum Physics for Poets – by Christopher T. Hill and Leon M. Lederman

Why This Book: Speaking of spirituality, quantum physics and spirituality are highly related to each other. And quantum physics is topic that everyone needs to study if you want to know how things are actually happening in this universe and in your life. This is such an interesting topic to study. I heard someone said “when you connect the quantum physics and the spiritual world, you can create your reality and you can create everything you want in this lifetime.” Can you imagine achieving all of your dreams coz you understand these topic. I don’t know, we’ll find out. Such a powerful field to learn for personal development.

12. Start With Why – by Simon Sinek

Why This Book: Again the title tells everything. This self help book will help you for all your areas of life. Behind all the successful business people, there’s a strong WHY and this book will explain that “WHY” and how to know your “WHY”. Not only in business, also your life! What’s your “WHY”. This will be a useful book for those who’re looking for their life purpose.

So, these are the first 12 personal development books of my 2025 bucket list. All the books are good for everyone with all different backgrounds and purposes. And let me know what books are you reading this year.

See you in part 2!