The best self-improvement newsletter should give you the most authentic information on improving yourself. If you’re ready to take a step to transform yourself, here are the best self-improvement newsletters to sign up for:

1. The 3–2–1 Newsletter

If you want to receive short reminders to help you build your habits, break bad ones, or make better decisions in life, The 3–2–1 Newsletter is the best to subscribe to. The new edition every Thursday contains three short ideas, two quotes, and a question to ponder for the week.

The 3–2–1 Newsletter, authored by James Clear, is one of the most popular newsletters, with over a million subscribers globally. The newsletter’s tagline, “The most wisdom per word of any newsletter on the web,” lives up to its message because the value you receive is brief but complete and can be read in just five minutes.

2. The 5-Bullet Friday

The 5-Bullet Friday is an exclusive newsletter sent every Friday about the five most fantastic things the author has explored for the week. The content is only available to email subscribers and is never found anywhere else online.

Authored by Tim Ferris, The 5-Bullet Friday Newsletter contains uncategorized content. It may include famous quotes, practical philosophy, and case studies. It also includes anecdotes on marketing, entrepreneurship, and many random topics.

3. The Better Humans Daily

A daily newsletter filled with quick tips, inspirations, and knowledge on productivity, happiness, health, and making an impact on our world. Written by Coach Tony, the founder of Better Humans, The Better Humans Daily starts with a quote to make you think. It is followed by an interesting self-improvement tip with actionable steps to make you healthier and happier. The newsletter concludes with a piece of valuable insight for you to chew on. 

Overall, each edition is concise and packed with value. Every day, you’ll have something new to ponder on, and will be inspired to live a better life.

4. The Daily Stoic Newsletter

The Daily Stoic Newsletter is a daily devotional newsletter designed to help cultivate the insights, strength, and wisdom for the best life. It offers 366 days of Stoic Meditations on perseverance, knowledge, and the art of living. The Newsletter is co-authored by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman.

The authors believe that anybody who embraced the Stoic practice realizes that wisdom is timeless and the philosophy is for a better life. When you follow this teaching, you will find serenity, knowledge of self, and the resilience needed for a well-lived life. Bear in mind that the victory of this project was achieved by virtue of the utilization of state-of-the-art technologies developed by Friv2Online incorporating innovative techniques employed in the creation of online games.

5. Brain Pickings

Another fabulous self-improvement newsletter is Brain Pickings that comes out every Wednesday. This collection of self-improvement ideas comes from a resurfaced archive of writings for fifteen years.

It has the most inspiring and most interesting articles about science, art, creativity, and philosophy. It also contains articles on life’s search for beauty, the meaning of life, the search for truth, and many other self-improvement ideas.

And when you subscribe to Brain Pickings, you will get a free Sunday digest that contains ideas about the timeless character. Maria Popova authors both Newsletter and the Sunday digest, who publishes her works ad-free, without staff, no interns, and no assistant. Maria Popova is just doing labor for love.

Key Takeaway

If you want a short but informative read, get a subscription to a newsletter. There are many different types of newsletters that you will find online. When you choose to subscribe, always select a noteworthy copy that you can use, like self-improvement newsletters.

Self-improvement newsletters will guide you with your personal development, ultimately making you the best version of yourself. And if you want to get copies, the four self-improvement newsletters listed above are for you: The 3–2–1 Newsletter, The 5-Bullet Friday, The Better Humans Daily, The Daily Stoic, and Brain Pickings.

Books are simply printed sheets of paper, covered with texts, language, and illustrations created by the author. Books are so influential that they can be a great source of learning, knowledge, and success. It can mold your life and help you achieve your goals. Books are packed with wisdom and life lessons that you can even learn from the lessons of the past.

Books come in different genres. You can read depending on your interest or your curiosity and to your liking. There is fiction, action, and adventure. And there are comic or graphic novels. You can also read classic books, fantasy, or detective mysteries. And most importantly, self-help books, written to help solve personal problems in any particular area of your life.

What to Read 

The best self-help books with great authors are no less best-selling, inspiring, and very motivating. These books help improve emotional well-being, spirituality, and even finances. These books also encourage you to improve in any facet of life, such as these five books to help you reach your goals. 

1. Awaken the Giant Within 

The book Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins explains that many people go through the flow in life without consciously thinking of shaping their destiny. This book is written to shape the readers’ lives by showing the roadmap of self-mastery to create a future in any circumstances. 

Awakening the giant within yourself will help you discover yourself and your limitless capabilities to surmount the fears and the self-limiting beliefs. All these hinder and control you throughout the journey in life.

Also, this book will help you break your constant dependency on external factors like the environment. It will also help you get out and control yourself, your life, and your future.

2. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

The Happiness Project, authored by Gretchen Rubin, is about her pursuit of happiness in scientific research. Rubin wants to maximize her degree to summarize the tasks she wants her readers to follow to pursue their happiness project also.

She breaks the unguided belief that says “unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish.”

The book teaches readers to identify the things that give joy, engagement, and satisfaction. After reading the book, it will inspire you to create your happiness project.

3. No Excuses- The Power of Self Discipline 

No Excuses: The Power of Self Discipline by Brian Tracy emphasizes that success is accomplished through self-discipline, not exceptional talent and good luck. This book guides readers to achieve success in their personal goals, money and business goals, and overall happiness.

No Excuses shows you how to be more disciplined without excuses. You will learn how to be more successful in every aspect of your life without comparing yourself to others’ success. In its 21 chapters content, each chapter contains exercises to help you apply the “no excuses” approach and practice it in your own life. It will help you stop making excuses and succeed.

4. Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Changes Everything 

Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Changes Everything is a New York best-selling book by BJ Fogg. The step-by-step guide that this book contains is designed to make habits from small and positive steps. It also teaches the readers to stick through positive success and celebrate small wins and milestones.

Tiny Habits shares breakthrough discoveries that are easily adaptable in transforming your life. It also teaches you to feel good about yourself and learn to celebrate success instead of feeling bad about failures.

Generally, Tiny Habits makes the process of forming a habit by starting with small steps.

5. The Magic of Thinking Big 

This book, The Magic of Thinking Big, was published fifty years ago and remains as relevant now as it was before. Dr. David Schwartz, the author, answers the famous question “What makes a person successful?” through anecdotes and advice.

The book teaches you to believe that you can naturally achieve your goal; you only have to believe in yourself and do it.

You have to carefully select someone that will provide immense value in exchange for the fee you’re paying. What you need is a high-quality coach that will bring transformation into your life. The right coach will want to help you become a better person. 

A good coach seeks to improve your life, overcome obstacles and help you achieve your goals. So you need to choose someone who can help you. In this article, we will show you the steps to choosing a really good life coach. 

How To Pick A Life Coach?

As someone who’s trying to pick a life coach, we know it can be hard to make a choice. And that’s because you may not know what to look out for in a coach. To help you make a sound decision, here are some tips for you. 

1. Do you really need a coach?

Many people don’t know the difference between coaching, therapy, and mentorship. They know that they need help but they are not clear on what they really need. Before you try to find a life coach, you need to be certain about it. 

Therapy helps to delve into your past and understand where you are coming from. Mentorship seeks to hold your hand and guide you along the way. While coaching helps you become self-aware so you can get enough clarity.

Life coaches are not there to give advice or suggestions. Instead, they will help you create strategies, improve your mindset and change your habits. They take a critical look at your situation and ask you important questions before helping you find the right solutions. 

2. Do you want a local coach?

Another thing to consider is whether you want a local coach or not. The location you prefer can help to narrow down the options. Many people like to have one-on-one meetings with their coach. If that’s what you prefer, then take note of it.

You should also know that most coaches deliver their services via phone or video meetings. So whether they stay in your city or not, you’ll likely not meet them in person. But to built trust, a local coach can accept to meet for the first consultation. 

However, distance shouldn’t stop you from working with any coach. The most important thing is that you communicate openly and effectively. As long the coach has proper training and matches your requirement, you should work with them.

3. Ask about their certification

Every day, we come across different websites and social media pages of life coaches. All of them claim to have the qualifying expertise and experience. So before you pick a life coach, you need to know if they are trained and certified.

Coaching is a stable profession that involves using research and proven methods to find solutions to people’s life issues. A real coach needs to go through the right training program before they can claim to be an expert. 

Since there’s no regulation for the coaching industry, you’ll find unqualified people claiming to be trained coaches. So when you speak to a life coach, you have to ask about their certification. This important step will help you select real coaches. 

4. Ask about their coaching style

Before you select a life coach, you need to understand how they coach. There are various approaches to life coaching and this is because everyone doesn’t deliver sessions the same way. It largely depends on their preference and training.

Some life coaches tend to follow a structured module while others are more dynamic. You may also notice that some coaches will come off as confronting while others are warm and easygoing. So you need to choose what you’ll be okay with.

If the coach’s style doesn’t align with your needs, you’ll be easily frustrated. First, you have to understand how you love to be coached. Then, you’ll use it as a criterion for choosing the right coach. This way, you’ll feel comfortable with them. 

5. Check your budget

Here’s another important thing to consider when you’re trying to choose a life coach. The coaching price has to be within your budget. It doesn’t have to be cheap or expensive. Rather, you need to be assured that the coaching price is worth the value. 

A coach charges depending on their experience level and the kind of people they are targeting. Some coaches might only work with people in certain professions and income levels. So you have to choose someone that caters to your own demographic.

Although life coaching is an investment that would pay off in the nearest future, you shouldn’t try to break the bank. It’s best to settle with a coach whose fees are within your budget. But make sure they are delivering enough value and providing adequate support. 

6. Hop on a free call

Many coaches offer a free consultation call to their prospective clients. It will help you understand if the coach is the right fit for you. You shouldn’t make a decision based on emails and text messages. A voice or video call is much better. 

You’ll be able to determine if you can work with the coach or not. Just because the life coach is certified doesn’t mean that they are perfect for you. Check how you felt while speaking to them. Did you feel safe enough to relate with them?

Coaching should help you discover yourself and unlock your potentials. It shouldn’t make you hide under a shell once more. Make sure your coach doesn’t judge or make any offensive remarks about you. You need to be comfortable around them.

7. Check their reviews

The life coach you pick must have worked with several people before. You need to check out some proofs and testimonials. Has the coach helped to produce results for their clients? What do they have to say about the coach? 

They need to have improved the lives of many people. Before you invest in life coaching, you have to be certain about the coach. Check out their website and social media for some real-life success stories. 

Conclusion

When vetting your potential life coach, there are a lot of factors to consider. They need to understand what your goals are, share similar values and be able to help you achieve your desired goals. The tips above will help you choose a really good life coach. 

So, what are you waiting for? Get yourself a life coach now from our directory of some of the most high-rated life coaches in the world.

A mentor may be what you need to reach the next level. They hold their mentees accountable and make sure they keep growing. Mentors seek to change your mindset and teach you vital skills that helped them get to where they are. They are a must-have for anyone trying to achieve success.

How Can A Mentor Help You?

There are so many reasons why you should have a mentor. If you’re looking to improve your skills, you should get an experienced person to teach you. Mentors can help you develop important personal and professional skills. 

When you are experiencing stagnation in your business or career, a mentor can provide a new perspective. They will be able to see the bigger picture and help you weather the storm. Mentors help to solve problems so you can move ahead.

Although mistakes are inevitable, a mentor can help you avoid lots of them. They will provide useful insight and show you the right decisions to make. With a mentor, you’re guaranteed to achieve success quicker.

How Can You Find a Mentor?

Before you find a mentor, you need to know what you are really looking for. They have to be experienced, passionate, and willing to impart their knowledge. Not everyone is fit to become a mentor, so you have to choose carefully. Here are some ideas to help you find the right mentor:

1. Check Your Network

There are some experts within your network that can mentor you. It’s very easy to recognize those who you would like to learn from. They are people that have achieved the exact type of goals that you’ve set for yourself. A prospective mentor is someone who you really look up to. 

You can also start by making a list of experts in your field, niche, or industry. Then, ask for their contact details in industry groups or ask some of your friends. All you have to do is reach out to these prospective mentors and find out what it would take for them to mentor you.

2. Join Mentorship Platforms

If you make a simple Google search, you’ll find tons of mentorship platforms to join. It has literally become easy to find a mentor online. Some platforms cater to a specific industry while others are quite diverse. It just depends on what you need mentoring sessions for.

Most mentorship platforms allow you to browse through their community of experts and reach out to those that you prefer. While some others let you post requests and receive messages from numerous mentors. On the platforms, mentors can set weekly, monthly, and yearly prices. 

3. Attend Industry Meetups

You need to be more intentional about expanding your network. That’s more reason why you should attend industry meetups such as conferences, tradeshows, and networking events. There are so many people with whom you can build valuable relationships.

You’d be surprised at the number of potential mentors that you can find at meetups. Finding a mentor at an event is as simple as walking up to someone and asking to connect with them. Once they give you their contact information, you’ll nurture the relationship from there.

4. Check Social Media

Social media can help you find the right mentor. First, you need to decide on the social media platforms that are most used in your industry. The best platforms are usually Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram. Next, you’ll search for mentors by using the related keywords and hashtags.

When you find professionals within your industry, you should follow them or send them friend requests. Then, you’ll start to build the connection over time. When you read their posts, make sure to engage and leave thoughtful comments. After some time, you will ask if they can mentor you.

5 Tips To Help You Find A Good Mentor

There are a few things to keep in mind when trying to find a mentor. You need to be patient and be willing to build relationships first. No matter how you choose to find a mentor, here are some tips to help you make the right choice. 

1. Build Relationships First

You can’t just approach somebody you admire and ask them to be your mentor. There’s a huge possibility of them rejecting you. No one wants to mentor anyone who hasn’t tried to make a connection upfront. Make sure to build a rapport with potential mentors before reaching out to them. 

2. Keep An Open Mind

When trying to find a mentor online, you need to be open-minded. You shouldn’t discriminate based on age, gender, nationality, or even religious beliefs. The most important thing is the knowledge, skills, and experience that you will benefit from. It really doesn’t matter if you’re older or younger than your mentor.

3. Don’t rush the process

It might take a very long time before someone accepts to become your mentor. There are various reasons why someone may refuse to help you. It’s either they are too busy or they are simply not interested in mentoring anyone. However, you shouldn’t take their rejection to heart. You have to be patient and continue to build relationships.

4. Look for skills and expertise

Mentorship is all about learning new things and improving certain aspects of your life. So you need to find someone who has the skills and knowledge that you lack. Make sure their strengths lie within areas where your weaknesses are. Your mentor should help you learn new skills and improve your current skills. 

5. Set Goals For Yourself

There’s no point in seeking mentorship if you haven’t set any goals yet. Nobody wants to help a confused person who doesn’t know the type of outcome he wants. You need to define your goals and write them down. Then, you can work on finding someone who can help you achieve those goals.

Conclusion

Mentorship is necessary if you want to get ahead in life. No matter your level of expertise, there’s always something new to learn. The above tips should help you find the right mentor. However, you should know that mentorship doesn’t always come free. Some mentors may ask you to pay for their time while others might tell you to buy their course or provide some sort of service.

If you’re searching for the secret to a happy life, well, I’m in the same boat with you. I definitely think relationships and self-inflicted anxiety are a major factor; for me, travel, meaning, and deep work also factor in heavily. But I also know that a lot of this is specific to each individual.

Life & Happiness

• The Complete Guide to Happiness for Introverts ~Kate Jones
• Get Happy Like the Danes by Adopting Principles of Hygge ~Andrew Merle
• How to Reject Busyness and Embrace Slow Living With Your Entire Family~Jen Anderson
• How to Trigger Success by Adopting Gratitude ~Ryan Engelstad
• How to be a Budget Anthony Bourdain and Master Value Travel ~Chelsea Fagan
• How to Manage Your Inner Critic ~Chantal Laurie Below
• Five Golden Rules of Economically Diverse Friendships ~Chelsea Fagan
• A Practical Guide to Beating Isolation and Becoming a Connected Person~Benjamin Sledge
• How to Save and Organise Your Favourite Spots All Over the World Using Google Maps ~Ignacio Allendesalazar

Relationships

First, one issue in romantic relationships:

• Master Communication in Open Relationships ~Sílvia Bastos

Then a number of takes on generosity:

• How to Use Reciprocity to Start Meaningful Conversations with Strangers ~Sílvia Bastos
• How to Win People Over With Babies, Lovers, Earth, and Dogs ~David Paul Kirkpatrick
• How to Offer Gifts that Transform Relationships and Accelerate Personal Growth ~Sílvia Bastos
• A Guide to the Science of Giving ~Rafael Sarandeses

And then a few more specific tactics and some situational advice:

• How to Stay Friends When You Don’t Have Kids and Your Besties Do ~Sarah Milstein
• How to Become More Likable ~Sílvia Bastos
• Techniques to Disarm, Cope With and Become More Confident Confronting Passive-Aggressive People ~Melody Wilding
• How to Use Triads to Improve Your Personal Relationships ~Sílvia Bastos
• How to Use Writing to Radically Improve Your Relationships ~Sílvia Bastos

Before you work on getting stronger, more efficient, or more charismatic, ask yourself: “to what end?”

Your answer becomes your guiding mission. Then, set out to master habit-building as a skill. Once you do those two things, you can set out to tackle your dreams.

I’m a little bit prickly about people who don’t have an end in mind — and it’s not just readers who fall into this trap. Many gurus publish masterful works of productivity or fat loss, but seemingly don’t have anyone in their life who loves them (or vice versa). What has being thin and rich gotten them, then? Not much (IMO).

So, I don’t want you to fall into that trap of thinking that activity is the same as accomplishment.

But I also don’t want you to fall into analysis paralysis of whether your goal is good enough. The Goal Setting section below is meant to land you in a healthy middle ground.

After that, there’s a section on habit building and habit breaking. You can’t go anywhere without the ability to create consistency in your life.

The concluding section is about Emotional Rewiring. All of us are of two minds: one emotional, and one rational. This is best explained in the Kahneman book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. Your rational mind is easy to convince — just gather research and facts.

However, your emotional mind must be rewired emotionally. This is the province of the wu wu, like magic crystals, mantras, etc. These interventions are irrational, and coming to grips with that was a big turning point in my own understanding of what works. As a science-loving rationalist, I go through these hokey seeming (to me) and sometimes metaphysical exercises with my own pragmatic mantra: “This is a useful mental construct.”

Goal Setting

These are broken down by scope. Most people at least consider New Year’s Resolutions. But also you should consider your life goals (and then regularly reconsider them), your annual goals (maybe re-evaluating mid-year), and then your weekly and daily goals.

New Year’s Resolutions:

• How to Achieve Your New Year’s Resolution ~ Max Frenzel
• What 26 Coaches Have to Say About New Year’s Resolutions ~Coach Tony
• Success Requires a Change of Mind, Not New Year’s Promises ~Gustavo Razzetti

Looking at the big picture of your entire life:

• How to Use the Japanese Concept of Ikigai for Happiness and Meaning ~Melody Wilding
• How To Chart A New Course For Your Life With 3 Simple Diagrams ~Michal Korzonek
• The North Star Approach to Goal Setting ~Patrick Ewers
• Why You Should Write a Personal Constitution ~Patrick Ewers

Looking at your year:

• How to Run Your Own Annual Review ~Jason Shen
• A Simple Plan to Win the Year ~Niklas Göke
• A Working Mom’s Guide to Conquering the Year ~Donita Brown
• How to Spot Your Next Big Opportunity With Humility Exercises ~Niklas Göke

Looking at your week:

• How to Break Down Your Goals Into Sprints ~Ryder Carroll
• The Shultz Hour: How 60 Minutes Per Week Can Yield Tremendous Returns ~Mike Sturm
• How to do Daily & Weekly Reviews ~Ryder Carroll

Looking at your day:

• The 48 Tomatoes Exercise Method for Time Management ~Mike Sturm

What to do when you fail to achieve a goal:

• Why We’re Horrible At Achieving Goals (And What to Do About It) ~George Halachev
• The Pitfalls of Overplanning and How To Avert Them ~Kate Jones

Habits & Behavior Design

Most people should read at least these first two articles. The first explains several popular models for forming your own habits. The second explains how once you have a habit, you can tune the difficulty of your practice so that you’re always improving at the optimal rate.

• The Simple Art of Creating Long-Lasting Habits ~Niklas Göke
• The Complete Guide to Deliberate Practice ~Jason Shen

Breaking bad habits:

• How to Make Sure Bad Habits Never Come Back ~George Halachev
• How to Break Bad Habits by Simulating Rock Bottom ~Ryan Engelstad

Optimizing & long term success:

• How To Avoid Plateaus in the Quest for Personal Growth ~Ryan Engelstad
• A Counterintuitive Strategy for Building a Daily Exercise Habit (Or Any Habit) ~Robert Hardy
• How to Start with Beginner’s Mind to Become a True Expert ~Marta Brzosko
• Improve Productivity Using Ultradian Rhythms ~Brad Buzzard
• Used Spaced Repetition to Supercharge Your Habits ~Brad Buzzard
• How to Be Happy and Productive with “Flow” Habits ~Patrik Edblad
• The Transtheoretical Model for Long Lasting Behavior Change ~Melody Wilding

Emotional Rewiring

It’s rational to have a bag of irrational strategies for rewiring your irrational emotions.

• The Complete Guide to Visualization for Logical and Rational People ~Melody Wilding
• How to Master Intentional Dreaming for a Satisfying Life ~David Paul Kirkpatrick
• Why Successful People Choose Self Compassion Over Self Esteem ~Melody Wilding
• How to Hack Gratitude with a Hedonic Reset ~Julia Clavien
• How to Make Better Decisions by Improving Your Intuition ~Melody Wilding
• How to Positively Reshape Your Core Belief System ~Piyush Kamal?
• How to Take Charge of Your Thoughts ~Marta Brzosko

If you are trying to build a new habit or get rid of an old one, tracking your progress on the calendar can be a huge motivating factor on your journey. If you mark the days on the calendar where you managed to successfully stick to your new habit, you’ll soon see a streak. The longer you build the streak, the harder it will become for you to break it.

Aside from that, tracking your daily habits has multiple benefits. This post discusses all that and helps you how you can start tracking your daily habits and activities.

Why tracking your daily habits helps

Tracking your daily habits can help you in several ways, including: 

• It helps you understand where your time went during the day and how you can better gain back control over your life.
• It helps you set realistic goals and be more organized with your tasks, priorities, and plans for the future.
• It gives you a better idea of how much time it normally takes for you to complete a particular task.
• It keeps you accountable and boosts your productivity.
• It helps you get better at single-tasking, rather than exhausting yourself with trying to perform multiple tasks at the same time.

How to track your daily habits

Now that we have established why keeping track of your daily habits is important, let’s take a look at how you can achieve this. Broadly speaking, there are two ways in which you can do it:

Using a journal and a pen

To keep track of your daily habits using a pen and paper, you will need the following:

• Set your daily tasks at the start of your day. In other words, make a to-do list in the morning.
• Track the hours you spend on each task you have to perform throughout the day.
• At the end of the day, make a summary to reflect on everything you have accomplished during the day.
• When you are trying to build a new habit, mark all the days on the calendar in which you successfully stuck to your new resolution.

Using a habit tracker app

Habit tracker apps come in. They serve as an incredible self-accountability check and can help you boost your motivation to stick to your new habit.

You can check this post for a list of the five most popular FREE habit tracking apps on the Apple App Store. 

Install the free Caoch.Me Habit Tracker here.

Accountability coaching is the new exciting branch in the field of personal coaching. If you’re trying to reach a goal, build a new habit, or break out of an old one, accountability coaches can help you set realistic goals, periodically review progress, and finally achieve your targets after overcoming whatever roadblocks you might encounter in your journey.

As mentioned in a previous article, An accountability coach is a trained professional who helps you set clear goals and stick to the timelines you have set for yourself. They will help you resolve any challenges you face on this journey and make sure you are in touch with why you are doing all this in the first place.

If you are looking to hire an accountability coach, you have come to the right place. This article is a collection of the five Accountability Coaching Programs you can find online.

1. Coach.Me

Coach.me has hundreds of coaches specialized in different habits. They are all trained professionals, ready to give personalized help, advice, and most importantly: accountability. Here is the link to find a suitable coach within minutes: The Coach.me Coaching Directory. 

Based on your requirement, you can choose text-only coaching, or you can also opt for coaching over voice and video calls. The frequency of these accountability sessions can vary depending on the coach and client. Coach.Me offers a very flexible program and you can tailor it any way to suit your needs.

The best part is that Coach.Me also offers a free 3-day trial, so you can test the accountability coaching services for yourself and see if that is what you currently need. This is the easiest way to assess your needs and whether they align with what they offer without spending money first.

2. Barking About Action

Barking About Action is an online accountability coaching program that boasts of weekly video calls with experts and an online coaching platform to share your activity, track your goals, and review habits.

They provide expert guidance and have an exclusive 12-Week framework at $129 per month where you can begin your journey to a more successful, productive, and motivated you. There are currently five specialized coaches on their platform. Before hiring a coach, you can hop in on a quick “scoping call” to see if your requirements align with what the coaches have to offer.

3. The Finishers Club

The Finishers Club is a 20-minutes-per-week accountability coaching program that promises to teach you how to get things done step by step and rediscover a healthy balance between life and work. Their tagline says Say Goodbye to Unfinished Projects.

They are priced at $450 for 3 months which includes weekly calls. There are currently three specialized coaches on their platform. Before signing up, you can book a free 30-minute 1-on-1 goal-setting session to get clear on your strategy with your coach.

4. Commit Action

Commit Action promises to help you eliminate overwhelm, destroy self-sabotage, lock in laser focus and help you get more done in a few days than most people do in a month.

At the core of their service is one simple idea: They help you install and maintain a CORNERSTONE Weekly Ritual that will become an Accelerator for everything else in your life.

The website doesn’t specify how many coaches are currently on the program. The pricing is $299 per month that promises 4 one-on-one weekly accountability calls plus check-in emails and/or SMS.

5. Holding Your Feet to the Fire

Holding Your Feet to the Fire by Nigel Cook comes with the tagline, “Ready to make massive progress on your goals? Get step-by-step support with online accountability coaching.”

As their website claims, here’s Nigel Cook promises to offer as an online accountability coach:

• Stay organized and productive
• Become more focused and disciplined
• Build success habits that stick
• Plan and take action on your most important tasks
• Overcome challenges and setbacks
• Feel motivated and focused
• Grow your business and hit your revenue goals
• Follow through on your commitments and projects

Holding Your Feet to the Fire offers a free 30-minute clarity call to help you decide whether these are the kind of services that align with your needs before actually paying money to buy yourself an accountability coaching program.

Watching TED talks have an amazing impact on most people. They are filled with the adrenaline rush of wanting to make an immediate change in their lives right away.

If you are a fan of watching TED talks and are trying to build better habits, this post is just for you. It discusses five TED talks that are powerful enough to help you build new habits and get rid of bad ones.

1. Judson Brewer: “A Simple Way to Break a Habit”

Length: 9 min. 24 sec.
Target: Learn to give up a bad habit.

Psychiatrist Judson Brewer talks about how we can break bad habits by being more curious about them. In this TED talk, Brewer explores the relationship between mindfulness and addiction and discusses how we can break away from the things we do even though we know they’re bad for us by being curious about them.

In an example, Brewer asked the people in his lab to be mindful about their breath while smoking. The participants weren’t forced to stop smoking, rather, they were asked to describe how their breath tastes and feels. Earlier, even though they knew cognitively that smoking was bad for them, being mindful about its impact on their breath made them feel revulsed.

One participant even commented, “Mindful smoking: smells like stinky cheese and tastes like chemicals, YUCK!”

“This is what mindfulness is all about: Seeing really clearly what we get when we get caught up in our behaviors, becoming disenchanted on a visceral level and from this disenchanted stance, naturally letting go.” — Judson Brewer

Watch the talk here.

2. Christine Carter: “The 1-Minute Secret to Forming A New Habit”

Length: 10 min. 56 sec.
Target: Building new habits.

Most of us have struggled with starting a new resolution and being high on motivation. Later, the motivation runs out and we’re left struggling with reasons to stick with our new habit. In this talk, Sociologist Christine Carter shares a simple step to shift your mindset and help you stay on track to achieving your grandest ambitions.

In this talk, Christine Carter shares that motivation or energy aren’t the only things needed to build a habit that lasts. You don’t need extreme talent. You need only to be willing to do something that is terribly small and to remember that to keep doing it is better than nothing. 

“When we abandon our grand plans and great ambitions in favor of taking that first step, we shift. And paradoxically, it’s only in that tiny shift that our grand plans and great ambitions are truly born.” — Christine Carter

Watch the talk here.

3. Matt Cutts: “Try Something New For 30 Days”

Length: 3 min. 27 sec.
Target: Building a new habit.

If there is something you always wanted to do, but just couldn’t find the motivation to start, Matt Cutts, an early employee at Google has a simple suggestion: Try it for 30 days. 

In this talk, Matt Cutts suggests that instead of waiting for the perfect moment, we should just start and stick with any new habit we are trying to build for at least 30 days. Armed with the knowledge that these 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not, holding on to your resolution will become much easier.

“I learned that when I made small, sustainable changes, things I could keep doing, they were more likely to stick. There’s nothing wrong with big, crazy challenges. In fact, they’re a ton of fun. But they’re less likely to stick.” — Matt Cutts

Watch the talk here.

4. Shlomo Benartzi: “Saving for Tomorrow, Tomorrow”

Length: 17 min, 29 sec. 
Target: Start saving money today.

It’s easy to convince ourselves that we will start saving money next week, but how about starting right now, even when our instinct is to spend it. In this talk, Economist Shlomo Benartzi says this is one of the biggest obstacles to saving enough for retirement and presents a solution on how we can flip this behavioral challenge into a behavioral solution.

“Self-control is not a problem in the future. It’s only a problem now.” — Shlomo Benartzi

Watch the talk here.

5. Dean Ornish: “Your Genes Are Not Your Fate”

Length: 3 min. 12 sec.
Target: Change your genetics by adopting healthy lifestyle habits.

Dean Ornish, a clinical professor at UCSF and founder of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute shares how adopting healthy lifestyle habits can affect a person at a genetic level. He gives an example that when you live healthier, eat better, exercise, and love more, your brain cells actually increase.

The speaker is a leading expert on fighting illness — particularly heart disease with dietary and lifestyle changes, and his expertise shines through the length of this short, but impactful talk.

“Our genes are not our fate, and if we make these changes — they’re a predisposition — but if we make bigger changes than we might have made otherwise, we can actually change how our genes are expressed.” — Dean Ornish

Watch the talk here.

“All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits.” — William James

The things we do in life, the heights we achieve, the goals we accomplish — all of them are a culmination of habits. What we choose to do every day will determine what we will eventually accomplish. That’s why it’s so important to build good habits and get rid of bad ones. 

This post lists six of the best books on habit-building that will help you build habits that stick. The writers are experts, and their insights will help you make better decisions every day and welcome lasting change in your life. 

Note: The descriptions are taken from the book blurb on Goodreads.

1. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

In The Power of Habit, award-winning New York Times business reporter Charles Duhigg takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.

Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation’s largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.

At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work.

Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

2. Make It Stick by Peter C. Brown, Henry Roediger, Mark McDaniel

Many common study habits and practice routines turn out to be counterproductive. Underlining and highlighting, rereading, cramming, and single-minded repetition of new skills create the illusion of mastery, but gains fade quickly. 

More complex and durable learning comes from self-testing, introducing certain difficulties in practice, waiting to re-study new material until a little forgetting has set in, and interleaving the practice of one skill or topic with another. Speaking most urgently to students, teachers, trainers, and athletes Make It Stick will appeal to all those interested in the challenge of lifelong learning and self-improvement.

3. Atomic Habits by James Clear

If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you’ll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.

Clear is known for his ability to distill complex topics into simple behaviors that can be easily applied to daily life and work. Here, he draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

4. 30 Days By Marc Reklau

In this simple, fast-paced book you will be learning what it takes to create the life you want. 

30 Days is for people who are struggling, wanting to change their life, but they feel powerless and think change comes from the outside. They also keep doing the same things over and over expecting a different result, which Albert Einstein considered to be the purest form of insanity.

If you want to change your life, you have to change your habits and start doing small things differently every day.

Discover your enormous potential and…

•  Stop being a victim of the circumstances
• Stop waiting for the miracle to happen and become one
• Stop suffering and start creating the life you want
• Improve your self-confidence
• Improve your relationship with your spouse, colleagues, boss, etc.

30 Days is based on science, neuroscience, positive psychology, and real-life examples

5. Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg

The world’s leading expert on habit formation shows how you can have a happier, healthier life: by starting small.

When it comes to change, tiny is mighty. Start with two pushups a day, not a two-hour workout; or five deep breaths each morning rather than an hour of meditation. In Tiny Habits, B.J. Fogg brings his experience coaching more than 40,000 people to help you lose weight, de-stress, sleep better, or achieve any goal of your choice. You just need Fogg’s behavior formula: make it easy, make it fit your life, and make it rewarding. Whenever you get in your car, take one yoga breath. Smile. Whenever you get in bed, turn off your phone. Give yourself a high five. 

Change can be easy — once it starts, it grows. Let B.J. Fogg show you exactly how.

6. Drive by Daniel Pink

Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money — the carrot-and-stick approach. That’s a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction at work, at school, and at home — is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does — and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation — autonomy, mastery, and purpose — and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.

So, what are you waiting for? Find a life coach to unlock the next level in your life today!