A person cannot live his life successfully unless he has willpower and a degree of self-discipline. Discipline helps us focus, undo and correct the mistakes we make, and accomplish what we truly intend to do.
If you’re interested in learning more about what self-regulation looks like and how you can improve it, this report includes some of the best books on self-discipline and self-control to help you make your informed decision.
1- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success – Carol Dweck
This book is written by Carol Dweck who is well-respected in the field of positive psychology for her extensive contributions to the scientific literature on motivation, intelligence, and mindset, among other things.
This book is an excellent introduction for anyone who wants to learn about fixed versus growth mindsets, and realize the importance of hard work, effort, and practice in personal growth.
2- The book “The Now Habit”:
A strategic program to overcome procrastination and enjoy playing without guilt – Neil Fury
This book is very powerful in the field of self-discipline, and it calls for building positive habits and getting rid of old, unhelpful habits.
This engaging work is packed with techniques to help anyone who tends to procrastinate by delving into the root causes of understanding why they procrastinate, as well as helping people who want to improve their productivity.
3- No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline – Brian Tracy
Brian Tracy is the author of several hugely popular books on goal setting, so his book on self-regulation is very broad in scope.
This book is approximately 300 pages long and spans 21 chapters, each containing tactical exercises to help the reader apply the concepts he discusses.
It is divided into 3 main areas: financial and business goals, personal goals, and overall well-being, and these in turn are divided into areas such as leadership, relationships, friendship, personal excellence, responsibility, health, and time management.
The ‘tone’ of this book can best be described as stimulating – it is by no means a boring book, and its chapters are easy to navigate when you’re curious to read about certain topics.
4- The Power of Habit: Why we do what we do, and how to change – Charles Duhigg
Charles Duhigg is a business correspondent for The New York Times who wrote this book on customs after observing mob customs in riots abroad.
After becoming fascinated with human behavior he began to delve deeper to investigate the profound way habitual behaviors often sabotage the best intentions.
Duhigg considers some findings about how habits work at the brain level and discusses the three stages of cue, habit, and reward that can shape our actions.
5- Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength – Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney
One of the basic hypotheses of this book is that willpower is one of the most important determinants in life of whether we succeed or not. This book explains how willpower is strongly linked to happiness, emotional well-being, social support, physical health, etc., and how to self-control.
So, at least in part, self-control is about consciously managing how we direct our energy—what drains our willpower, replenishes it, and even when we procrastinate on critical tasks until another time.
6- The Little Book of Big Change:
The Will-Free Approach to Breaking Any Habit – Dr. Amy Johnson Dr. Mark HowardThis wonderful book is by Dr Amy Johnson who specializes in the neuroscience of addiction and habit and is very popular with counsellors, therapists and other helping professionals.
She says changing habits is very much possible, and focuses heavily on recovery but also touches on how to break molds on habitual behaviors to gain better control.
The book is full of useful insights for those suffering from anxiety or anxiety-related disorders, and psychologists will also find this book useful for its potential importance in cognitive behavioral therapy.
7- The Marshmallow Test: Self-control – Walter Mischel
It is a book by writer and psychologist Walter Mischel, who specializes in self-control with the famous marshmallow test, which looked at the complexities of delayed and immediate gratification in children.
During the second half of the 1960s, Walter conducted his first studies with preschool children, offering them either “one marshmallow now or two marshmallows ten minutes later.”
He later followed these children’s development to look at their academic performance, obesity rates, and other variables, paving the way for many researchers to build on his findings.
This book is more than just a helpful overview of how to strengthen our self-control; It also gives the reader an enjoyable look at one of the most interesting experiments in modern psychological history.
8- The Will Instinct – Kelly McGonigal
The Willpower Instinct is a book that teaches you how self-discipline works, why it is important, and what you can do to get more of it. It is a book by Dr. Kelly McGonigal, in which she relies not only on psychological research, but also on medical and neurological ideas to consider aspects of self-control.
Readers curious about the effects of willpower on our physical health, cognitive abilities, and emotions will enjoy this enlightening read, as McGonigal constantly references relevant studies.
It considers the roles of mindfulness, nutrition, mindset, and self-compassion in self-discipline, and includes practical advice regarding productivity, habits, and procrastination.
9- The Science of Self-Discipline – Howard Rachlin
A book by Howard Rachlin, consisting of 240 pages, and containing a huge amount of profound scientific insights into the concept of self-control.
It is considered a textbook that includes a lot of charts, graphs, and empirical research to examine the various basic principles of control and self-discipline, and how they relate to decision-making, behavior, etc.
Source: Positive Psychology
