7 great positive psychology books to enhance your personality

Have you been wondering which direction to take in your life for a while? Do you feel like stress and anxiety weigh too much on your mind? Do you look to the future with fear? No one can deny that we are going through a time marked by uncertainty and that this instability affects our mental health. We need, without a doubt, to develop new mental approaches with which to better manage so much uncertainty.

An ideal strategy is to implement a more positive mentality in our brain. This does not mean, by any means, applying a filter marked by magical thinking that assumes that everything will turn out well. Positive psychology is that approach that allows us to develop new strengths with which to face difficulties.

Hope, self-confidence, resilience or flexible thinking are exceptional pillars that nourish these always enriching universes of the positive school. Immersing ourselves in his books is a very interesting way to integrate new concepts and skills to better cope with these complex times. How about we discover those more interesting titles?

Positive psychology books allow us to develop a more flexible, hopeful and resilient mental approach

Why read positive psychology books?

Since Professor Martin Seligman laid the foundations of positive psychology back in the 90s, it did not take long for aspects as relevant and well-known to the general public to flourish as the concept of resilience, Emotional Intelligence, creativity, the concept flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi…

If we really want to make a change, to fully develop our personality to achieve well-being, it never hurts to go directly to the roots, to those positive psychology books that changed everything. They are windows of knowledge that can accompany us on that journey in search of happiness.

Now, it is evident that, as explained in a paper from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the biggest problem with positive psychology has been its excessive commercialization. There have been an excess of publications and not all of them have a solid scientific basis. Many are combined with spirituality and with it, part of their original rigor is lost.

The purpose of this psychological school is to provide human beings with tools with which to develop their potential and improve their quality of life.. Let’s see below what its benefits are.

How can positive psychology books help you?

Positive psychology goes beyond making us believe that the world and our own lives are beautiful and virtuous. ANDWe are faced with a therapeutic resource that enables us in a series of strengths from which to boost our personality to make it more resilient. These are its benefits:

We will be able to understand and regulate our emotions.We will develop character strengths. We will promote a more flexible mind.We will solve our problems better.We will enhance our hope. We will be more resilient. We will practice gratitude and self-compassion. We will improve our relationships.We will practice self-care.We will be more optimistic. We will establish more realistic and meaningful goals.

Let’s now see which positive psychology books can inspire you the most.

1. Authentic happiness, Martin EP Seligman

Martin Seligman, psychologist, writer and director of the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, is without a doubt the father of positive psychology or at least its best-known representative. It was he who took that first step towards a new approach in behavioral science. Thanks to his work, a new field was opened aimed at enhancing human well-being.

Seligman is therefore the true pioneer in the development of a scientific method that explains how to achieve happiness.. In this book we will not find simple motivational phrases, empty messages bordered by beautiful words. In this work there are studies, there are contrasted and valid approaches that will show us that authentic happiness is born from our human strengths.

Knowing how to enhance them, understand them and work on them is our priority.

2. Practice happiness, Tal Ben Sahar

In 2006, Harvard University’s most popular course of all time was taught. The subject was called “how to be happy” and was taught by an Israeli professor named Tal Ben-Sahar. Currently, he is one of the greatest exponents in positive psychology and in this book, his entire approach, his practical observations and his theories are collected.

On the other hand, something interesting that Professor Ben-Sahar lets us see is that Authentic happiness does not exclude having to assume and accept one’s own emotional discomfort. and for this, it quotes Viktor Frankl in its pages:

In the book Practice happiness We will also find everything from meditation techniques to strategies to apply gratitude in everyday life. We will also find intimate stories about the author’s own life that will serve as reflection.

There are many ways to practice a more positive mindset and books by those who developed this approach are the best way to achieve it.

3. Flow: a psychology of happiness, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Talking about positive psychology is also talking about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his work on the “flow state”. Its presence on this list is undoubtedly mandatory and reading this book is enriching.

We could undoubtedly define the flow state in many ways, but the simplest is to see it as a dimension of grace, an “optimal experience.” It is that strategy in which chaos and worries disappear in our minds when we find well-being by carrying out a specific task: the one that identifies us, the one that best suits our being.

It is a pleasant state, an epiphany where the essence of a happy life is actually found. In this world of countless technological and scientific advances, With this book, Csikszentmihalyi invites us to focus all our psychic energy and attention on specific objectives., in finding enjoyment in simple tasks. We must put plans and goals on our horizon that are of our choice to experience authentic well-being.

4. A New Earth: An Awakening to the Purpose of Life, Ekhart Tolle

Eckhart Tolle suffered from deep depression for most of his life. When he was 29 years old, he began to have suicidal thoughts, to the point of nearly ending his life one night. However, the next morning everything had changed.

The obsessive thoughts had disappeared because he had found a new life purpose, an internal awakening and an illusion: he wanted to live. In this way, although it is true that Ekhart Tolle’s books already enter the field of the spiritual, it is still a direct immersion into that positive psychology.

Thanks to their work we will develop such basic strengths as self-acceptance, the management of adversity, conflict, and above all how to deal with those moments where depression traps everything.

In “A new earth: an awakening to the purpose of life” Thole takes his book “The Power of Now” a step further to explore, for example, the structure of the ego and explain how it distances us from what Seligman repeats to us so many times: human strengths.

5. Overcoming adversity: the power of resilience, Luis Rojas Marcos

Luis Rojas-Marcos is a renowned psychiatrist and researcher. Its ability is to put within our reach and in the most enriching way, many of those dimensions of the field of psychology that we all need to understand to live better.

In Overcoming Adversity: The Power of Resilience, We learn how all of us, even if we believe otherwise, We have psychological and biological mechanisms that prepare us to resist and face adversity.

In fact, it is what human beings have done throughout their history, because surviving is the rule, and we have done it thanks to a wonderful instrument: resilience. In this book, we will learn to work with it, to take care of its pillars.those basic roots such as self-esteem, self-control, optimism and of course… positive thinking.

6. 59 seconds: Think a little, change a lot, Richard Wisheman

This is a must read book. In it, the professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, Richard Wiseman, breaks the classic myths and stereotypes about happiness to open our eyes. Through ten chapters it delves with originality and effectiveness into dimensions such as motivation, persuasion, attraction, creativity, emotional well-being…

The most interesting and innovative thing about Professor Wisheman is that he invites us to overthrow negative ideas and erroneous attitudes in just 59 seconds…

7. Is your bucket full? Strategies to enhance your positive emotions, Donald O. Clifton

If Martin Seligman is the father of positive psychology, Donald O. Clifton is the “Grandfather”. His works laid the foundations of this science and in this book, all his philosophy, all his roots and those windows of masterful knowledge that one never tires of looking at are contained.

It is undoubtedly a reference book, because it not only guides us to what Let’s “fill” our lives with positive emotions, but also, he inspires us for all those lessons acquired in his daily work, helping people and advising thousands of companies. Tons of positive energy are hidden in its pages, and immersing ourselves in them is undoubtedly an experience.

Final note

To conclude, we are aware that there are many more titles and more bibliographic proposals with which to learn positive psychology. However, These 7 suggestions are a good prelude, a starting point to reflect onin which to sow those small seeds towards change…

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