A great book can be your best friend and the best source of motivation and inspiration.

Whether you want to cope with a broken relationship or give your child a good upbringing, reading can help.

You don’t always need to head to the ‘Bestsellers’ section for an amazing reading experience. The acknowledged classics often give life lessons that can take you a long way.

The secret to good reading is to pack your bookshelf with a myriad of genres – business, marketing, creative, inspirational, fiction, history, and more. Good books help you come up with ideas, tactics, and habits that take you towards success.

If you want to feel the true essence of life, pull out a book of your choice, switch off all your digital gadgets, open up a bag of popcorn, and find a calm and cozy place where you can immerse yourself in a different world.

Here are four books that can be good sources of motivation and help you evolve as a human being:

1. The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho.

“This is what we call love. When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there’s no need at all to understand what’s happening, because everything happens within you.”

The Alchemist is an enchanting novel by Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho.

The story is about a young Andalusian shepherd named Santiago, who travels from Spain (his homeland) to Egypt in search of treasure buried in a pyramid.

When traveling, he meets a number of people – a gypsy woman, a man who calls himself King and an alchemist, all of who help him with the direction to his destination. As Santiago travels, the journey that started with an urge to find worldly goods turns into a sojourn of self-discovery.

The story is about the power of our dreams to transform us and the importance of listening to our heart.

2. The One Thing by Gary Keller.

If you have been looking for a good book that will help you become a successful human being, ‘The One Thing’ is a must read.

It is one of the best self-improvement books you can find in bookstores. It tells readers about the importance of focusing on ‘one thing.’ The secret to success is in simplifying the workload by focusing on doing the one most important task in any given project.

Gary Keller also reveals the one thing that turned Keller Williams Realty, Inc. into the largest real estate company in the world.

It also provides a number of productivity tips to aspiring entrepreneurs, which relate to:

• Cutting through the clutter;
• Achieving better results in less time;
• Coping with stress (at work), and more.

In his book, he also analyzes how multitasking has been erroneously praised as a desirable trait. If you are struggling to achieve the ‘goal of your life,’ read this book without any further delay.

3. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

“All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination. Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth.”

Want to become a millionaire? You need to decode the thought processes and behaviors of millionaires that have led to their massive success. Napoleon Hill interviewed “40 millionaires” in his legendary book, Think and Grow Rich, to understand their perspectives (on work and life) and how they became successful.

Though the title of the book may make you think that it is all about increasing income, its content actually breaks the age-old belief that great wealth results from a combination of greed and luck.

According to the author, the philosophies taught in the book will help people succeed in any line of work and achieve their aspirations.

4. The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.

Although fiction, the story of The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is set in New Jersey in the United States and chronicles the life of Oscar De León (nicknamed Oscar Wao), an overweight Dominican boy.

He dreams of finding true love, but fails severely as he is obsessed with science fiction and comic books. Further, he may never get what he wants in life. An ancient curse, fukú, has haunted his family for generations and doomed them to a life of imprisonment, torture, and tragic accidents.

The author presents the readers with a bewildering vision of the contemporary American era and reveals the amazing capacity of perseverance and the risk-taking ability of human beings in the name of love.

Conclusion

Regardless of the sphere of life we belong to, we often need motivation to keep going. Books can be the greatest source of motivation. Books are your best friends and reading them can be fun, not only because they empower you, but also because they inspire you to achieve all that you desire.

Whether you need to take life lessons and implement them or simply kill boredom, the books mentioned above are must-reads.

Do take time out of your busy schedules and get started!

About The Author

This is a guest post by Rose Martin.