35 Days left – Why you should start now to make 2018 your best year yet and 10 ways to get started

“Now is the time to start living the life you’ve always imagined for yourself.”

We’re in the last quarter of 2017 and 26 days of November have already passed. A lot of people get up on the 1st of January with the enthusiasm that they’ll start new good habits or break old bad habits, start something, change themselves: The New Year’s Resolutions.

Sadly though, for a lot of people the enthusiasm soon wears off. They don’t follow through on their goals and give up too early. By the middle of the year, most people don’t even remember their New Year’s Resolutions let alone progressing on them.

Part I: Why you should start now?

1. Enough time to choose and plan:

Lot of people have in their back of the head some ideas on which they want to work on. Like to lose/gain weight, to have a skill, be better in relationships, start a habit and break another one. In the last week of this year they’ll make a choice and formalize it buy buying gym membership, web hosting, camera, a rose, some guide book or whatever is appropriate for their task. And then start on 1st January. And then fail, because of lack of proper, step by step planning, not thinking of obstacles or later on realizing the task to not be so important.

Some of these situations may occur even with well thought choices and detailed plans. But the chances are really reduced.

Choose and plan now: Right now, you have sufficient time to look back over the year, find out the areas where you really need to change yourself, prioritize them, plan on how to work towards achieving them, step by step, think of possible odds and their solutions. So when you really get down to do it, potential obstacles don’t deter you.

2. Enough time to get started now:

It takes more than 60 days to create a habit. This may seem straightforward but we should keep in mind we may not be consistent. In anything new, after the initial excitement wears off we are faced with the challenges that truly test our commitment. We feel the “dredge” as we slowly shift out of our comfort zone into war zone where most people give up.

One should give themselves at least 75 days for a habit they really want to instill. And though we don’t have 65 days, we’ve 35 days. When you get up on the 1st of January, you’d already be experienced and accustomed in that habit by 1 month. You’d less likely to give up and more likely to follow through.

Part II: 10 Ways to Get Started

1. Look back at the year so far, reflect and list out what you want to change/improve/add in your life. what could be improved?

You’ve 11 months (and a whole lifetime actually) to look back on what worked and what didn’t this year (and so far in your life).
Here are some helpful questions, think and make a note of the answers: What are the areas where you lack and where you can improve? What are your bad habits and behavior patterns that have hold you off from being your best and achieving your goals? What have been your lifelong ambitions? What’s the number one thing that if you achieved would have the greatest impact on your life?

2 (a) Based on #1, write down your 5 most important 2018 goals
These goals are the mot important goal that you think would take from few months to a year to achieve but would essentially improve your life significantly.
If you can’t come up with 5, come up with as many as you can. More than 5 is also fine but don’t exceed 10, otherwise they become too much to properly focus.  You can make another list of goals less important than these top 5, as secondary priority. And don’t worry, we’ll be refining them throughout this post and the next two posts on Thursday and next Sunday.

2 (b) Do not forget to include the most important aspects of your life in your 2018 goals
Our Health, Relationships, Self-Improvement and Career are 4 aspects we should work on every year. So include goals and habits around these 4 area. If you set out only four habits, one related to each of the four areas, in a year you’ll get 3 months to work solely on a single habit. Which is more than enough time to develop a habit. And by the end of the year you’d have 4 good habits that improve your health, relationships, your career and yourself too. Similarly you can have one goal for each month.

3. Break your yearly goals into quarterly and monthly goals
“The gym is more crowded on first of January than it is on first of June. ”

The reason being most people are hardly still following through their yearly goals and resolutions. Most people’s goals are vague and too big and never broken into smaller steps.
Ideally, if something’s so important to you that you’d include in list of things that would change your life then you should definitely work on it every week or at least every month if not everyday.

How?

I’ll take the example of reducing weight since it’s easily measurable and thus easy to divide. e.g. if your current weight is 90 kg and your goal weight is 75 kg with muscular build then you’ve to reduce 15-20 kg and gain 5kg equivalent of muscles.
If you’ve never worked out, you should spend first 3 months developing the habit of working out daily [see 2 (b) above], starting out in smallest step possible [point 5 below]. So first month, say 3 push ups, or 100 meter jog. As well as mindfully reducing junk in diet and incorporating healthy foods. Then gradually increasing and including more exercises. In the second quarter, as you’re regular in workout, you’d want to reduce 3-5 kg weight, and update yourself more on nutritious foods and better exercises. The third quarter as you should become very regular in workout and restraint in workout, you should aim the highest here, say 7 kg weight loss and very less to no junk food with harder workouts. In last quarter you’d want to focus more on muscle gain and attain your goal weight.

4. Start acting now, in November itself, on the most impactful goal among all goals
Start now. Start where you are. Start with fear. Start with pain. Start with doubt. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling, but start.”

This is the most important point this post is trying to make. Don’t wait till January 1st, start now, right now. Regardless of how your past year has been, how your life has been. ACT! Taking action and getting into habit is the single most important thing to attain your big goals. And it doesn’t have a perfect time or the right time or the right feeling and it will never come. Life is short. Start now.

5. Start with the smallest steps, get over the initial bump
“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” -Confucius.

Dream big but start small, very small. Start so small that you can’t procrastinate or make excuses. If the goal is to be in prime health, start with 1 push up for 1 week. If it’s to wake up at 5 AM when you wake at 11 AM, than start with goal of waking 5 minutes earlier for a week. If it’s to buy a house, then start with putting away 5 cents everyday for a week. If it’s to run a marathon, begin with 10 meter jogs for a week.

Set such ridiculously small goals that your comfort seeking, fear mongering, self sabotaging mind can simply not convince you to not do that.

Then, when you’re comfortable with it, increase. 1 to 3 pushups, 5 to 15 minutes, 5 cents to 50 cents, 10 meter to 50 meter. Week by week, keep improving.

6. Build consistency by creating a system or habit around your goal
“We first make our habits, then our habits make us.” – Frederick Langbridge

In the really good book, The Power of Habit, the author Charles Duhigg describes each habit is made up of 3 parts: 1. Cue (Trigger) 2. Routine and 3. Reward. i.e. There is a trigger or cue which gets us into the routine or action and afterwards we get some reward. Depending on how positive or negative it is, we’re more or less likely to do it again.

We can utilize this information to form our habits around our goal. For trigger, we can utilize existing daily habits like waking up, bathing, brushing teeth, having lunch etc. So e.g. if you are finding hard to find time for your 1 push up, do it daily after brushing your teeth, this is the routine or action part of the habit. Bind your new habits to existing habits. Workout after brushing teeth, go for a jog after waking up, make three call after dinner etc. This is good when starting, slowly you want to build a system around this habit itself that ensures and helps you to finish this task.

So keep your running shoes and clothes on bedside to go just after you run. Add a “Do X pushups” on your bathroom mirror. Your phone on the kitchen marble to call once done with dinner. And reward yourself. See below.

7. Reward yourself

I wanted to cover the reward part separately. Each time we do something pleasurous, the brain as a response releases certain neurotransmitters like dopamine, seretonin and a few others and a circuit in our brain, called the reward circuit, gets activated. The more we do that task and reward ourselves, the more neurotransmitters are released, the more reward circuit is activated, the more it’s activated the more likely, easily and intuitively we are to do it next time. In laymen terms, reward circuit is also responsible for drug addiction but we can use it here to our advantage, we’ve discussed dilemma of good and pleasant earlier.

So after you’re done with the action (routine) part of your habit, do something that makes you feel good, something pleasurous, reward yourself this way. Overtime your brain would begin to associate that reward with the activity and you’d feel less resistance in doing it. But don’t give self defeating rewards. A cupcake after workout is wasteful.

8. Rely on discipline rather than motivation
Discipline is doing what needs to be done, even if you don’t want to do it.

Despite being so detailed, despite remaking on importance of your goals, despite breaking them into ridiculously small steps, despite setting up habits and utilizing rewards for your goals, there would be days you’d still not do that little task and you’d fail in taking any action.

That’s where discipline comes in. We’ve talked about how to be more self-disciplined earlier.  Overtime, you’d want to mentally rely on your self-discipline developed around your habit. So that you go do your task even when you don’t feel like it, or are in a bad mood, or ‘tired’, over all these excuses you finish your work. That said, be mindful of progression and your health and don’t push yourself mindlessly. Begin small and slowly progress. Be disciplined in small steps.

9. Create a list of books to read
“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Joseph Addison

Learning is essential for our growth and reading is one of the simplest ways to do that. Each year on should create a list of books to read. It doesn’t matter how many. 6 books for reading once every 2 months to 12 books for monthly read or 52 books for each week. Decided on some great books. Read books that help you grow. This was our 2017 reading list.

10. Do the sign ups and shopping for your goals now

This may not apply to everyone and to all goals. But some of your goals may have some pre-requisites. So if it’s gym membership, or website sign up, or domain buying, or books to buy, or shoes to buy or enrollment in the coaching. Do it now. Not in the last week of December, not in the first week of January. Do it now and get started.


All the best for your 2018 goals. Get started and keep going.

In the next two posts I’ll be sharing how I use 5 free apps to keep a track of my yearly goals down to hourly progress and 2018’s public goals to give an idea of how to set these goals.


If this post was helpful, please share it. Please tell us how do you set and achieve your your yearly goals?

You can also connect with Man of Wisdom on faccebook  and twitter. New blog posts every Thursday and Sunday.

Till the next time, keep improving yourself, stay positive, stay emotionally resilient, take care and keep trailing on your Untrailed Path.

The Dilemma of Good and Pleasant: How Our Brain Works and 10 Powerful Ways to Overcome Instant Gratification.

Image result for 2 choicesIn the Ancient Indian scripture Kathopanishad, there is a verse spoken by Lord of Death to the child Nachiketa that describes the dilemma that we all often face: of choosing to do what is right and good for our future even though it’s uncomfortable right now OR doing things that give instant gratification right now but harm us in the long term-
“Every person is faced with 2 choices: The Good (sreyas) and The Pleasant (preyas). A wise person chooses The Good, even though it’s not pleasant. A fool chooses The Pleasant, with only instant gratification in mind and suffers later.”
-Kathopanishad, 8th Century BC, India.

We’re faced with this choice numerous times every day: Should we choose the healthier salad or the delicious dessert? Should we watch the TV right now or study? Should we take the stair or lift? Should we write the blog post or continue browsing Facebook? Make the important call or watch another video? Discuss the important but difficult issue with our partner or go on with our day.

And we choose the pleasant more often than we would like to. Not only that, sometimes we understand the Pleasant would ruin us, we don’t pursue it but we indefinitely delay doing the Good. This gives rise to missed deadlines, amassing of guilt and regret, introduce excuses, lying, dishonesty, bad habits usually follow and over long time, can result in far worse outcomes than one can anticipate like ill-health, failure, rejection and broken relationships. This may sound too extreme but it’s the small everyday wrong choices that may result in such apocalyptic outcome.

Knowing is Not Enough
In another scripture from India, the Mahabharata, the antagonist prince Duryodhana, offers the following perspective when asked why he continues to do the bad deeds despite knowing what is right:
“I know what is dharma (i.e. righteousness), yet I cannot get myself to follow it! I know what is adharma (non-righteousness), yet I cannot abstain from it! O Lord of the senses! You dwell in my heart and I will do as you impel me to do.”

This seems all too real and relatable. We ‘know’ what is the right thing to do and what we should avoid, despite this knowledge we end up pursuing the Pleasant and delaying the Good. As if our brains our wired to do that. Are they? Yes!

The 3 Evolutionary Layers of Human Brain: Lizard, Monkey and Human
Even when we know, we only know what is right and wrong but it also helps us to understand how our brain has evolved over hundreds of millions of years and retained some of its ancient parts and tendencies.

The Evolution of brain can be generalized in 3 stages (see notes at end):
1. The Reptilian/Primitive Brain: The most primitive part, it’s the part over spine with brain stem and cerebellum. It’s responsible for involuntary functions like heartbeat, blood circulation etc. as well as the flight or fight response.
It’s rigid, automatic and compulsive. It wants the gratification right now! We have very less control over it in comparison to the other 2 parts.

2. The Monkey/Emotional Brain:
This part evolved in earliest mammals. It includes hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus, fear/pleasure response circuits among other parts. It’s responsible for emotions, subconscious actions, learning and responses. Also helps in forming and retaining memories.
The Reward Circuit and Addiction:
A neural pathway involving major parts of this brain layer is responsible for reward/ reinforcement learning. When we do something pleasureful, a neuro-transmitter (a chemical) called Dopamine is released. This makes us happier. The monkey brain again anticipates/demands that trigger, we do it and again dopamine is released. This results in dependence on that trigger. The trigger can be drugs like cocaine, intoxicants like alcohol or cigarette, it can also be porn, compulsive web browsing, shopping or over consumption of some food.
This reward circuit if properly adjusted, can be used for building good habits by utilizing non-addictive rewards. (See point 9 below)

3. Neo-cortex (New/Human Brain): This part evolved in earliest primates and culminated in humans. It’s the 2 large cerebral hemispheres and is responsible for problem solving, languages, abstract thoughts, imagination, learning, thinking and also for will power (especially the pre-frontal cortex).

Our Brain is Still Mostly Animalistic
The neo-cortex part of brains has evolved relatively recently and the earlier 2 layers are far more dominating. This is why we’re often swayed by our impulses and have to consistently rely on our willpower but…

The Willpower is Limited
In her book, The Willpower Instinct Dr. Kelly McGonigal writes that willpower is a limited resource. It’s generally highest in the morning and slowly diminishes as we utilize it and as the day progresses it becomes harder to resist temptations.
This means you can’t just wake up at 5 AM on 1st of January, do 10 mile run, start eating healthy, be more responsible, be on time and finish your work. If you didn’t already have the habit, you’d have exhausted significant part of willpower by waking up at 5 AM alone.

The Monkey in the Market:
75000 years ago when we were wandering nomads and food was scarce, it made sense to eat the sweet fruit immediately, it had a lot of calories and so we could go one longer. Similarly, it made sense to mate, sleep and do other fundamental, sustaining functions immediately; you never knew if you’d get a chance. As it also made sense to run on the sight of an animal with really long teeth like a Saber-tooth cat. The flight/fight response, the pleasure aspects of our brain saved us.

Slowly as we began to live in groups, our lives became more and more complex. We needed more self-control and restraint in regard to food, mating, resources and duties like hunting & protecting our tribe. Our brains evolved functions of will power, empathy, self-control and neo-cortex became larger and more integrated with other brain parts, having more control over them as well as more influenced by them.

But we retained the earlier aspects too. So when we’re in market it’s really difficult to not eat the pizza, cake, chips and chocolate or do a lot of shopping. We’ve hundreds of distractions on internet, in TVs and phones and our brain’s reward circuits are on fire. We can’t form good habits because eating a chocolate or watching a movie etc. appear more pleasurable and make complete sense to our animal brains than starting the habit of working out.

We’re like a monkey in a market place, he’s never been to a more lucrative, tempting place. He can’t decide what to do. He wants everything and he wants it all right now. When there is food and fun, why be in self-control?

The Opposition Stacked Against Us So Far
So far I’ve only described how we choose instant gratification despite knowing what is right, how our brains are wired for temptation, how we live in an age of distraction & temptations, how our reward circuits are on fire – giving rise to bad habits and how we have limited will power.

There’s Hope
If humanity is a religion, it’d be a blasphemy to say that we cannot do anything and we’d always be a victim of our urges, temptations and instincts. Looking around us confirms this, we’ve made great progress and attained remarkable achievements – our ancestor 75,000 years ago could never think of a smartphone but slow, incremental discoveries of fire, agriculture, metal, industry, electricity, semiconductor – step by step like this has taken us here.

Instead of being scared of the knowledge of how our brains work, we should use this to our advantage.

How to Beat Instant Gratification?
I’d describe the following 10 ways that I’ve observed have helped me:

1. Start Small (so small it seems ridiculously easy):
This seems too simple but I cannot stress enough how important this is, if you just take one single point and adapt it, take this. Whether it is starting good habit or breaking the bad one, start small.
Never worked out? Do 3 repetitions of push up. Do it 2 days a week. Then take it to 5 repetitions one or even 2 weeks later. If regular push ups seem difficult, do it with knees on floor, same amount. Never ran? Run 5 or even 2 meters. Start so small it seems ridiculously easy that you can’t think of quitting or doing something else.

2. Just Start It:
I could make this corollary of point 1 but it’s too important and often overlooked. You want or do not want something, you have to start it. The Psychologist Timothy Pychyl has coined “Just start it!” based on Nike’s Just do it. Take the first step.
Want to stop with alcoholism? Sign up for alcohol anonymous. Next step would be to go there. Want to start with the essay/blog post? Just decide the topic and write it down. May be next step would be to write the outline. After that the first point and so on.

3. Minimize Temptations (Remove Them!):
Start this small too. Slowly begin to decrease the temptations around you. Distant yourself from the dependencies that give rise to The Pleasant. Examples would clear them better:
Smoke 10 cigarettes a day? Buy a smaller packet. Decrease 1 over week/ 2 week. Drink too much? May be don’t hang out with the buddy who bathes in alcohol. Waste time on distracting websites? Install blocker extensions like StayFocusd. Gossip too much? Meet the person less or talk about something else. Don’t want to eat the pastries? Don’t buy the pastries or give the ones away and so on.
Corollary: Meaningful Distractions
Some distractions can help you delay the more dangerous gratification. Want to smoke? Watch the TV series or to feel less guilty, go for a run, call someone. Meaningful distractions deviate your focus from instant gratification.

4. Be Consistent (Build the Momentum and Be Committed)
When you’re making a life changing decision or habit, start small and build it up slowly. But be consistent. Decide the frequency: whether hours or days or weeks you’d do something and then on those times, short of World War 3 or a Family Crisis you must do it! Tolerate no excuses, you’re already starting small. I’d say sitting down for 1 hour of an episode is more uncomfortable than 1 or 3 or 5 push-ups, you do twice in a week or once in 2 weeks (depending on your progression).

5. Willpower Can Be Replenished and Increased
Dr. McGonigal also describes that ‘Willpower Reservoir’ can be replenished with Sleep, Rest and when you need it for small time, a minimum 5 minute breathing, relaxing meditation.
It can also be increased with regular physical exercise. Also, as you slowly begin to do the uncomfortable activities that you’ve been avoiding, start small and slowly buildup, you’d expand the limits of your willpower. What seemed too difficult in the past would seem part of nature sometime later. The same activity consumes very less or NO willpower at all after some time. And this willpower you’re free to use on other activities. Yay!

6. It’s Okay to Fail:
In the pursuit of anything, you’d fail. There’d be days when you’d even miss the 3 push ups and WW3 hasn’t started and it’s ok. Don’t beat yourself up for it. There may be relapses in your habit, recurrence of the behavior you’re wanting to change, reemergence of the thoughts you’re trying to get over and it’d be tough. Sometime they’d overcome you. Sleep on it, don’t think on it. But make sure to take the step you missed as soon as you can. We have to practice tough self-love but not beat ourselves either. Balance it.

7. Be Mindful (Acknowledge I’ve a thought or Start Journaling):
There is all sort of confusing mess about mindfulness. For our discussion, it’s simple: Be Aware. Observe your thoughts. Like observe the thought you want to eat a chocolate.
This unfortunately doesn’t work for everyone. You can start a journal, where you pour thoughts about what you want to do, pro & cons against it and track progress. But people can procrastinate on journaling too.
In short, I’d say learn to observe your thoughts. Have some mantra, motto, a mission statement or a catch phrase. Observe the tempting thought and recall your motto. If still have the same thought, distract yourself with the motto. This needs like 2 blog posts of its own to explain properly. It’s the essence: Be mindful. Then direct your awareness to the Righteous.

8.  Start Accountability and/or Support System
Sometimes this journey can be daunting alone and may be you’re observing you’re failing too many times, then open up and ask for help. If you’re too shy to talk with your loved ones, go to a support group. These are especially helpful in addictions and for bad habits.
If you find it hard to be committed and perform the necessary action, have your ruthless friend make you more accountable. Example, if you don’t study and show him/her your progress every 3 days you pay him/her $5 or $15 or do their home work. The idea is to have a higher discomfort in this penalty than the actual task itself. There are apps that automatically do that.

9. Build a Healthy Reward System:
Example, if you stay committed and do not give in to instant gratification say for a week then you can have a temporary unrelated reward. Unrelated as in if trying to overcome alcoholism, it must not be related to alcohol or any addiction, may be eat a cake. But if it’s related to cakes, and you don’t eat for a month, then may be watch a movie or TV series? So on.

10. Delay (Defer Gratification):
This is in the end for a reason, you’ve to follow some of the above steps, but some can just do this: Whenever feeling the urge, delay. Don’t act immediately. It goes hand in hand with meaningful distraction and mindfulness. Distract yourself. Overtime it becomes a habit by itself. You have all these thoughts, you observe them and they go, like a flowing river. They don’t have an obstruction to stop the flow and flood, meaning, there is no anchor stopping those thoughts, one thought is replaced with another. With meditation, thoughts can be replaced with thoughtlessness. There is no thought, hence there is no action that follows that thought. Keep realigning your focus.

This has been one of the longer posts. I hope it has been helpful. I thank you very much for reading it and request it to share it, if it’s been helpful.

All the best with your goals. You can message me on Facebook if you want to talk about something. Take care. Keep smiling. Keep progressing towards your dream. Keep Trailing on Your Untrailed Path.


Notes:
1. The Triune Brain Model: Evolutionary Layers of the Human Brain

2. The Status of Triune Model: Triune Model: What to keep and what to discard

3. Duryodhan’s Verse: Janami Dharmam

4. Verse from Kathopanishad:
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2017 Reading List and Reading Challenge – 100 Books, 2 books each week

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“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
-Charles William Eliot

Reading good books is one of the most enriching activities that always stretches us. One of my greatest mistakes has been reading less books or reading books related to only a few fields of knowledge. I decided to change this in March 2016 by reading about 1 book per week but could read only about 30 books.

I’ve decided to challenge myself to read or listen to 2 books/audio books each week in 2017, and round it off to about 100 books.

I’ve selected the following 98 books after thinking a lot on topics I want to read, followed by deliberate search for best books and then reading multiple positive and negative reviews. I’ve left out 2 books for great recommendation I come across.

I also wanted to cover a lot of areas, some directly related to my goals like Philosophy, Computer Science and Genetics, while others less related but are related to people I’m inspired by, causes I care about (Cancer Treatments, Overcoming Depression) or School of Thoughts I follow like Stoicism, Survivalism etc. I also challenged myself to read topics I don’t generally read like Finance, Relationships and Addictions.

I’ve marked books with over 450 pages as L for long and with over 700 pages as VL for Very Long and books demanding exercises or with complex material like text books as C for Complex. I’d probably read them over weeks. The ones I’ve already read are marked as such in green. I’d keep updating.

Here are the books:

Biographies + Autobiographies (7)

  • Elon Musk – Ashley Vance Read
  • Einstein, His Life and Universe – Walter Isaacson
  • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin – Benjamin Franklin
  • Leonardo da Vinci: Flights of the Mind – Charles Nicholl
  • Isaac Newton – James Gleick
  • When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi
  • The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt -Edmund Morris (1st of triology)

Psychology + Self Development (18)

  • Deep Work – Cal Newport Read
  • Flow – Mihaly Csikszentmihaly
  • Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg
  • 4 Hour Work Week – Tim Ferris
  • The Art of Manliness: Manvotional – Compiled by Brett &  Mckay
  • Think and Grow Rich -Napoleon Hill
  • The Road Untravelled – M. Scott Peck Reading
  • How to Win Friend and Influence People -Dale Carnegie
  • Self Control, Its Kingship and Majesty – William George Jordan
  • The Crown of Individuality – William George Jordan
  • Eat That Frog – Brian Tracy
  • Peak: Secrets from New Science of Expertise – K. Enders Ericsson
  • Mastery – Robert Greene Reading
  • Radical Acceptance – Tara Brach
  • The Willpower Instinct (Maximum Willpower) -Kelly McGonigal
  • Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
  • As a Man Thinketh – James Allen
  • Extreme Ownership –  Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

Suicide, Depression and Mental Illnesses (2)

  • The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression – Andrew Solomon
  • Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide – Kay Redfield Jamison

Survivalism (Survival Guide + Survival Stories) (4)

  • US Army Survival Manual (FM 3-05.70)
  • Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand
  • Adrift: 76 Days Lost At Sea – Steven Callahan
  • Man’s Search for Meaning -Victor E. Frankl

Genetics + Molecular Biology (6)

  • The Gene: An Intimate History – Siddhartha Mukherjee
  • The Manga Guide to Molecular Biology – Masaharu Tekemura
  • Genome: An Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters – Matt Ridley
  • Molecular Biology of the Cell – Bruce Alberts
  • The Language of Genes – Steve Jones
  • DNA: The Secret of Life – James Watson

Food + Recipes (2)

  • Eating Animals – Jonathan Safran Foer
  • Vegan Recipes Book

Cancer (2)

  • The Death of Cancer – Elizabeth and Vincent DeVita
  • The Truth in Small Doses – Clifton Leaf

Running + Running Inspiration (2)

  • Born to Run -Christopher McDougall
  • Faster than Lightning: My Autobiography – Usain Bolt

Procrastination (2)

  • The Procrastination Equation – Piers Steel
  • Solving the Procrastination Puzzle: Timothy A. Pychyl

Addiction (2)

  • Gun, Needle, Spoon – Patrick O’Neil
  • Alcoholics Anonymous: Big Book – Bob Smith, Bill W. and others

Philosophy + Spirituality (15)

  • Walden -Henry David Thoreau
  • The Art of War -San Tzu
  • Tao Te Ching (The Way) -Lao Tzu, Translation of Gia Fu Feng
  • Vivekchuramani – Adi Shankaracharya
  • The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying – Songyal Renpoche
  • Freedom From the Known – Jiddu Krishnamurti
  • The Analects – Confucius
  • The Principle Upanishads – Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
  • Brahmasutra – Badarayana
  • Ethics – Baruch Spinoza
  • Thus Spoke Zarathustra – Friedrich Nietzsche
  • The Nicomachean Ethics – Aristotle
  • Pragmatism: A New Way for Some Old Ways of Thinking – William James
  • The Republic – Plato
  • Discourse on Method – René Descartes

Health  and Fitness (1)

  • Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and Brain – John Ratey

Science (Multiple Disciplines) (3)

  • Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid – Douglas Hofstadter
  • Cosmos – Carl Sagan
  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – Thomas S. Kuhn

History (3)

  • A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson
  • Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Socieities – Jared Diamond
  • The Price: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power – Daniel Yergin

Biology + Epidemiology + Anthropology (4)

  • The Vital Question – Nick Lane
  • Eradication: Ridding the World of Diseases Forever? – Nancy Stepan
  • Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harari
  • Your Inner Fish – Neil Shubin

Relationships + Biological, Evolutionary Aspects of Romantic ones (3)

  • The Relationship Cure – John M. Gottman
  • The Chemistry Between Us – Larry Young
  • The Evolution of Desire – David M Buss

Mental Toughness (3)

  • The Art of Mental Training – DC Gonzalvez
  • Unbeatable Mind – Mark Divine
  • 10 Minute Toughness – Jason Selk

Stoicism (3)

  • Enchiridion – Epictetus
  • Letters from a Stoic – Seneca
  • The Obstacle is the Way – Ryan Holiday

Business + Finance (4)

  • The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz
  • Zero to One –  Peter Thiel
  • Good to Great – James Collins
  • Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosak

Nonfiction Books By Steven Pressfield (4)

  • War of Art Read
  • Turning Pro Read
  • Do the Work Read
  • The Warrior Ethos Read

Computer Science + Programming (4)

  • Introduction to Algorithms – Thomas H. Cormen et al (VL, VC)
  • Cracking the Coding Interview – Gayle Laakmann McDowell (VL, C)
  • Peeling Design Patterns – Narasimha Karumanchi (C)
  • Elements of Programming Interviews – Adnan Aziz (VL, C)

Mathematics (3)

  • Discrete mathematics and its applications – Kenneth H. Rosen (VL, C)
  • How to Solve it? – George Pólya (C)
  • Statistics – David Freedman (VL, C)

Full Rereads or Part Rereads (1, Full rereads are marked with *)

  • Bhagvadgita – Original translation (without commentary) *
  • The Emperor of All Maladies – Siddhartha Mukherjee
  • Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
  • War of Art – Steven Pressfield * (Already counted)
  • The Manual of Warrior of Light – Paulo Coelho

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”  – Dr. Seuss

What are your favorite books? Which books would you suggest me to read? Share in the comments!

Till the next time, take care, keep smiling, stay positive and Keep Trailing on Your Untrailed Path.