Because Change Is Hard

Ironically having just complained about self-help books, I’m starting with perhaps the most quintessential of them all.  I’m almost embarrassed to recommend it so highly, but I think Stephen Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People offers some great advice.  If you can genuinely adopt the seven habits he recommends, you’ll notice a difference.

Two books that came out of the Harvard Negotiation Project are Getting to Yes (Roger Fisher & William Ury) and Difficult Conversations (Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton & Sheila Heen).  The first is about negotiation, and the second is summarized by its title.  Both offer useful advice about dealing with tough interpersonal situations.

Brene Brown made a name for herself with TED talks, and is a recognized leader in researching shame.  Her book Daring Greatly is a good discussion of trying to overcome it.

How to Be an Adult in Relationships by David Richo is another book whose title is its best summary.  Some passages are better than others, but there are times when he nails it in terms of describing how to love someone in a healthy way while still having boundaries.  Adult relationships require us to separate out what is “our stuff” from what is “their stuff.”