There are moments in our lives (or at least there should be) when you need to stop and reflect on who you are and what you’ve become. Leaders, entrepreneurs, professionals, creatives, and well, members of the human race all succeed in life, love and career if they develop the practice of self-awareness. So, we have some work to do. To launch your self-reflection practice and create the healthy habit of personal growth, here’s six picks to help guide you on your journey.

Self-Aware: A Guide for Success in Work and Life by Robert Pasick Ph.D. and Dunrie Greiling Ph.D. To help his students at the University of Michigan discover who they are and what they want from their lives, Dr. Pasick created a self-reflective process that met with resounding success. He shares how you can achieve similar enlightenment and focused direction in this book designed to help you discover what you want to achieve in life and how to successfully meet these goals. Readers will also gain a better sense of self-awareness and further develop their emotional intelligence along the way.

Silent Awareness: The Revelation that Changes Everything by Cynthia Overweig. Silent Awareness invites us on a sacred journey into our own being and our intimate relationship with all of creation. Drawing from the wisdom of sages and mystics from around the world and the author’s work as a retreat facilitator, the book offers a framework for unveiling the timeless awareness in which we are whole and complete.

The Road Back To You: An Enneagram Journey To Self-Discovery by Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile. The book introduces the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the Enneagram and dedicates a chapter to each type so the reader can become aware of all the characteristics, highs, and lows of each. This is coupled with action steps that encourage a more robust understanding of one’s identity. The most interesting thing about their approach to success is the emphasis on discovering what you don’t want to see in yourself or what you may have ignored for way too long. Confronting this side of your identity is the first step on the road back to you.

The Self-Aware Leader: A Proven Model for Reinventing Yourself by Daniel P. Gallagher and Joseph Costal. The Self-Aware Leader provides practical and proven lessons on how becoming more self-aware within the context of your management practices will benefit you, your career, and your organization. Based on research by the author, it offers insights regarding those aspects of your management career about which you need to become self-aware, and which characteristics drive desirable leadership outcomes such as achieving success with projects, promotions, and professional satisfaction.

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman. Hailed as the must-read book for all who want to become more self-aware and channel that into personal and professional success, Goleman weaves his experience in psychology and neuroscience to offer startling new insight into our “two minds”—the rational and the emotional—and how they together shape our destiny. Goleman shows the factors at work when people of high IQ flounder and those of modest IQ do surprisingly well. These factors, which include self-awareness, self-discipline, and empathy, add up to a different way of being smart—and they aren’t fixed at birth. Although shaped by childhood experiences, emotional intelligence can be nurtured and strengthened throughout our adulthood—with immediate benefits to our health, our relationships, and our work.

Images Courtesy of Bantam – Penguin Random House, InterVarsity Press and Robert Pasick