3 books that changed my life

We all know that reading is vital for our growth, for our development, but we don't really have that much time in order to read every single book that we see. And actually, you don't really need to read that much in order to change your mindset or your behaviors. All you need to do is read real books.

Hi guys, it's me, Duty. Today, I'm back with a very requested video. A lot of you guys wanted to read more, but you guys don't know which books to read, which books to start, and stuff. As I said at the beginning, you don't actually need to read a bunch of books in order to change yourself. Actually, all we have to do is do the things that we learned from the books. Like, I read a bunch of books, but I don't incorporate the things that I learned from the books most of the time. I should probably do that because I just like consumed a book, but I don't really put it in action, which is something that I should work for.

Probably most of us don't do it as well. We just read it and think, “Oh, this is such a good idea to do,” but we don't actually do it. I'm going to talk about how to change that in another video, but today we'll talk about three books that changed my life.

So the first book is "Make Time." This is like one of my favorite productivity books of all time. This book is not about getting more done or finishing your to-do list faster and responding to emails faster and stuff. The thing that this book focuses on is making things that actually matter to you. It can be like starting a YouTube channel, maybe learning a new language, or maybe spending more time with your family, friends, maybe writing a novel, maybe painting.

The thing that I like is that they give you tips and tactics that you can start using from right now. We live in a very distracted world, and the thing that I really like about this book is that it really separates itself from the other productivity type of books. In other books, they kind of like give the whole idea and mindset that you need, but they don't really give the framework that you're going to be following throughout your journey.

In this book, they give you an exact framework, what you should do and what you shouldn't probably do. The thing that I like about is that they give you like 87 tactics and they say that you don't need to do all of them. We don't do all of them as well. You can just like pick some of the tactics that work for you and just like do them and try them. Kind of like they systemize productivity into highlight, laser, reflect, and energize, and they walk you through these steps throughout the book and explain to you what to do.

I really like a bunch of tactics that I learned from this book, but personally my favorite is picking a daily highlight. You pick like a task, you pick like something that you want to do that you will make time for it, whatever happens in a day. In that way, you know what the focus is, and you know what to do, and you know what to expect from that day. I used to have like a full to-do list, but now I do like a daily highlight, and I know exactly what to concentrate on that day so that I don't feel overwhelmed.

They also kind of like explain to you how to make to-do lists in the right way. Yeah, so basically, I would highly recommend this book for anybody else that is struggling with productivity or for those who are good at productivity but want to explore more. Even if you don't read regularly that much, the book itself is very illustrated, and it's really easy to read, so you can literally read it in like a couple of hours. So I would highly highly recommend it.

Okay, so the second book is "The Courage to Be Disliked." This is actually originally a Japanese book, but they translated it into like so many languages so you can read probably in your own language as well. This book is about Adlerian psychology. If you're interested in psychology, you probably know the young and Freud, and Adler; Young and Freud's psychology and theories dominated for a long, long time in psychology, but these days people are like more shifting into Adlerian psychology in order to find happiness.

This book is not for everybody else, but personally, I really love this book, and I really relate to the Adlerian psychology. I know there are a lot of critics going around about Adlerian psychology, but this book goes around a young man who is struggling with life, who cannot find happiness, and who is feeling inferior compared to other people, and who cannot really love themselves.

The book revolves around a philosopher who supports Adlerian psychology and teaches people in order to make them happy and does like counseling and stuff. I would recommend this book for anybody else who is struggling with self-confidence, happiness, and self-love. Also, for those who are blaming their environment or past or their personality for the things that they cannot accomplish. In the book, it says, “No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences, the so-called trauma. But instead, we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We're not determined by experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.”

So basically, it says that your past doesn't define anything. It doesn't mean that it doesn't have any effect in your life, but you are the one who is giving a meaning to it. Like if past determines something, then every single person who had the same experience will have the exactly same result. But even though there are a lot of people who have the same experience, they have a different outcome. Why? Because they give different meanings to the things that happen to them.

I don't know if it says in this book; it might be another book, but I've read something like this. People say, “We cannot change the past,” but actually, we can change the past. If we wouldn't be able to change the past, then all of the history books would tell you exactly the same thing. However, even though the same things happened in history, we gave them different meanings from our perspectives, from our beliefs, from our, I don't know, culture, and the history changes from their respect.

So you can definitely change your past by giving different meanings to them. Like, my mom is very good at this. My mom is a super positive woman, and whatever happens to her, and like there are a lot of bad things happen to us and to our family, but because of her, because of her positive thinking and because of her giving positive meanings to the things, I actually never thought that something bad happened to me. You guys think that my life is like so good and I don't have any problems and stuff, but the reality is I've had so many family issues, economical issues, and social issues in my life that I don't really want to talk about. My life is not about like rainbows and stuff. I have had like serious issues in my life.

I dealt with so many things, but because of my mom, because of the meanings that she gave, I actually become stronger and stronger. I am actually really grateful for the things that happened bad to me because they made me much more stronger. So another quote that I really like from this book is that “No matter how much you want to be Y, you cannot be reborn as him. You are not a Y. It's okay for you to be you.”

However, I'm not saying it's fine to be just as you are. If you're unable to really feel happy, then it's clear that things aren't right just as they are. You have got to put one foot in front of another and not stop. I think there's like some sort of a way of thinking in social media that you're just like, “Fine, just be who you are and stuff.” Yes, it is fine to be who you are, but if you're not feeling happy at the moment in your life, then probably something is not working, and working towards it and making it better is a much better way to make yourself happy than accepting the situation and just saying like, “Okay, I'm this, I'm not growing. This is who I am,” and stuff.

I just like don't understand the way of thinking, like “I'm just who I am. I'm not gonna change.” No, if you're happy, it's totally fine. But if you're not happy at this moment, then there is something not working right, and you have to change it in order to be happy. Another, another, my favorite thing is what you should do now is make a decision to stop your current lifestyle. For instance, earlier you said, “If only I could be someone like Y, I would be happy.” As long as you live that way in the realm of the possibility of “If only such and such were the case,” you will never be able to change because saying, “If only I could be like Y” is an excuse to yourself for not changing.

This is like so true. There are like so many times in my life I said like, “If I only were like blah blah person, I would achieve that.” But the reality is I could never be that person, and that's just like an excuse that I make for myself. Because I can never be the person Y, that's a very good excuse to make for myself in order to not try and not change. Because when we try to change, there is a possibility of failure, and because we're like so scared of failure, we make a very good excuses for ourselves to not actually start and not actually try it.

Because we humans are actually so scared of failure, and it really explains very good in this quote: “I have a young friend who dreams of becoming a novelist, but he never seems to be able to complete his work. According to him, his job keeps him too busy, and he can never find enough time to write novels, and that's why he can complete work and enter it for writing awards.” But is that the real reason? No, it's actually that he wants to leave the possibility of “I can do it if I try” open by not committing to anything. He doesn't want to expose his work to criticism, and he certainly doesn't want to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection.

He wants to live inside the realm of possibilities where he can say that he could do it if he only had time or that he could write if he just had a proper environment and that he really does have the talent for it. Another 5 or 10 years, he will probably start using another excuse like, “I'm not young anymore,” or “I've got family to think about now.” This is like so true. When I started my YouTube channel, I, of course, I told about the failure and rejection, but I felt like, yes, I might not be successful for five years, ten years, whatever, but I'll try. I'll try whatever it takes, and I will be successful on YouTube.

That's kind of like the mindset that I had towards my YouTube channel and towards anything that I do in my life. Just because I cannot succeed the first time, it doesn't mean that I'm not gonna try it. I used to do it with a lot of things as well, like I said like, “Okay, I don't have blah blah this thing, this thing, so I cannot do it,” but it's just like an excuse that we make for ourselves.

What is your excuse? Another, another last quote from this book is that “If you're not living your life for yourself, then who is going to live it for you?” You are living only your own life when it comes to who you are living for. Of course, it's you. And then if you're not living your life for yourself, who could there be to live it instead of you? Ultimately we live—think about it—there is no reason that we must not think that way.

So if you're struggling with self-love, self-acceptance, and if you're struggling to put yourself first in your life, then I would highly recommend this book. This book is not for everyone, I understand it, but I personally really love it. Since this book is some sort of like a conversation between a young man who is struggling with life and a philosopher, I would highly recommend you to listen to it in Audible because it's so easier to pick up the things because of like the voice actors that they mimic the conversation. I listened to it in Japanese, and the voice actors in Japan are top-notch. You guys know it if you have ever watched anime.

I don't know the English or other language versions of the Audible, but I would highly recommend you to listen to it on Audible for a better experience.

So our third book is "Atomic Habits." I actually have a whole dedicated video about this book which you can check from right here. If you're struggling with building good habits and eliminating the bad habits, such as maybe like for good habits: maybe reading, studying, exercising, literally eating healthy, or I don't know, whatever is a good habit to you. For bad habits like quitting smoking, or maybe alcohol, or maybe overeating, emotional eating, and stuff, I would highly, highly recommend you to read this book.

Since I made like a whole dedicated video about this book, I just like want to give you guys some quotes that I took from this book so that you guys can understand the main idea of this book. Another method that I really like from this book is that the boiling water example. For example, you heat the water, and it comes like to the 90 degrees, but it's still not boiling, right? Because it has to hit the 100 degrees in order to boil. But it doesn't mean that the heat that you gave from the zero degrees to 90 degrees was just like useless; you just like didn't hit the place.

So it's exactly the same with success. Sometimes we repeat our actions and do the things, but we can't really see the results, and not because the things were useless; it's just because we just didn't hit the place yet, and that's kind of like a method that I really like. Another kind of a mindset in this book that I like is that “The evidence grows, and it becomes your identification.”

More you make evidence, more you become that person. Each habit is a suggestion, and if you go to the gym, perhaps you're a type of person who likes to work out. The more you go to the gym, the more you have evidence and more it becomes part of you. At the same time, the more you procrastinate and make excuses for yourself not to go to the gym, the more you have evidence of you not enjoying workouts. It says that building habits are exactly the same as voting.

So one vote or like two votes, it doesn't really change that much of a thing. The thing that changed in the voting system is the majority. So let's say you just like voted for bad habits for three times, but if you voted for good habits for five times, then the majority wins, and you are on the right way.

This is kind of like a mindset that I really like because sometimes like when I procrastinate, I used to feel so guilty about it, but now I just feel like, okay, I procrastinated, so I'm gonna do something productive now in order to make the majority productive. In this book, another mindset that really changed my life is that rather than goals, ask yourself what type of person you want to become. Do you want to become a helpful person? Do you want to become a productive person? Do you want to become an accomplished person?

You want to become a disciplined person or whatever? Every single time before doing an action, you ask yourself, “What type of person do I want to become?” And so that like you don't say, “I want to lose weight,” or “I want to get six-pack abs” or something, but think what type of person has six-pack abs? Probably an active person with a healthy eating style. Then perform the acts of this person.

It's also like recommends you to change your identification. If you're trying to quit smoking, then you shouldn't say, “I'm trying to quit smoking,” but you should say instead, “I'm not a smoker.” Tie the goal identity to yourself so that you can make connection and act upon it. You basically ask for every action that you do and you ask for yourself.

Yeah, so your identity shapes your habits, and you should constantly give yourself feedback in order to feed that loop and in order to be the person that you want to become. I think I'll probably read "Make Time" and "Atomic Habits" over and over again because rather than like; I don't treat them like kind of a book; they're just like a guidance for me in my life personally.

So whenever I feel stuck, I just like open a random page from those books and I read that part, and it really helps. Also, you can just like look for the parts that you need and read that part. You don't obviously need to read like every single page of a book. A lot of people ask me what is a good way to read books. Actually, there is a certain way to read books effectively which I can make a video about.

Also, a lot of people ask me which device should I read on? My books are like physical books or like a Kindle Oasis or Kindle Paperwhite or an iPad. It's a good solution; I can make a video about a bit like comparing the devices because I experimented with them quite a lot. Yeah, I think I have a lot of things to share with you guys when it comes to the devices and the ways of reading and how to read more and stuff.

So if you're interested in those types of things, let me know in the comments down below. If you're interested in "Atomic Habits," I have a full dedicated video which you can watch probably from like around here.

Yeah, if you guys enjoyed this video, let me know in the comments down below, and I hope you guys found value from this video. Let me see you in my next video. Bye-bye!