Here are 81 books that Resilience fans have personally recommended if you like
Resilience.
Shepherd is a community of 10,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Resilience - helping people recover their capacities to deal with any adversity, stress, loss or trauma – is the heart of my work as a licensed psychotherapist (25 years) and an international trainer of mental health professionals (more than a decade). Bouncing Back is the book I wanted to be able to hand my clients to help them learn to use the capacities of resilience innate in their brains to develop more effective patterns of response to life crises and catastrophes. No such book was available at the time, so I wrote my own. It has become a tremendous resource for people to learn to how to be more resilient, and to learn that they can learn.
The touching story of navigating the loss of a child that illuminates the strategies most helpful in navigating overwhelming grief, and steadily, reliably, recovering new joy and new meaning in life going forward.
The death of someone we hold dear may be inevitable; being paralysed by our grief is not. A growing body of research has revealed our capacity for resilient grieving, our innate ability to respond to traumatic loss by finding ways to grow - by becoming more engaged with our lives, and discovering new, profound meaning.
Author and resilience/well-being expert Lucy Hone, a pioneer in fusing positive psychology and bereavement research, was faced with her own inescapable sorrow when, in 2014, her 12-year-old daughter was killed in a car accident. By following the strategies of resilient grieving, she found a proactive…
Resilience - helping people recover their capacities to deal with any adversity, stress, loss or trauma – is the heart of my work as a licensed psychotherapist (25 years) and an international trainer of mental health professionals (more than a decade). Bouncing Back is the book I wanted to be able to hand my clients to help them learn to use the capacities of resilience innate in their brains to develop more effective patterns of response to life crises and catastrophes. No such book was available at the time, so I wrote my own. It has become a tremendous resource for people to learn to how to be more resilient, and to learn that they can learn.
Beautifully written stories of survivors of trauma, many well-known to the public, revealing the strategies and inner resources they drew on to “transform bad breaks into breakthroughs.”
"Engaging stories of modern survival with uplifting and often surprising takeaways." -Gay Hendricks, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of The Big Leap and Conscious Loving
"Bouncing Forward shows us how adversity can turn us toward our deepest inner resources of trust, wisdom, and love." -Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge
"Discover the advantages of adversity and find meaning in the messiness...[Bouncing Forward] shows the reader how to cultivate the mindset of resilience that can catalyze healing and growth from catastrophe. Brilliant, inspiring, to be read, re-read, and treasured." -Linda Graham, MFT, author of Bouncing Back…
I’m a psychologist, an award-winning author, and a yoga and meditation devotee. Growing up in the Bronx, New York I saw firsthand the devastating impact addiction can have on individuals and families. That is why I have dedicated my professional life to understanding and supporting people recovering from addiction, mental illness, and life's challenges. I’m also the co-author of The Gift of Recovery: 52 Mindful Ways to Live Joyfully Beyond Addiction, which offers lots of strategies to manage daily stressors. I wholeheartedly believe there is a path back to wellness. It takes a foundation of self-compassion and daily focus on your healing. You deserve to be healthy and happy.
Resilient is a book to savor slowly. In recovery from addiction, sometimes one’s foundation is shaky and unstable. Resilient provides a beautiful way to build a new solid foundation based on compassion, confidence, and courage. Rick Hanson is a popular psychologist and has lots of great books (along with a terrific podcast with his son) but I keep returning to this one. As a psychologist myself, I think Resilient hits all the themes that are important for a mind well-cared-for and a life well-lived.
Your key to lasting happiness, self-love and inner peace
'A master of his craft' - Prof Mark Williams, bestselling author of Mindfulness: a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world
Rick Hanson, author of the New York Times bestselling Hardwiring Happiness, is known for his trademark blend of neuroscience, positive psychology and contemplative practices. In Resilient, he explains how to build the very foundations of well-being by harnessing the power of positive experiences to build an unshakeable core.
Dr. Hanson poses that anyone can build up resilience, the key to a positive mindset, unshakeable sense of self and…
Resilience - helping people recover their capacities to deal with any adversity, stress, loss or trauma – is the heart of my work as a licensed psychotherapist (25 years) and an international trainer of mental health professionals (more than a decade). Bouncing Back is the book I wanted to be able to hand my clients to help them learn to use the capacities of resilience innate in their brains to develop more effective patterns of response to life crises and catastrophes. No such book was available at the time, so I wrote my own. It has become a tremendous resource for people to learn to how to be more resilient, and to learn that they can learn.
In a charming, reader-friendly style, this book offers ten universal principles for skillful parenting that lead to genuine goodness and happiness in their children. A delight to know it’s possible.
In every spiritual tradition, we find teachings on the virtues and qualities that we most want to pass on to our kids-such as generosity, kindness, honesty, determination, and patience. Today, a growing body of research from neuroscience and social psychology supports these teachings, offering insights into cultivating these virtues in ourselves and in our families. Raising Resilience is a practical guide for parents and educators of children from preschool through adolescence, detailing ten universal principles for happy families and thriving children.
Bridging the latest science with Eastern wisdom to explore ourselves and share with our children, Dr. Christopher Willard offers…
I think that we’re all a Work In Progress whatever our relative levels of success so I’m drawn to people who share that belief, are way out there and are still working on their own stuff. Especially if they’ve managed to do so without becoming a righteous arse in the process.
‘Cos I want reasons to be reminded how incredible it can be to use as much of what we’ve been given and be ALIVE in every sense of the word. I want to keep learning and growing and getting stronger and faster and more bombproof and compassionate and connected as I moved through my fifth decade and beyond. These books really resonate with me – I hope they will for you too.
Once again this is about so much more than the incredible physical feat involved in swimming a lap of Great Britain. Ross Edgley is also a student of the world with the smarts and courage to write his own rule book. Once again this is an engaging mix of the deeply personal, science, philosophy, and the humanity of community that has to come together to make extraordinary stuff possible.
'Incredible individual, incredible book, incredible story.' CHRIS HEMSWORTH
'A hero who is as humble as he is resilient... testament to a "never give up" spirit!' BEAR GRYLLS
'From reading this book, the message that comes shining through is this: you can achieve anything.' ANT MIDDLETON
Bestselling author and award-winning adventurer Ross Edgley has been studying the art of resilience for years, applying all he has learned to become the first person in history to swim around Great Britain, breaking multiple world records. Now Ross focuses on mental strength, stoicism and the training needed to create an unbreakable body.
Though I’ve coached endurance athletes to world championships, I’m an expert on not working out. It’s what you do when you’re not training that matters most! All the books on this list teach habits that help you relax about things that don’t matter while guiding you to define what does matter and explaining ways to most efficiently focus your energies there. This jibes with my work as a yoga teacher: we seek to find the right application of effort, and to layer in ease wherever possible. I don’t think it’s stretching too much to call each book on the list both a work of philosophy and also a deeply practical life manual.
Speaking of doing hard things, this excellent book contextualizes peak performance in sports and life. It straddles and bridges these two worlds, helping me understand why my training is a chance to develop life skills that work in any arena. And it uses plenty of evidence-based science to do that!
I love that Magness uses basic principles of mindfulness, a world I know well, but in new applications. The book is full of doable exercises that wouldn’t be out of place in a yoga or meditation class.
"In Do Hard Things, Steve Magness beautifully and persuasively reimagines our understanding of toughness. This is a must-read for parents and coaches and anyone else looking to prepare for life's biggest challenges." -- Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and Talking to Strangers and host of the Revisionist History podcast
From beloved performance expert, executive coach, and coauthor of Peak Performance Steve Magness comes a radical rethinking of how we perceive toughness and what it means to achieve our high ambitions in the face of hard things.
Toughness has long been held as the key to overcoming a challenge…
I have firsthand experience in some of the harshest environments on the planet. I’ve survived sub-zero temperatures, hurricane force winds, sudden avalanches…and a career on Wall Street. I served as team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition, climbed the highest peak on every continent (the “7 Summits”), and skied to both the North and South Poles. I spent four years as an adjunct professor at the US Military Academy at West Point. Awarded the 2019 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. I have a beer named after me. I love dogs. Three heart surgeries could not slow me down. NY Times bestselling author of On the Edge. I’ve had some high profile failures and have been the butt of late night talk show opening monologue jokes. Come at me!
Matt is an actor, which means he is constantly jockeying for jobs in what might be the most competitive industry on the planet. He explains that dealing with rejection and coming back after failure is part of the process of getting to the “YES” that you want in life. He shares advice from his interviews with bestselling authors, world-class athletes, successful entrepreneurs, and other actors—all of whom share their stories of rejection and defeat and make us realize that hearing “NO” does not mean you will not achieve your dreams – it just means that you need to try again, from a different angle.
Learn how to persevere and pivot to achieve your goals from a celebrated Hollywood actor
10,000 NOs: How to Overcome Rejection on the Way to Your YES chronicles actor Matthew Del Negro's tough journey from humble beginnings, through a sea of rejections, on the way to his eventual rise to become a recognizable face on some of history's most acclaimed television shows. Along the way, he learned hard lessons about perseverance, persistence, and resilience. Teaching readers how to make it through the tough times and deal with massive uncertainty by retaining the flexibility to change course and pivot to follow…
When I lost a baby late in my pregnancy, I was overwhelmed by grief. And then I learned that tens of thousands of babies died every day from preventable causes. I couldn’t save my own baby, but I wanted to know how to help others. I joined the board of World Vision and then other groups, including Opportunity International, MAP International, and International Justice Mission. I took numerous trips to developing countries and eventually headed a foundation dedicated to maternal health. I listened to the stories of women and tried to tell them to the world through a variety of international publications. I'm forever grateful to those who changed the way I see the world.
Whenever anyone tells me they want to change the world but don’t know where to start, I recommend this book.
It’s a step-by-step plan to help find your calling and then focus on the difference you want to make. With very helpful questions and guided exercises, it helps you understand the essentials of your goal and then create a truly actionable plan for moving forward.
The authors include their own experiences and offer very helpful cautions as well.
When you feel that pull to be part of social change, where do you start? How can you ensure that your good intentions create a positive impact? How do you focus your scattered efforts? And how do you sustain yourself throughout?
Impact brings you the answers. Drawing on their network and experience as founders of She's the First, Christen Brandt and Tammy Tibbetts show you how to create your own impact strategy, one that fits into your life and allows you to match what you have with what the world needs.
Their guidance, paired with interactive activities, will lead you…
I am a sociologist with a longstanding interest in the social aspects of medicine and public health. I started with research on HIV/AIDS. Since then, I have written many books and conducted a multitude of studies on how people understand and experience health and illness and how they seek help when they are sick or feel at risk from disease. When COVID-19 hit the world in early 2020, it was not long before I started to think about what my research training and expertise could offer to understanding the social impacts of this new pandemic. I started to write about COVID and research on people’s everyday experiences.
This edited volume, by academics Irene Gammel and Jason Wang from Ryerson University, Canada, includes contributions from authors living across the world. The chapters focus on how the arts and culture can both express and document people’s thoughts, practices, and feelings about living through the COVID pandemic. There are discussions on the role of drawing, graphic fiction, cinema, diary writing, urban space, music, streaming services, film, and video conferencing platforms in helping people cope with COVID life. Reading the book provides insights into the different social, cultural, and geographical contexts in which the pandemic has been experienced and how people adjusted to the often very stressful conditions of lockdown, restrictions on movements, fear about their health and grief.
Creative Resilience and COVID-19 examines arts, culture, and everyday life as a way of navigating through and past COVID-19. Drawing together the voices of international experts and emerging scholars, this volume explores themes of creativity and resilience in relation to the crisis, trauma, cultural alterity, and social change wrought by the pandemic.
The cultural, social, and political concerns that have arisen due to COVID-19 are inextricably intertwined with the ways the pandemic has been discussed, represented, and visualized in global media. The essays included in this volume are concerned with how artists, writers, and advocates uncover the hope, plasticity, and…
Embracing self-discipline has changed my life. I find deep pleasure in challenging myself and pushing my limits when practicing sports, learning, and experiencing adventures. I’ve learned that anything that’s worthwhile in life is the result of consistent, dedicated work, whether it’s building a business, developing a relationship, mastering a new skill, or any other personal growth pursuit. In my books I share my own personal experience of expanding my comfort zone and improving self-discipline.
Ross is a superhuman athlete embarking on some of the world’s craziest adventures. In this book he talks about his journey swimming 1,780 miles around the island of Great Britain. The hardships he had to suffer to achieve his goal show how tough and disciplined Ross is (I know I wouldn’t be able to bear them). Chapters telling his story of the journey are interspersed with advice on how to build mental toughness and grow your self-discipline. I couldn’t stop reading this book. The story is utterly fascinating and the lessons memorable and practical.
'Incredible individual, incredible book, incredible story.' CHRIS HEMSWORTH
'A hero who is as humble as he is resilient... testament to a "never give up" spirit!' BEAR GRYLLS
'From reading this book, the message that comes shining through is this: you can achieve anything.' ANT MIDDLETON
Bestselling author and award-winning adventurer Ross Edgley has been studying the art of resilience for years, applying all he has learned to become the first person in history to swim around Great Britain, breaking multiple world records. Now Ross focuses on mental strength, stoicism and the training needed to create an unbreakable body.
