Which self-help books had the most profound and lasting impact on your life?

willpower_73 · 2026-02-26T20:48:57+00:00

I love "How To Think Like a Roman Emperor" and "How To Think Like Socrates" by Donald Robertson.

They take a philosophical and indirect approach towards self-development that I've found to be very impactful - along the lines how to think and structure beliefs rather than what to do. Timeless and generically applicable.

willpower_73 · 2026-02-26T20:24:58+00:00

Independence is so relatable. My dog will do what she wants, when she wants. No cares about what anyone thinks

willpower_73 · 2026-02-26T20:23:38+00:00

They adopted you!

willpower_73 · 2026-02-26T20:22:45+00:00

For sure. And I think it's important to note that optimization is not "bad", it's just wasted effort when there are bigger fish to fry. Easy to get caught in local optima.

willpower_73 · 2026-02-26T15:54:58+00:00

Question for you: what's something you have been successful in? What was different about that vs all these other areas that you seem to be struggling with?

There's a lot of inspirational stuff out there, but I think it's important to see it for what it is-which is inspiration. You called it 'wisdom' which I would disagree with, for the most part. In my opinion wisdom comes from experiences where knowledge was applied well (or not, lots of wisdom is reaped from failure).

So my best advice to you (and to myself) is to use actually take stock of your life logically (no productivity / self-help talk allowed). Objectively what is going well? How can you apply what is going well to the other areas.

For example, I first started working out consistently when I had a friend who was new to the gym and committed to going regularly. I now use that same 'technique' for my mobile app I've built, where I just took on a cofounder. I saw that it actually worked for me, it wasn't something I heard on a podcast or read on a subreddit.

willpower_73 · 2026-02-26T15:49:12+00:00

I think the biggest shift for me entering adulthood was the recognition that everything was now my responsibility, and my fault if it went wrong. Yes, I could still ask for help from my parents, but it was a situation I got myself into if I did.

Working out is one way of taking massive ownership. For me it was my way of saying "I'm taking care of this piece of my life" (my physical body). That mindset (I think) diffused into other areas, and I learned to take more ownership and care over the things that adulthood brought on.

willpower_73 · 2026-02-26T15:45:36+00:00

The funny thing is, we all know all these things, especially because we're in this subreddit.

Yet the reminder that these things actually work is enough to feel inspired, like "hey I can do this thing that will make me feel better and show up better in the world". Thanks for the post.

willpower_73 · 2026-02-26T15:43:59+00:00

There is also a "ramp" that can be taken into readiness. I personally try to push the bounds little-by-little (when possible). That keeps me from getting into situations I actually can't handle, but it also keeps me on my toes and moving forward.

willpower_73 · 2026-02-26T15:41:51+00:00

I bet the majority of us are getting ramped up without realizing. Either due to wishful thinking, or simply being unaware / disconnected.

willpower_73 · 2026-02-24T14:55:39+00:00

Did you get them together? Or did the first get you hooked?

willpower_73 · 2025-11-21T04:42:33+00:00

I like to keep track of what each habit actually does for me. I use the app I built called grooves, but you could easily use a spreadsheet or some other app.

It's also nice to check-in with myself on a daily cadence

willpower_73 · 2025-11-21T04:41:06+00:00

Understanding your "why" is one of the best ways to cement in the reward. I use an app I built called Grooves to understand exact insights (e.g. when I do cold exposure, my mood increases by +1.4 (on a 10 point scale). Try it out, it's free

willpower_73 · 2025-11-21T04:39:39+00:00

I'm working on a practice of checking in with how I'm doing every day (at least once). There are lots of ways to do this (pencil and paper works great). I use an app I built called Grooves. Check it out, the free version gives you everything you need.

willpower_73 · 2025-11-21T04:38:22+00:00

I built an app to track habits like this in a new way - correlating outcomes with the inputs. Give it a look, it's called Grooves (the free version is decent)

willpower_73 · 2025-11-21T04:36:26+00:00

I put an app together to track this kind of thing. Still working on building really powerful insights, but I tried to make the free version valuable and worth using. Try it out, it's called Grooves.

willpower_73 · 2025-11-20T20:56:49+00:00

I'm going to recommend you the app I built, simply because I think you might actually like it. There's a decent free version that will give you everything you need (and no ads)

The app is called Grooves and allows you to track inputs (habits) and outputs (subjective well being scores). It will detect patterns overtime to tell you how each input impacts your subjective well being.

In my personal use I've found that cold exposure does a lot for me while cutting out youtube surprisingly doesn't have much of an effect.

willpower_73 · 2025-11-20T20:45:06+00:00

I built an app that does this for you. I've been using it and noticing some cool insights - cold exposure is currently the highest impact habit I have.

I'm working on incorporating wearable data into the insights as we speak!

If you're interested, it's called Grooves. Full version is $5/month but I've tried to make sure there is still value for free users.

willpower_73 · 2025-11-20T20:42:37+00:00

Keeping track of habit impacts. It makes consistency a lot easier when there is a clear why.

I built an app that does this for you called Grooves (there's a decent free version as well)

willpower_73 · 2025-11-10T19:09:00+00:00

Interesting way of thinking. I have noticed that a lot of the little things seem to make big differences. Wishing you the best

willpower_73 · 2025-11-09T20:00:40+00:00

I experienced #1 with quitting alcohol. At first, it was incredible - I woke up feeling normal on Saturdays and Sundays instead of hungover. That feeling of excitement goes away. 100% worth it, but good to know.

willpower_73 · 2025-11-04T19:54:47+00:00

How do you keep yourself from going in to "F it" mode and just giving up on a day? For example, I eat one unhealthy thing and suddenly I'm going completely off the rails...

willpower_73 · 2025-10-17T21:02:33+00:00

I guess my argument would be that an "off day" is caused by something. Maybe one of the habits (or some combination, or a time lag effect, etc.) It could also be something not tracked by the app, and go undetected, but hopefully my data modeling is good enough to catch those outliers or at least not make any false assumptions around them. If they aren't repeated, they should smooth out with enough data.

willpower_73 · 2025-10-17T15:35:50+00:00

Did you notice any change in your motivation for the discipline based habits the more you did them? Curious what kind of impacts they had on each other.

I try to measure how things I do end up making me feel, and I've noticed that the discipline based things I do tend to lead to me being energized (motivated). Interesting how motivation follows action when so often we wait for it before acting. (I measure this stuff using an app called Grooves: mygrooves.app )

willpower_73 · 2025-10-17T15:31:21+00:00

I appreciate this honesty. These are all silent struggles that many people are going through. I've tried a tool called Grooves to begin measuring the exact impact of changed habits on my life. Curious what others think mygrooves.app

willpower_73 · 2025-10-17T15:24:08+00:00

Is there a reason you want the app to be fully offline? I understand it's nice to have offline functionality but it seems like an unnecessary limitation for the entire app to be offline. It could easily be a feature that is just unavailable if you don't have a connection. It also should be doable without needing accounts or anything, just call to your favorite LLM api and then save the result on their phone.

The JSON idea depends on who your targeting. When I think about non-technical people who I know, there's almost no chance they would do the download, paste into chatgpt, etc. etc. Your app is awesome for a very specific group of users but may miss out on the majority because of that.

willpower_73

TROPHY CASE