5 Books to Change Your Career (and Life)

The job market is… a lot right now. It has been for at least a couple of years and if the latest round of layoffs has you feeling like you’re ready for a change you can control, there are five books I recommend you check out. Not every one will be right for every person, but I hope this post can point you in the direction of at least one book that’s right for you right now. Each of these books has helped me on my journey to become a freelance editor.

Get Your Priorities Straight with Your Money or Your Life

Got that “things just don’t feel right” itch but can’t put a name to it? Vicki Robin’s Your Money or Your Life will help you look deep into areas that you might be struggling against your own values. There’s good stuff in here, too, about finding your real salary and secret energy drains. Whether this book leaves you wanting to change your career or not, it will change your relationship with money, which should give you more freedom in the long run.

Favorite quote: “Frugality is the balance we seek.”

Figure Out What You Even Want to Do with Making a Living Without a Job

Once you know you need a change, you can think of Barbara J. Winter as your personal cheerleader in Making a Living Without a Job. She has a million ideas of what you could be doing and a million questions you can ask yourself to find an answer that sparks for you. Some of the information in the edition I read was very dated (as it was published in 1993 and the internet…), but the human stuff endures. You may get tired of the words “self-bosser” and “profit center” but the concepts are concrete and the book is accessible.

Highlights include thinking about your passions and personal assets you may not have considered, a frank look at obstacles you might run into (and how to overcome them), and ideas like the $100 hour for brainstorming and a list of things that keep you thinking creatively.

Rethink Your Definition of Success with Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki feels like a bootcamp for challenging you to go deep on your relationship with money. If you’ve always thought you were on the right path, saving and living lean, he has some advice to put the energy into your investing and get you thinking about the true nature of wealth (hint, it’s a lot more fluid than you might guess). The writing is folksy and friendly and the cash flow diagrams are elegant and informative. It’s instructive to see how risk taking and studied intelligence can be antithetical.

Read this if you think you know which direction you want to go and are ready to kick yourself into gear.

Fine Tune Everything with Tiny Experiments

This book by Anne-Laure Le Cunff flipped my lid when I read it shortly after resigning from my corporate job. It was such a relief to have someone champion non-linear and creative thinking (for scientific reasons, even). The approach is very manageable and I think many of us would be a lot more content if we gave ourselves this kind of space to think about what we really want.

This book will help you make incremental and positive changes that are meaningful to you, even if you aren’t rethinking your career. There’s also a newsletter that shares bite-sized versions of these ideas, but the whole book is worth it, I promise (and it’s good to support authors).

Prepare for Creativity with Living and Sustaining a Creative Life

If all your exploration leads you to understand that the only way you can live is by following your creative pursuits, Living and Sustaining a Creative Life by Sharon Louden is filled with essays that will help you understand what you’re really in for. You’ll get a sneak peek at what success really looks like, how non-creative work fits into your plan, and the importance of building a community.