The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz is about a man’s journey. He’s going out throughout his journey, looking up at the sky and the stars. He sees something more meaningful within his heart and realizes he’s the stars. Everyone else around him has a part of God within them. Then his eyes open up like that smoky mirror. He gets the smoke off the mirror and sees his real life in front of them. He’s finding that God and everyone else, that God within himself.
The first agreement is to be impeccable with your word. When you say things from your heart to another individual, you take judgment away, which is another agreement. That has so much impact, not only on yourself but on the other individual. To read more motivational books like The Four Agreements, keep in touch with this article.
10 Books Like The Four Agreements (Self Help)
The Four Agreements goes deep into the mind concept. Here are the four agreements shortly. Number one, be impeccable with your word. Do what you will say and say what you will do. Number two, don’t take anything personally. Number three, don’t make assumptions. The number four always does your best.
This book comes down to a big thing: personal accountability, responsibility, and being responsible for oneself instead of putting blame and things out into the world. We can choose how we feel, how we act, and how other people will make us respond. I will discuss 10 self-help books similar to The Four Agreements. Let’s go!
1. The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery
Everything you’ve experienced in your life, down to the moment, is a part of you. It’s a part of your legacy. All of it plays a role in who you will become, who you are becoming. Everything happens with a purpose attached. Everything is purposefully happening on your journey in your life.
The author discusses what we can implement into daily routines to elevate us, eliminate negativity, and replace positivity. How are we going to start doing that? We’re going to meditate. Everything that society today is teaching is pulling us away from further corruption. Like The Four Agreements, The Fifth Agreement is a sequel. It refers to how things used to run back in the day told Tech as a code of conduct.
We cannot rebuild and do things over; start from scratch the way we see fit, the way our ancestors meant for things to happen today. You can start by inheriting wisdom from the fifth agreement as a code of conduct. It’s a rule that you will no longer suffer if you apply it to your life as consistently as possible.
Key Points:
- Revisits the original Four Agreements as foundational principles.
- Introduces the Fifth Agreement: “Be Skeptical, But Learn to Listen.”
- Emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and personal freedom.
- Explores the concept of doubt as a tool for discernment and growth.
- Provides practical steps and exercises for mastering one’s own life.
Author: don Miguel Ruiz
Average Rating: 4.8/5
Category: Happiness, Self-Help, Personal Success
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
2. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia
The narrator of this book is the author herself, Elizabeth Gilbert. It’s about her travel journey to three different countries where she spends her time off around one year and devotes four months to each of these three countries. She is a lady in her mid-thirties and has been going through a rough divorce of her marriage of eight years. So, She’s mostly into depression and guilt consciousness and asking herself questions about how and when things would have gone wrong in her marriage.
One day, Elizabeth decides to take a break and travel alone. So, after her divorce and all is settled, she takes a year’s sabbatical and sets off to travel alone. So she travels to Italy, India, and Indonesia, respectively, seeking the art of eating, praying, and love through these three countries.
She sets off to Italy, and there she eats a lot. She meets Italian friends, and she roams around Rome. Then, she moved to India. There, she lives in an ashram for about four months, learns yoga, meditation, devotion, and prayer, and makes friends.
If this book shows her journey through these three countries, it’s not a journey or a traveling memoir. It’s her journey to heal herself, find her perspective, and find her personality. But she thinks she is lost in those eight years of marriage. You learn how beautiful Rome is or why Indians are so proud of their yoga and meditation methods. So, if you like The Four Agreements, you must read it.
Key Points:
Personal Journey of Self-Discovery: The book follows Elizabeth Gilbert as she takes a year-long sabbatical to explore her needs and aspirations after a painful divorce.
Thematic Structure: The book is divided into three sections representing three countries (Italy, India, and Indonesia) and focuses on three different aspects of Gilbert’s life—pleasure, spirituality, and balance.
Importance of Pleasure: In Italy, Gilbert delves into the joy of gastronomy and the Italian language, highlighting the significance of simple pleasures in overall well-being.
Spiritual Exploration: In India, Gilbert embarks on a rigorous spiritual journey, practicing meditation and inner healing at an ashram, reflecting the importance of spirituality in personal growth.
Quest for Balance: In Indonesia, specifically in Bali, Gilbert seeks to balance worldly pleasures and spiritual enlightenment, ultimately finding love and a renewed sense of purpose.
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert
Average Rating: 4.3/5
Category: Travel Writing & Commentary, Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts, Biographies of Authors
Available: Audiobook | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
3. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
The whole concept behind the book is that you don’t get rewards by sitting on the stand, and you must be down in the arena fighting your battles. So you have to be vulnerable. You have to put yourself out there. That’s the concept that makes us human.
If you block out all the negative emotions, you will also block out what you desire. You’re going to be blocking around out authentic. Authentic human emotions are the best parts of your life because you get the grace rewards by being vulnerable. Also, you have to take risks in life.
That doesn’t mean being super open with everyone you meet now. You’ve got to be defensive a little bit. It means you have to know when to take them down, and you have to know when it’s time to get out there and go for it. We have so much external stimulation, but you also need internal stimulation.
You need to know and deal with your mind when you block out negative thoughts and feelings. You’re blocking out the positive feelings, too, and you’re numbing your entire life to the point where you won’t feel much. So instead of picking up that phone, puffing on that cigarette, drinking every weekend, spend some time in your head. Like The Four Agreements, this book helps you grow your self-esteem and improve yourself.
Key Points:
- The book argues that vulnerability is not a weakness but a source of strength, encouraging readers to embrace it as a pathway to courage, innovation, and connection.
- Brown dismantles the societal focus on scarcity, or the idea that we are never “enough,” arguing that this mindset fuels disconnection and shame.
- “Wholehearted Living” is introduced as engaging with the world from a place of self-worth, requiring the courage to be imperfect and vulnerable.
- Brown explores how vulnerability affects personal relationships and parenting, education, and leadership, offering practical advice for transformation in each area.
- The book delves into shame and how building resilience against it is key to daring greatly, being more empathetic, and leading a fuller life.
Author: Brené Brown
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Category: Business Motivation & Self-Improvement, Self-Esteem (Best Seller)
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
4. The Five Levels of Attachment
The author touches on some deep societal issues, particularly what we’re going on. It is a must for everyone involved in the attachment of the political system. Much of it concerns attachment to misinformation, the voice of knowledge, fear, and outcome.
This book can help everyone going through those fear stages and latching on to all that evil within these powers. The five levels of attachment describe the world as a soccer game, which is your level of attachment as The Four Agreements.
What is your level of attachment? This is nothing to do with soccer. It can be applied to everything. If you want to dive deeper into why you’re feeling anxious and can’t sleep at night with all of these attachments, I highly recommend this book. This will guide you through a new perspective of the world’s attachment level you can have.
Key Points:
- The book covers that our beliefs and ideas can become attachments that dictate our quality of life, similar to how physical possessions can be useful tools or burdens.
- Ruiz Jr. outlines the Five Levels of Attachment—Authentic Self, Preference, Identification, Internalization, and Fanaticism—to help readers recognize how attached they are to their belief systems.
- The book explores how each level of attachment influences our emotional state, decision-making, and interaction with others, either enhancing or limiting our freedom.
- Drawing from Toltec wisdom, Ruiz Jr. offers a framework to understand how these attachment levels can serve or hold us back from realizing our true self and potential.
- The book provides practical guidance and exercises to navigate through the various attachment levels toward a place of healthier detachment, allowing for greater flexibility, adaptability, and overall well-being.
Author: don Miguel Ruiz Jr.
Average Rating: 4.7/5
Category: Motivational Self-Help
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
5. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
So much information in this book will encourage you and spark your interest to pick it up and read it for yourself. Many people respond to trauma in negative ways or ways that aren’t positive. But Bessel Kolk shows that these people’s responses to traumatic instances are not character flaws or weaknesses but successful adaptations to secure a person’s survival.
If we can adapt to adverse situations, we can also adapt when those behaviors no longer serve us. The way he framed trauma and the experience and reaction was hopeful and empowering.
At the beginning of the book, the author addresses that trauma comes from many different life experiences and situations. Often, when we think of trauma, people naturally revert to war trauma as one of the only sources of trauma. However, that’s not the case.
Unfortunately, trauma is much more common than is probably comfortable for many people to admit. He distinguishes between two primary forms of trauma in this book, and most of his book discusses these two types. The first is a sudden onset trauma.
These are situations where a person lives and leads a fairly regular life. Still, at some point, they are exposed to either an isolated incident or a brief series of isolated incidents of traumatic experiences. He separates this from developmental trauma, which is people who have lived a life span of traumatic experiences, often starting in childhood.
He distinguishes between these two types because how the brain changes, how the body reacts to them, and how these different traumas are treated vary significantly. This book teaches how to become a better clinician in the future and treat people similarly to The Four Agreements.
Key Points:
- Trauma affects both mind and body.
- Neuroscience explains trauma’s impact on the brain.
- Mind-body treatments are essential for healing.
- Traditional psychiatric approaches are often insufficient.
- Holistic therapies like EMDR and yoga offer alternative paths to recovery.
Author: Bessel A. van der Kolk
Average Rating: 4.8/5
Category: PTSD, Alternative & Complementary Medicine (Best Seller)
Available: Audiobook | Paperback | Hardcover | Kindle | Audio CD
6. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
This book is a cornerstone in the realm of mindfulness and spirituality. Tolle emphasizes the importance of being present and how it can lead to a more fulfilling and balanced life. The book complements “The Four Agreements” by providing practical methods for letting go of ego-based thoughts that lead to suffering.
7. You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
Louise Hay’s work focuses on self-love, forgiveness, and emotional well-being, emphasizing how our thoughts and beliefs can directly affect physical health. Like “The Four Agreements,” it provides actionable advice for personal transformation.
8. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
This short book outlines seven laws to fulfill one’s desires while achieving a balanced life. Like “The Four Agreements,” it draws on ancient wisdom and offers spiritual guidelines for living. Each “law” is a principle that people can apply to align more closely with their goals and the universe’s flow.
9. The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer
This book offers a transformative view of achieving happiness, well-being, and self-realization by opening your heart and mind and embracing the present moment. The teachings in this book can pair well with the principles found in “The Four Agreements,” particularly the focus on personal responsibility and awareness.
10. The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck
This book is a classic in the self-help genre and discusses the attributes that make for a fulfilled human being. It starts with the premise that life is difficult, but facing the difficulties, rather than avoiding them, leads to personal growth. This aligns well with the “Always Do Your Best” agreement in “The Four Agreements.”
Each of these books offers a unique perspective on personal growth, spirituality, and well-being, making them good follow-up reads for anyone who has been inspired by “The Four Agreements.”
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