Self-Help Books Like Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Remember that moment when you realized you'd been living someone else's version of your life? That sudden, startling awareness that the rules you'd been following, the roles you'd been playing, and the person you'd been pretending to be weren't actually yours at all? If Glennon Doyle's Untamed spoke to that awakening in you, if it made you want to shed the expectations that have kept you caged and step into your own wild truth, then you're ready for a journey through books that will continue to crack you open, challenge your assumptions, and call you home to yourself.

The beauty of this particular reading journey is that each author approaches the quest for authenticity from a different angle, yet they all lead to the same destination: a life lived on your own terms. Take Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic Creative Living Beyond Fear, which transforms the conversation about creativity from one of suffering and struggle to one of curiosity and wonder. Gilbert doesn't just give you permission to create; she reminds you that creativity chose you first, that ideas are looking for human collaborators, and that the only thing standing between you and your creative life is fear masquerading as practicality.

Then there's Brené Brown, who appears three times in this collection because her work on vulnerability and shame resilience is foundational to any journey toward authentic living. In The Gifts of Imperfection, she lays out the guideposts for what she calls Wholehearted living, showing you how to cultivate courage, compassion, and connection while letting go of perfectionism and the exhausting need to prove your worth. Daring Greatly takes this further, challenging the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and revealing it as the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change. And in Rising Strong How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brown gives you the roadmap for getting back up when life knocks you down, because living bravely means you will fall, and knowing how to rise is essential.

Sometimes the path to authenticity requires a literal journey, as Cheryl Strayed discovered when she hiked eleven hundred miles of the Pacific Crest Trail alone. Wild From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail isn't just a hiking memoir; it's the story of a woman who had to walk herself back to life after loss shattered everything she thought she knew. Like Doyle, Strayed shows us that sometimes you have to burn it all down before you can rise from the ashes.

The spiritual dimension of this journey appears in don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements, which strips away the complex belief systems that keep us trapped in cycles of suffering. With profound simplicity, Ruiz offers four practices that can transform your life: be impeccable with your word, don't take anything personally, don't make assumptions, and always do your best. These agreements aren't rules imposed from outside but wisdom that emerges when you clear away the domestication that began in childhood.

For those who need their wisdom served with humor and irreverence, Jen Sincero's You Are a Badass How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life delivers tough love with a wink. Sincero doesn't sugarcoat the work required to transform your life, but she makes the journey feel less like a solemn pilgrimage and more like a road trip with your funniest, most honest friend.

The collection even includes Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now in calendar form, because sometimes the most radical act of authenticity is simply being present. When you stop rehearsing the past or anxiously scripting the future, you discover that your truest self exists only in this moment, and that's where your power lies.

What makes these books perfect companions to Untamed is that they all reject the notion that there's one right way to live. Instead, they invite you to question everything you've been taught about who you should be and discover who you actually are. They understand that authenticity isn't a destination but a practice, not a achievement but a daily choice to show up as yourself even when it's uncomfortable, even when others don't understand, even when the safer path beckons.

These aren't books that will pat you on the head and tell you everything's going to be okay. They're books that will shake you awake, hold up a mirror, and ask you the questions you've been avoiding. They're for readers who are ready to trade the false safety of conformity for the exhilarating uncertainty of living their own truth. If Untamed lit a fire in you, these books will keep it burning.