Motivational books that actually work (long term)?

Hi All,

I've been trying to crack motivation for some time now and read or listened to different motivational books (at least those that come up in google while searching for "motivational books")

They usually provide some interesting trivia and give short-lived jolt of motivation (usually sort of motivation to go and change the world, no less).

However, I still cannot call to motivation "on demand", when I need to do something boring but necessary, something that needs to be done repetitively for a long time without impressive break-throughs in the end. (tasks such as maintaining a diet, exercising regimen, reading professional papers for an hour a day in my private time etc.)

Can you recommend motivation book that helps to motivate you to do mundane, time-consuming and boring things on a daily basis?

You can't motivate someone, as motivation is an internal force, all you can do is provide someone with the right environment so that they will motivate themselves.

When people buy self-help books then they normally go through three stages:

"This is amazing, how have I not realised this before?"
"I'm going to tell everyone about it constantly and change my daily routine."
"A week later and I'm back to where I was. I failed."

They will never help because you've not changed your environment, just you behaviour, and behaviour is a symptom, not a cause. If you're not motivated to do anything then, unless there's a medical reason behind it, you need to work out what you want in life, as it's clearly not what you have right now.

It'll depend on what you find inspiring. Some authors may attempt to motivate you while not really going into why what they're telling you should be motivational. If you're not as curious about why something may work, I'd recommend a book like Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. If you're curious about how and why certain changes can be extremely helpful to your well-being and the well-being of others, you'll want a book where what the author encourages has some references to scientific studies, like in The Power of Habit. In my experience, long-term motivation from books comes from learning profound new information about the way our bodies and minds work. The Power of Habit is an excellent book for accomplishing this.