Mark Manson's Blog

If you want to change your life—like really, seriously, no bullshit, actually change your life—do this:

Step 1: Write down everything you care about.
Step 2: Arrange the list from most important to least important.
Step 3: Cross out everything but the top 3 things.
Step 4: Re-organize everything you do around those three things.

People make this mistake of setting new goals every January 1st, but forget that goals are the path, not the destination.

Your real destination is your purpose.
Your g...

In 2023, my publisher offered me $5 million to write my next book.

I said no.

From 2016 to 2022, I was in full-blown author mode. Writing, touring, promoting. It felt like one never-ending deadline—and by the end of it, I was completely burnt out.

By 2022, I felt drawn back to entrepreneurship. The creator space had changed dramatically. AI was emerging. Everything was moving fast—and writing a book all of a sudden felt like the slowest, least relevant thing I could do.

The problem was, I was st...

On a random night last January, I sat down next to a guy at a poker table. A month later, we decided to start a company together. Little did I know, it would completely change my life.

The guy’s name was Raj. We started talking between hands, and Raj asked what I was working on.

“I’ve been trying to solve this scaling problem in personal growth,” I told him. “I was about to buy an AI company to do it, but the deal just fell through.”

“That’s funny,” Raj said. “I’ve been building AI companies fo...

This year has been one of the most important, yet challenging years of my life. And as we’ll see, that might not be a coincidence.

As you probably know, I’ve been calling out some of the shady dealings and worst practices of the self-help industry for my entire career. Whether it’s slimy sales tactics, unrealistic and unscientific advice, or promising results that simply aren’t possible, I’ve dedicated much of my adult life to “cleaning up” this space as much as possible.

You could even say that...

What is your biggest fear? What would it mean if you could overcome that fear, once and for all?

In this article, I’m going to help you do exactly that by teaching you five tactics to conquer anything you might be afraid of. Heights, spiders, small spaces, strangely-shaped clouds—whatever makes your knees turn to water and keeps you up at night.

These five tactics are universal and proven. In fact, last year I used them to help two readers who were afraid of driving overcome their fear over a si...

Today is my 40th birthday.

When I turned 30 a decade ago, I wrote an article sharing life lessons to survive your 20s and crowd-sourced advice on how to excel in your 30s. And apparently you guys loved it.

So, here’s more of the good stuff: 40 life lessons I now know at 40 that I wish I knew at 20.

Dig in.

If you treat yourself poorly, then you will also unconsciously seek out and tolerate others who treat...

I’ve read over 1,000 nonfiction books in my life, and these 33 are the most powerful of them all. I can honestly say they changed my life, who’s to say they won’t change yours too?

Don’t just take my word for it though. Read on for my summary of all 33 books and see for yourself how your next read might just change your life.

This might be the most practical book ever written on simple behavioral change.

Atomic Habits has three big takeaways. The first is that ...

Every day, hundreds of millions of people suffer from giving too many fucks. They spend their lives imprisoned by meaningless anxiety and unnecessary concerns. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

In this article, I’m going to walk you through the five levels of non-fuck-giving, each level demonstrating more non-fuckery than the last. You will learn step by step how to face your fears, how to stop worrying what other people think, and how to achieve the eternal bliss of a fuckless life.

Strap in,...

Welcome to the realm of uncomfortable truths, where I, Mark Manson, will make you question everything you’ve ever believed in.

Buckle up, buttercup. Let’s dive into the rabbit hole of reality.

One day, everything you believe today will be proven to be completely and utterly wrong or incomplete.

Remember the past you? The one with embarrassing beliefs and naïve ideas? Well, guess what, future you will look back at present you with the same cring...

The internet is inundated with countless videos and advice columns promising to teach you how to become more successful than 99% of the world’s population.

Most of these claims revolve around setting goals, developing discipline, and eliminating distractions.

But let’s face it: if you take a close look at the habits of highly successful people, you’ll quickly realize that they don’t strictly adhere to a regimented lifestyle or adopt monk-like behavior.

So, what is it that truly sets the wildly s...