5 self-improvement audiobooks to listen to this month, as chosen by the Stylist team

If, like us, you’ve moved past the ‘new year, new you’ noise and started to find some balance in the post-Christmas funk, then listen up, because we have some great audiobook recommendations to help you refocus for the year ahead.

With January’s dreariness soon to be well behind us, team Stylist have been collating some of their most-looked-forward-to self-improvement and wellbeing Audible titles to help spark joy during our more mindful moments. From understanding our emotional patterns to becoming a better communicator, these top picks are guaranteed to have you feeling ready for whatever 2025 has in store.

So, whether you’re commuting, training or simply taking yourself out for a walk (and some much needed vitamin D), here are the five Stylist-approved audiobooks and podcasts to pop onto your wellness wishlist, as chosen by our editorial team. Happy listening…

“While my personality is far from introverted, I am someone who wishes they could just tune out of life for a few hours at least three times a week. 

Between a hectic work schedule, full social calendar and the everyday admin of staying healthy and alive, I know first-hand that it’s incredibly easy to start feeling like your time is no longer your own. But from Susan Cain’s A Quiet Life In 7 Steps, I’ve learned that this doesn’t have to be the case. 

From the importance of understanding your daily emotional patterns to what messages our bodies send us about how to spend our time (and how we can better listen to them), Cain approaches mindfulness and slowing down in a firm yet gentle way, inspiring you to stop doomscrolling and start embracing the slow lane of life. 

As a writer, the chapter on creativity versus practicality was particularly enlightening, and listening to it helped transform my commute from the part of my daily routine I dread the most to a being a space in which to carve out much-needed time to spend with my own thoughts. 

I love to be on-the-go, so I’m never going to be the type of person who leads a truly quiet life, but this audiobook has certainly inspired me to try and lead a more balanced one.”

Amy Beecham, Senior Features Writer     

“The idea of completely reinventing yourself every January in the spirit of ‘new year, new me’ may no longer be in fashion, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling the itch to make some changes when the new year comes around. 

So this year, in the spirit of keeping things low key, I’ve started listening to James Clear’s Atomic Habits. Based on the premise that tiny, incremental changes can deliver transformational results, Clear’s book explores how shifting your attention away from big goals to everyday, achievable changes (something he refers to as ‘the system’) can have a much bigger impact than you think. 

While I’m not someone who traditionally reaches for self-help books, being able to pop my headphones in and listen to the audiobook during my lunchtime walk has allowed me to engage with the content at the time when my brain is most receptive to new ideas, which has made it much easier to wrap my head around the concept and find ways to apply it to my own life. 2025 – I’m ready for you.”

Lauren Geall, Senior Writer, Strong Women

“‘What’s actually my purpose?’ is a question I imagine many of us end up pondering – whether prompted by a particularly stressful workday looming or just a bout of grisly weather – during our morning commutes. 

Usually, I’d blast a couple of Chappell Roan songs through my headphones to pep me up but, this month, I plan to approach things a little more mindfully. With the Japanese word for ‘reason for being’ as its title (the equivalent of the French raison d’etre), Ikigai by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles is the audiobook I’ll be turning to in order to help me unpick this question. 

Explaining that ikigai describes finding a confluence between what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs and what you can be paid for, over nine easily digestible chapters, the authors talk about how to find longevity and purpose with genuinely actionable advice that will make you feel more on top of your life. 

Forget short-term productivity hacks absorbed at a rate of 10 per minute via TikTok, this is the kind of (long-term) thinking I want to start 2025 with.”

Holly Bullock, Acting Commissioning Editor

“My morning commute really sets the tone for the day. If my train is late or packed full to the brim with people, it sours the morning and, usually, the rest of the day. 

I tend to read physical books on public transport but because you can rarely get a seat at commuter times, I’ve started to delve into the world of audiobooks to keep me company on my way to work. And I didn’t want to read or explore my typical genres of books but rather immerse myself in a completely different world and use this time to learn something new. It’s why I’ve been listening to On The Edge: The Art Of Risking Everything by Nate Silver to learn more about risk-taking and what it means for our societies.

Taking us behind-the-scenes in a host of high-risk environments, from casinos and venture capital firms to corporate meetings, On The Edge is a brilliantly researched and accessible look into a hidden world of powerbrokers and risk takers. In a world where there’s an increasing concentration of wealth and power, understanding the mindset of the rich and powerful – including the flaws in their thinking – is key, according to the author, to understanding what drives the big players on the global stage today.”

Shahed Ezaydi, Writer 

“When it comes to non-fiction I am someone who has an endless pile marked ‘to be read’ – while I make time for novels before bed, the books that might help me learn something (about myself or the world) seem to fall by the wayside. 

“In 2025, I’m endeavouring to get through this list by listening to them instead – on my commute, while I clean the house or cook – and first on my list is Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg. Duhigg is a journalist who became fascinated with some people’s ability to engage others so easily, they can hold an interesting conversation with anyone, engage a room and get their point across flawlessly. So, he set out to discover the science of what exactly they were doing differently, tapping neurologists, psychologists and negotiation experts to investigate this. 

“The promise is that by the end of the book you’ll understand the specifics of what sets them apart and use their tactics yourself. Actionable, interesting and ideal for January.”

Hannah Keegan, Features Director

Ready to discover something new on Audible? To shop more wellness and self-improvement titles, visit audible.co.uk