Chapter 31- To Be The Best

Happy New Year's Eve! Here's hoping it bring lots of good things to all of us. September always seems to me to be the start of the learning year but January always makes me introspective. I go into the new year with goals - personal, professional, and reading and list them out so I can check them off during the year. I don't always achieve every one of them - heck, sometimes I don't even come close, but I see January 1st as a new page just waiting for me to write on it. If this sounds like you and you want to know more about yourself and others, here are some books that just might help.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin - Rubin was riding home on a city bus and had an epiphany that she was not concentrating on the things that really mattered and so begins her Happiness Project. In this book Rubin talks about her adventures with the pursuit of happiness over twelve months. She gives suggestions for each month as well as encouraging that even small changes can make a big difference.

Miracles Now by Gabrielle Bernstein - "Let's be real for a sec" reads the blurb on the back of this book, "Most of us don't have time for an hour of yoga or 20 minutes of meditation every day..." If you are already pretty stressed in your life, Bernstein's book gives 108 tools that may help you live with more ease. Another good read when you feel like you just don't have the time.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert - I don't know what I expected when I first read this book by Elizabeth Gilbert, best known for Eat, Pray, Love but this is a pep talk on how you can be more creative in your life and how soul satisfying it can be for you. While she identifies that creative living is not always easy, it is always possible.

Tools of the Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World Class Performers by Tim Ferriss - This book came out last December and, to be honest, it is a big scary book. The book is full of interviews Ferriss has conducted on his podcast, The Tim Ferriss show. Ferriss tells the reader not to read it all at once but to consider it as a buffet and enjoy the information you need at the moment. Each interview has tips and tricks for life from people who have been there and done that.

Reading People: How Seeing the World through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything by Anne Bogel - I know I wrote about this before when the book first came out but...if you read no other self-help book this year (and I hate that term), pick this up. Anne has consolidated the most popular of personality frameworks and put them in friendly, easy to understand language sharing her personal vignettes along the way.

Write and let me know if you have a favorite self-help book you read at the beginning of the year or anytime you need a boost.