January equals a new year and with that come new year’s resolutions. We all have habits we want to create and vices we want to stop. Unfortunately, studies say that about 80% of New Year’s resolutions are broken by the second week of February! It helps if you learn new strategies that will reinforce the habit you’re trying to create. I know it helps when I find books on the subject and spend some time every few days reading up on it. Here are some books that may help you with your New Year’s resolutions.
Enjoy!
Prayers for Calm:
Meditations, Affirmations, and Prayers to Soothe Your Soul
By: Becca Anderson
Prayers for Calm is the perfect inspirational gift or encouragement gift. This book will help you:
Slow your racing mind in this fast-paced world.
Calm your thoughts enough to see the big picture in overwhelming situations.
Assert control over your mind and believe in yourself.
Overcome nagging worries and fears that hold you back from life.
Deepen your connection to spiritual serenity.
Discover meditative mantras and actualizing affirmations to reduce your anxiety.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
One of my favorite parts of my morning is having my first cup of coffee before everyone else wakes up. I take this time to read, but I don’t like reading chapter books because I usually get interrupted. This book is the perfect way to start your day on a positive note. If your resolution is to be positive, reduce stress, create a daily mantra, or become more present in your life, this is a wonderful one to read. It gives you a refreshing outlook for the day. It is also a great book to read a passage at the end of a bad day because it addresses emotions like anxiety, and reassurance. I love that it is sectioned into months, so it gives you something to enjoy all year.
Start Here. Start Now…Start Anywhere!
A Journal to Discover your Best Year Yet
By: Ronnie Walter
Personal growth starts here. With not enough time in the day, it’s hard to find room for self-reflection and short-term goals. From best-selling author and illustrator Ronnie Walter comes an eye-catching, guided, fill-in journal that will produce some clarity on your goals.
When everyday life turns into a meaningful life. Filled with fun lists and journal ideas, Start Here, Start Now…Start Anywhere! is an easy-to-use guide with all the benefits of journal writing. It’s undated, so you don’t need an excuse to start next week. It also includes lined pages to help capture thoughts or save daily reflections. And with lots of illustrations and coloring pages, its therapeutic potential helps reduce anxiety and make room for mindfulness.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
I love journaling, but I feel like I need prompts to keep help me decide what to write for the day. This journal allows you to show your creativity while guiding you to self-discovery. It is fun and not even has adult coloring pages to use when you’re feeling stressed. I love that it lets you create lists, so it’s not always paragraphs you’re writing. I also love the way it promotes self-esteem, by asking you to write about qualities you like about yourself. It is the perfect book if journaling is your New Year’s resolution. This would be an incredible gift to give a teenage in your life.
Journal Planning Magic:
Dot Journaling for Calm, Creativity, and Conquering your Goals
By Andrea Gonzalez
Journal Planning Magic is the ultimate companion for planning the different areas of our lives. No matter how organized or disorganized you might feel, this guide helps find which planning process works best for you, whether it be bullet journaling or something simpler. Filled with details and tips on drafting schedules for the day, week, month, and year―and lots of visual inspiration to get started―Journal Planning Magic encourages us to work on short term and personal goals on a regular basis.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
You all know I love to plan…lists, sketches, checklists…insert happy sigh! This book helps you discover what types of planning works best for you and how you can add your creativity to it. It can teach you how to organize a calendar, create a planner, create a personal journal, incorporate habits into your routine, and how to plan time for weekly self-care. If your New Year’s resolution is to begin journaling, this book can help you get started. I can’t wait to read it, buy some journal supplies, and get some fancy markers!
Your Day, Your Way:
The Fact and Fiction Behind Your Daily Decisions
By: Timothy Caulfield
We make, and worry about, a thousand big and little decisions during our waking hours. And for most of us, these decisions are made (after a lot of hemming and hawing), based on concerns or beliefs about our world that . . . well . . . simply aren’t true. These misperceptions impact day-to-day decisions and stress us out unnecessarily — and we all have enough stress as it is. Tim Caulfield seeks to provide the antidote to this analysis paralysis, teaching readers — through sound science and silly stories — that reevaluating their decision-making processes can lead to lives that are both more fulfilling and more exciting.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
This book is a funny way to think about how decisions effect you and why you make them. It is filled with interesting facts from around the world and makes you realize there are other alternatives to the decisions we instinctually make. I like the unique way they structure the book…a typical day and all the decisions we make throughout it.
The Habit Trip:
A Fill-in-the-Blank Journey to a Life on Purpose
By: Sarah Hays Coomer
When something feels wrong, your routines are a mess, and nothing is working, you want to make a change. The impulse is to go big: start a ten-day fast. Work out five times a week. Quit your job, end your marriage, and move to Dubai — raze it all to the ground. But those drastic efforts tend to fizzle out before they’ve even begun. The Habit Trip maps the topography of who you are and what you love, revealing a personalized infrastructure for well-being that is hiding in plain sight.
The journey is divided into three sections:
The Situation: evaluate your life in ten areas to identify what’s working and what’s not.
The Solution: find micro-doses of solace and strength to bolster your health and stability.
The Payoff: amplify the power, peace, and presence that comes with knowing what matters most.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
I especially like the ten areas of well-being…time, sleep, food, fitness, space, play, people, money, spirit, and voice. This journal can help you discover your passions, how to organize your priorities, how to create routines, and how to replace bad habits. If your New Year’s resolution involves self-discovery, this is a great book to use.
My Next 90 Days
Savor Beauty Planner
The first planner to focus on self-care every day. Studies show that self-care helps you function at your highest level, boosting happiness, balance, and success.
Be more productive, organize your gorgeous chaos, and radiate inner beauty when you are successful at both work and life.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
I am so excited to use this planner because I feel like I am forever searching for the right one. I love that this one focuses on 90 days so there is a better chance of you keeping with it. I love that it gives you a place to a spot to write your daily self-care, essential priorities, and getting you to do tasks you may put off. I like that it is sectioned into weekday and weekends because those days are very different for my family. I also like how it gives you a spot to reflect on your week and decide what you should do differently the next day. If your New Year’s resolution is to get organized and start planning, this is the book for you!
Mother Nature is Not Trying to Kill You:
A Wildlife & Bushcraft Survival Guide
By: Rob Nelson & Halet Nelson
Statistically, you’re more likely to die from a vending machine than a shark. But, Rob Nelson knows many shark survivors. His college girlfriend was attacked by a crocodile and his roommate, a grizzly bear. His wife was sucked by a wave down a blowhole, he was left stranded at sea after a storm sank his sailboat, and the list goes on and on. To Rob, these “improbable” altercations are “random acts of nature,” and he’s learned how to survive them.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
Most of the time, people are nervous because of the unknown, but once they get the facts, they are able to relax. This book gives you so many animal scenarios like box jellyfish, brown bears, killer bees, whales, scorpions, and many more. Even if you’ll likely never been in a situation with a piranha, it’s still interesting to read about how they hunt, the different types, how to avoid them, and how to survive an attack.
Optimism Always Wins
Moving from Defeat to Life’s C-Suite
By: Kimberly S. Reed, MEd
Our brain’s default setting is negativity. Ask anyone who has ever tried to lose weight, achieve a new skill, or incorporate a new habit and they can tell you that our natural tendency is to levitate toward mediocrity. However, optimism overpowers that negativity or tendency to be mediocre. International speaker and diversity/inclusion strategist Kimberly Reed’s book Optimists Always Win!: Unlocking the Power to Reach Life’s C-Suite isn’t merely motivational mumbo jumbo. It is designed to help readers develop a process to stay optimistic all the time. Reaching life’s C-Suite means obtaining a level of happiness, peace, wisdom and growth in all areas of our lives. It’s choosing optimism instead of anger, bitterness, or revenge.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
I can be a big pessimist…it’s one of my vices I’m working on this year. Wonder if you are also a pessimist? There’s a test in the book you can take to find out. This book deals with many useful topics such as eliminating discouragement, gratitude, quieting the soul, and the power of words.
True Roots
A Mindful Kitchen with More Than 100 Recipes Free of Gluten, Dairy, and Refined Sugar
By: Kristin Cavallari
So how does Kristin eat? Organic as much as possible, wild-caught fish, grass-fed beef, fresh fruits and vegetables, and nothing white—no white flour, sugar, or salt. She avoids anything heavily processed and anything that has been stripped of natural nutrients. She maintains a lifestyle free of toxic chemicals and is passionate about creating delicious and hearty food from real ingredients. She wants her food to be true, as close to its natural state as possible.
Her recipes—flax banana quinoa muffins, bison and veggie kabobs, and even zucchini almond butter blondies—are proof that a healthy lifestyle isn’t boring or bland. Feed yourself real food and see how much better you feel, both mentally and physically.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
Since the pandemic hit and we stopped eating out, I’ve spent a lot of time in the kitchen. I’ve been trying to cook food that is healthy for my family and easy to make. This has been one of my favorite cookbooks because it has recipes that my entire family enjoys…a task many parents know is hard to do. The recipes can be easily modified to fit the way your family eats. Yep…I add some cheese to them! I especially like her warm beverages. Her lattes are incredible!
The Skinnytaste Air Fryer Cookbook
By: Gina Homolka
In The Skinnytaste Air Fryer Cookbook, Gina shares 75 of her best recipes that work in every type of air fryer, including basket models and countertop ovens with air fryer settings. You’ll of course find crave-worthy recipes for traditionally fried foods, such as Chicken-Vegetable Spring Rolls, Crispy Coconut Shrimp, Za’atar Chickpeas, and Pickle-Brined Chicken Tenders, but Gina also shows you how versatile the appliance can be. Perfectly roasted meats and vegetables like Korean Pork Lettuce Wraps, Roasted Fish with Lemon-Almond Crumbs, Sugar and Spice Acorn Squash, and Charred Sesame Green Beans, along with baked goods like Homemade Bagels and Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing, are all executed beautifully in the compact air fryer.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
I can’t believe I ever lived without having an air fryer in my life! I’ve been hooked since the day I got it. I love making wings, chicken, salmon, and fish in it. This cookbook is amazing. I’m obsessed with the Skinnytaste website and have been using it for years. I actually have all of her cookbooks, and this one is my new favorite! It has 75 recipes and the hard part is deciding what you’ll cook first.
But wait…here are 2 extra recommendations for good books to read!
Is one of your resolutions to read more? Here are 2 books I just read that I think you’d like.
The Home Stretch
By: Wayne M. Johnston
For Bill, the end has always been in view. His life has seen a series of unlikely extensions. When he was young, he hated his father and contemplated suicide. Later in his life he was diagnosed with leukemia and expected to die within months. Bill’s childhood was spent on a communal evangelical mission, but eventually Bill began to question his parents’ strict religious beliefs. His father reacted with violence and Bill felt trapped between the dishonesty of trying to conform to his parents’ beliefs and the conviction that he was doomed to hell for questioning them. Eventually he provokes his father into a confrontation that leads to an outcome that redefines their relationship and alters the course of both of their lives. By midlife, Bill has been married for twenty years and has his own family. The challenges he has faced at sea as chief engineer on tugboats have helped him heal. His thoughts of suicide have faded. His father’s recent descent into Alzheimer’s Disease has created an avenue for the reconciliation the two have worked on for years. Then, unexpectedly, a story emerges about his father, involving his sister, and Bill is confronted once again with the dark side of his father’s personality.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
I couldn’t put this book down! It literally kept me up at night waiting to see what could possibly happen next. It is a wonderful reminder that no matter what you go through in your past, your life is what you make of it. It is a good book about resistance, forgiveness, and how your past can affect your future.
Musings
The Short Happy Pursuit of Pleasure and Other Journeys
By: Joseph Rosendo
Many of Joseph’s Musings are directly related to travel. They offer how-to tips on bargaining, packing, planning and other nuts-and-bolts travel issues. Others are less solidly connected to travel as an activity, and explore topics such as Joseph’s childhood travels, his year of spring, his Cuban grandparents, his quest for the holy platter, his brunch-conquering brother and other happenings. These musings describe Joseph’s personal journey, touching on many topics, but the voyage, the passage, is always the subtext. Joseph discovered that writing about the stops along his own sojourn wasn’t much different than writing a travel story. The final destination is always clear, but what will happen along the way is not. Both adventures include brief stops where you pick up things that you may use later on in the trip. Some of these things are a burden and have to be dumped, but most come in handy. Joseph proposes that if you are to happily survive both — travel and life — you should keep your sense of humor and be as adaptable as possible. And that you should never, never ever, isolate yourself from the experience and just observe from a place apart — sightseeing. Instead you must commit yourself to the adventure and relish the good, the bad and the ugly of it. “May you live all the days of your life,” said author Jonathan Swift. “And may you savor the journey along the way,” adds Joseph.
WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THIS BOOK:
I’ve been reading a chapter each morning when I have my first cup of coffee. It gives me inspiration to plan my next trip and reflect on the ones I’ve taken and the memories I’ve made. His vivid writing makes you feel like you are traveling along with him.
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