Happy YOU Year!

I’m excited to share my 2023 Vision Board with all of you! And, yes, mine is heavy on words, short on pictures. Just proving there’s no right or wrong way to do it! And no right or wrong time to do it! If you want to create your own vision board for the new year, I’ve got a step-by-step guide and some helpful tips here.

Creating a vision or goals or resolutions for the new year is just the first step! I know I’m not the only one who thinks creating them is much easier than keeping them. I always start the year off with a lot (A LOT) of good intentions that are going to make me happier, thinner, kinder, bolder, braver, more productive – the list goes on and on.  If you do, too – check out these new books to help you reach your goals and stay on track for success!

First up is a brand new book from the author whose previous book, The Artists Way, is ALWAYS mentioned as being the book for anyone looking to bring more creativity into their life. This new book is focused specifically on aspiring writers.

Over the course of six weeks, Cameron carefully guides readers step by step through the creative process. This latest guide in the Artist’s Way Series introduces a new tool and expands on powerful tried and true methods; gently guides readers through many common creative issues — from procrastinating and getting started, to dealing with doubt, deadlines, and “crazymakers; will help you reach your goals, whether your project is a novel, poetry, screenplay, standup, or songwriting. With the learned experience of a lifetime of writing, Cameron gives readers practical tools to start, pursue, and finish their writing project. You can read more and get your copy here.

Are you still playing a role you learned in childhood to please others, such as the Good Girl/Boy, the Overachiever, or the Helper? Though these kinds of roles may have gained us attention and affection, they prohibited us from becoming our true selves. People-pleasing--putting others ahead of ourselves to avoid something negative or to get something we want or need--runs rampant in our society. Saying yes when we should say no leaves us stuck in frustrating patterns. And when we don’t say yes authentically, we say it resentfully, which leads to more problems than if we'd said no in the first place. The Joy of Saying No will help you identify your people-pleasing style and habits through a six-step framework that teaches you how to discover the healing and transformative power of no. You can read more and get your copy here.

Tori Dunlap was always good with money. As a kid, she watched her prudent parents balance their checkbook every month and learned to save for musical tickets by gathering pennies in an Altoids tin. But she quickly discovered that her experience with money was pretty unusual, especially among her female friends. It wasn’t our fault. Investigating this financial literacy and wealth gap, Tori found that girls are significantly less likely to receive a holistic financial education; we’re taught to restrain our spending, while boys are taught about investing and rewarded for pursuing wealth. In adulthood, women are hounded by the unfounded stereotype of the frivolous spenders whose lattes are to blame for the wealth gap. And when something like, say, a global pandemic happens, we’re the first to have jobs cut and the last to re-enter the workforce. It's no wonder money is a source of anxiety and a barrier to equality for so many of us. But what if money didn't mean restriction, and instead, choice? The ability to luxuriously travel, quit toxic jobs, donate to important organizations, retire early? The freedom to live the life you want, and change the world while you do it? In Financial Feminist, Tori distills the principles of her shame- and judgment-free approach to paying off debt, figuring out your value categories to spend mindfully, saving money without monk-like deprivation, and investing in order to spend your retirement tanning in Tulum. You can read more and get your copy here.

Swipe. Match. Get ghosted. Repeat. Modern dating can quickly start to feel like an overwhelming slog. It’s easy to forget the point of it all: this is supposed to be fun. Enter professional sex and dating coach Myisha Battle. Drawing on an engaging and diverse collection of client stories, This Is Supposed to Be Fun is a uniquely inclusive, sex-positive guide to help you skip past the games and get what you really want out of dating and relationships—no matter what that may be. Whether you’re trying to create the perfectly imperfect dating profile, stay true to your authentic self on dates, match with people interested in kink, or break up with compassion, Battle’s friendly, proven advice is indispensable. This Is Supposed to Be Fun will help make the world of dating and relationships more enjoyable (and bearable!) for everyone. You can read more and get your copy here.

What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money—or work for justice? To run marathons—or sing in a choir? To have children—or travel the world? The things we care about in life—family, friendship, leisure activities, work, our moral ideals—often conflict, preventing us from doing what matters most to us. Even worse, we don’t always know what we really want, or how to define success. Blending personal stories, philosophy, and psychology, this insightful and entertaining book offers invaluable advice about living well by understanding your values and resolving the conflicts that frustrate their fulfillment. Valerie Tiberius introduces you to a way of thinking about your goals that enables you to reflect on them effectively throughout your life. She illustrates her approach with vivid examples, also offering strategies for coping with obstacles to realizing your goals, including gender bias and other kinds of discrimination. Whether you are changing jobs, rethinking your priorities, or reconsidering your whole life path, What Do You Want Out of Life? is an essential guide to helping you understand what really matters to you and how you can thoughtfully pursue it. You can read more and get your copy here.

We’ve been looking at perfectionism all wrong. As psychotherapist and former on-site therapist at Google Katherine Morgan Schafler argues in The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, you don’t have to stop being a perfectionist to be healthy. For women who are sick of being given the generic advice to “find balance,” a new approach has arrived. As you identify your unique perfectionist profile, you'll learn how to manage each form of perfectionism to work for you, not against you. Beyond managing it, you'll learn how to embrace and even enjoy your perfectionism. Full of stories and brimming with humor, empathy, and depth, this book is a love letter to the ambitious, high achieving, full-of-life clients who filled the author’s private practice, and who changed her life. It’s a clarion call for all women to dare to want more without feeling greedy or ungrateful. Ultimately, this book will show you how to make the single greatest trade you’ll ever make in your life, which is to exchange superficial control for real power.  You can read more and get your copy here.

Almost every day it seems that our world becomes more fractured, more digital, and more chaotic. Sheila Liming has the answer: we need to hang out more.  Starting with the assumption that play is to children as hanging out is to adults, Liming makes a brilliant case for the necessity of unstructured social time as a key element of our cultural vitality. The book asks questions like what is hanging out? why is it important? why do we do it? how do we do it? and examines the various ways we hang out—in groups, online, at parties, at work. Hanging Out: The Radical Power of Killing Time makes an intelligent case for the importance of this most casual of social structures, and shows us how just getting together can be a potent act of resistance all on its own. You can read more and get your copy here.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that terrible apologies are the worst. We’ve all been on the receiving end, and oh, how they make us seethe. Horrible public apologies—excuse-laden, victim blame-y, weaselly statements—often go viral instantaneously, whether they’re from a celebrity, a politician, or a blogger. We all recognize bad apologies when we hear them. So why is it so hard to apologize well? How can we do better? How could they do better? Marjorie Ingall and Susan McCarthy show us the way. Drawing on a deep well of research in psychology, sociology, law, and medicine, they explain why a good apology is hard to find and why it doesn’t have to be. Alongside their six (and a half)-step formula for apologizing beautifully, Ingall and McCarthy also delve into how to respond to a bad apology; why corporations, celebrities, and governments seldom apologize well; how to teach children to apologize; how gender and race affect both apologies and forgiveness; and most of all, why good apologies are essential, powerful, and restorative. With wit, deep introspection, and laugh-out-loud humor, Ingall and McCarthy’s guidance will help make the world a better place, one apology at a time. You can read more and get your copy here.

And last, but certainly not least, the start of a new year is a great time to again share this tool from our 2022 Holiday Gift Guide.

This goal-setting deck will help you turn your big ambitions into a set of clearly delineated goals that can be achieved over the course of a decade. THE REMARKABLE LIFE DECK provides prompts to identify your hopes and aspirations, and, by daring you to dream them, helps you make those dreams a reality. It features 30 cards with generative prompts, an instructional booklet, and a workbook for creating your own ten-year plan. You can read more and get your copy here.