Books to help you find a fresh start this spring

The sun is starting to make an appearance, the temperature is slowly rising and spring has finally sprung! But when was the last time you reviewed the resolutions you made at the start of this year…? Now is the perfect time to make a fresh start. If you’ve fallen off the wagon with your New Year’s resolutions, we’ve rounded up the perfect books to get you back on track or help you find some new ones!

Your Time To Thrive by Marina Khidekel

 

Eschewing trendy self-care fixes or the latest health fads, Your Time to Thrive is the revolutionary guide to living and working based on Microsteps – tiny, science-backed changes. By making them too-small-to fail, we can incorporate them into our daily lives right away, and begin building healthier ways of living and working. This book is a Microstep bible. With chapters dedicated to sleep, nutrition, movement, focus and prioritization, communication and relationships, unplugging and recharging, creativity and inspiration, and purpose/meaning, Your Time to Thrive shares practical, usable, research-supported mini-habits that will yield huge benefits and empower people to truly thrive in all parts of their lives.

Your Time To Thrive is OUT NOW!

 

Alonement by Francesca Specter

 

 

How to be alone and absolutely own it, by founder of the Alonement blog and podcast, Francesca Specter.

Being alone has a serious branding issue. We’ve only ever had negative language to talk about flying solo – but what about when time spent alone is restorative and joyful? What if it’s something you crave? What if it’s even just an hour you’ve carved out for yourself in the middle of a hectic week?

Enter: Alonement, Francesca Specter’s empowering new word to express valuing your own company and dedicating quality time to yourself, whoever you are and whatever your relationship status.

Packed with practical tips, insights from key experts and lessons from guests of the Alonement podcast – including Alain de Botton, Florence Given, Konnie Huq, Vick Hope and Camilla Thurlow – Francesca reveals how we can all thrive alone, whatever our circumstances, and harness the untapped power of some meaningful time with me, myself and I.

 

Improv Your Life by Pippa Evans

 

 

An improviser’s guide to embracing whatever life throws at you!

PIPPA EVANS is an expert in saying Yes – and No. She’s a master of thinking on her feet, but has also had to learn how to go with the flow. In this book she’s passing on everything she’s learnt from her award winning improv career, as both a performer and teacher, so YOU can take centre stage in your own life.

In telling her story, delving into the craft of improvisation, and sharing fun exercises and practice you can do at home, Pippa will help you become fully yourself – realising your potential and ability to adapt to the ever changing world around you. It’s dangerous, being yourself, but let’s just take it one step at a time. Open the book, take a breath and get ready to say YES.

(If it’s a NO from you then perhaps consider buying for a friend, family member or enemy who you think needs some improv-ment)

 

Changing Gear by Jan Stokes and Jon Hall

 

 

‘Changes occur all the time. They can be identifiable and dramatic, or they can emerge imperceptibly, creeping up on you until one day you realise your foundations are less solid than you imagined. At this point in your life you need to find a new path.’

Coping with transition can be hard at every stage of life, but it presents unique challenges as we come to the time of our lives when we are facing the end of full-on, full-time work.

Changing Gear looks at why work is such an important part of a person’s identity, and how challenging it can be when it’s time to change gear, whether that’s to explore a new path or take a step back from our careers entirely.

 

A Toolkit for Modern Life by Dr Emma Hepburn

 

 

In this warm, wise book, clinical psychologist Dr Emma Hepburn (Instagram’s @thepsychologymum) introduces her proven and practical tools for taking care of your mental and emotional wellbeing every day.

Using her trademark illustrations, Dr Hepburn (aka @thepsychologymum) shines a welcome ray of light into the neglected corners of your brain. From identifying what triggers unhappy thoughts to overcoming the fear of making mistakes, A Toolkit for Modern Life will help you to cultivate positive habits and feel more confident, happier and in tune with yourself.

 

* Call out and manage feelings of imposter syndrome

* Answer back to your inner critic

* Become aware of and monitor your emotional capacity

* Spot unhelpful thoughts and develop more helpful patterns of thinking

* Understand how the emotions cycle affects you

* Identify what triggers anxiety for you and how to intercept it

* Overcome the fear of making mistakes

* Spot and call out your ‘catastrophizing’

* Identify and disarm social media comparisons

* Align your decisions and actions with your core values

* Assemble your own mental health toolkit for life

 

Last year, Emma wrote a brilliant guide on How to Stay Calm in a Global Pandemic. You can download the free Covid Toolkit ebook as a pdf here.

 

Sensitive is the New Strong by Anita Moorjani 

 

 

The bestselling author of Dying to Be Me returns with an inspirational guide for sensitive people looking to fully harness their gifts of intuition and empathy in today’s harsh world.

 

Anita Moorjani astounded fans across the globe with her bestselling book about overcoming cancer and her life-changing near-death experience. Now she returns with Sensitive Is the New Strong, a powerful, heartfelt book on harnessing and fostering empathic gifts in today’s difficult, fear-based world.

 

Empaths not only sense other people’s emotions, but also absorb them-sometimes to their own disadvantage, often leading to overwhelming sensory overload and feelings of confusion or low self-esteem. Their willingness to help and please others might make them prey to opportunists or cause them to give away more energy than they can afford. But Anita Moorjani argues that it’s possible to turn this onslaught of emotional burden into a powerful tool.

 

In a time when traits like sensitivity, kindness and compassion are sorely undervalued, Moorjani helps empaths-whether emerging or acknowledged-navigate obstacles they may face and identify what makes them unique. Finally, she teaches them how to claim their true powers as empaths, to be their most authentic selves, shifting their own trajectory and leading to shift the trajectory of the planet in a more conscientious direction.

 

Filled with eye-opening personal anecdotes, insights from other empaths, meditations and self-affirming mantras, Sensitive Is the New Strong is an empowering book that demonstrates the positive power of sensitivity.