The New Year is finally here, and so is our New Year’s resolutions checklist! Guess what else comes? The added pressures of finishing your New Year’s resolutions by the end of 2023. Sometimes our resolutions aren’t achievable, and so we push them off until the next year… the next, and the next until it feels like we are never going to complete the goal. Instead of thinking of your resolutions as missions or the impossible– think of them as a new step in your daily routine. Keep reading to see our five books to help ease the New Year stress.
Let’s say one of your goals this year is to read more books. Adjust that resolution to read more. You don’t have to have X amount of books finished by the end of the year. Life can get busy at times if you have a full-time job, family, and friend functions. By the end of the week, you realize you’ve only read 10 pages. A little voice in your head will say, “You lost. Of course, you flopped again. Try again next week, and this time don’t fail!” These voices can be very discouraging.
Now, of course, not everyone makes the same resolutions. Your list might include eating healthier, working out more, or making more friends! Depending on how long your list is, it can feel overwhelming. These five books listed below will hopefully alleviate the stress you may face this coming year.
1. Unwinding Anxiety
Everyone faces anxiety. Some people know how to manage well, while others struggle with this feeling. In Judson Brewer’s book, Unwinding Anxiety, you will get a step-by-step plan to break the cycle of consumed worry and fear.
Brewer explains using brain-based techniques. Anxiety is a spectrum– stemming from mild stress to full-blown panic attacks. As a result, people are prone to falling into bad habits, such as over/undereating, procrastination, and being overzealous on social media. We are constantly in an anxiety habit loop because anxiety is a part of our brain that is connected to rational thoughts. Brewer will take you on a journey of deconstructing your thought process as you discover your triggers by training your brain to use mindfulness and other practices that help cope with impending stress.
2. The Mountain Is You
It’s so easy to step back into bad habits. My bad habit is self-sabotaging. In Brianna Wiest’s, The Mountain is You, you will understand when, how, and why people choose self-sabotaging behaviors. This can help you not be so quick to lose out on your Resolution list. It’s so easy to say, “I’ll try again next year,” when you could still be doing it. Of course, healthily. There shouldn’t be a timeline to get things done. However, we choose the New Year as a placeholder to start. It’s okay to take it slow on your New Year’s Resolution, but it’s good to pinpoint why you don’t finish your goals. Are you self-sabotaging yourself because you don’t like change?
Mountains are used as a metaphor for hurdles or conflicts people face, but instead of looking at the mountain, you got to peer from the inside through your past trauma, so you can build resilience and maybe change the way you climb over that mountain. You might have to take a detour or two for success.
3. Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?
Highly Experienced clinical psychologist Dr. Julie Smith tells you how you could navigate your life while maintaining your mental health. This will include coping with anxiety, depression, lack of self-esteem, motivation, and learning to forgive yourself.
The last two go hand in hand for the start of the New Year. Stay motivated as you cross off your Resolutions, but at the same time, give yourself leeway and forgive yourself if you aren’t able to do it all. At the end of the day, you are only human. Smith will remind you of this while providing solutions in easy bite-size ways. With these easy-to-digest steps, you can conquer the year. Smith guides you on a deeper understanding of why our minds react the way they do when they are under stress or depression. The ways to cope with these outcomes are laced within the pages. She keeps it practical and easy to follow!
4. Get Out of Your Own Way
Mark Goulston’s Get Out of Your Way was released in the 90s, yet these techniques are still insightful to date. Goulston touches upon 40 common self-defeating attitudes and how you should combat them. This will include talks of procrastination, envy, obsession, anger, self-pity, compulsion, neediness, guilt, rebellion, inaction, and more.
All of these emotions can roll through your head at the start of the year, so this will definitely come in handy!
5. The Courage to Be Disliked
Who doesn’t want eternal happiness? The Courage to Be Disliked tells you how it is. Using psychologist methods theories from Alfred Adler, Sigmund Freud, and Carl Jung, this read will provide philosophies that you should carry on throughout your life. In five conversations, a philosopher and his student partake in insightful conversations as a way to understand that each of us determines our ways of life. Nothing is predetermined. Our past traumas should not hinder our future.
Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga book will help you with self-forgiveness, self-care, and mind decluttering. It’s so easy to limit yourself because of the past you lived, but if you allow yourself to unwind and practice these methods, you’ll be able to do anything.
The New Year is suppose to encourage you to do better. So remember, your resolution is doable, and if it’s not, you can restructure your list. Hopefully this book list will put you at ease, because at the end of the day, your resolution is suppose to better you, not stress you out!
Looking for more books about mental health, or maybe you want something that keeps you well-balanced? Don’t worry, we got you covered.
If you need resolution inspirations, click here!