Tag: Self help

Who the Hell Are You? Book by Ant Austen

Birthday Gifts, Books, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him, health, Mental Health Awareness, Summer

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

Self development books rarely teach you something new nowadays nor are they well written but I couldn’t put down the new book from Ant Austen – Who The Hell Are You?

The premise of the book is to find out who you are, which let’s face it, most self-help books are about anyway. The way Austen approaches the subject is more engaging than most books though and that’s what’s kept me hooked. At this point in my life, I have read an awful lot of books and am looking for a new direction so the idea of finding out “Who The Hell Are You?” is both exhausting and poignant.  Austen talks from personal experience where he ran a removal business in the UK, was working weekend and every hour he could in order to fulfil the Hard work = success mantra but having no idea what success looked like to him, or what he was sacrificing. It’s a familiar story to many of us nowadays.

The book looks at several aspects of human psychology to both explain how we work, and to go through some exercises to find out what we want. To me, one of the lightbulb moments was when he was explaining about the Law of Attraction in a different way to how it’s been presented to me before and it suddenly made sense. The idea that when you feel good, you’re starting to work with The Law of Attraction. This cemented in me the need to be positive all the time (gratitude) and create good emotions all the time in order to be in the right place. The second principle that hit home was that the Law of Attraction works on like attracting like. So, if you’re in a good place, feeling good, then you are going to attract good people and good things, which translates into things you like.  It sounds simple but if you’re not understanding one aspect of the laws, the rest won’t work in the same way so you won’t get what you’re craving.  

The rest of the book works on your frame of mind, your habits, and then onto your structure of how you are going to improve life. It’s a book which you need to read several times (it even says that in the beginning) so that you pick up different aspects as you learn each new theory. There wasn’t much of the book that was new to me, but it was written and presented in a way in which I suddenly grasped the meaning and was able to tie together the different laws and how they work so that it builds up a better picture for me and where I want to go. I’ll be reading the book several times over the summer to keep solidifying the ideas. I hope there’s a second book soon!

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@antausten

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Free Workbook:

https://offers.bethelimitlessyou.com/free-chapter

Available from £11.99 at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Who-Hell-Are-You-Understand/dp/B0CWRXQHJH

Powerful – book by Maisie Hill

Birthday Gifts, Books, Family Life, Gifts for Her, Learning, Women

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

Be The Expert In Your Own Life

Maisie Hill has written books specifically for women in different stages of life, and Powerful is her latest update in how to navigate tricky feelings, situations and the psychology of life.  Although the book contains a lot of tips and tricks for women, the information and advice speak to men too.  

As yourself if you procrastinate? Do you know why? What about people pleasing? Or being defensive? Do you even know you’re being defensive or do you assume defensiveness is a typical part of relationships and communication?  Perhaps these are questions you don’t ask yourself very often, but with each chapter dedicated to another topic, Maisie Hill talks you through what each emotion is, gives examples and most helpfully, gives bullet points on how to deal with them.  Around all of the information, Hill explains why we have such emotions and in some cases where they come from.

The book is released on 9 May 2024 and uses a lot of the most up to date counselling theories and readings which are used today and talked about on social media.  If you’ve not been interested in self-help books before then Powerful is a great place to start. The introduction talks about how your nervous system deals with emotions, stress and triggers from our lives which is the foundation of the book before you get into the detail in each chapter.  Maisie Hill has written books for women specifically and really seems to have her finger on the pulse with the topics most women are facing nowadays. People pleasing is a big problem among women, and understanding why we do it is the key to solving the issue plus changing our behaviour so that we can enjoy all the relationships in our lives.

The book can be picked up and chapters read in isolation, which is particularly easy when there are so many bullet point tips in each chapter that help you create boundaries and adapt to situations.  I would recommend reading the introduction though, and the book as a whole is a great base when you read it cover to cover, then keep it for reference.  Some of the chapters are quite long, so it would help if you had some peace and quiet to read the whole book before you delve in at a later date!

Available from 9 May 2024 for £15.99 at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Powerful-Expert-Your-Own-Life/dp/1472978927/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2DSMDDD17KYOK&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.8IyM0bbTIe6zG863X8uM8IVTXjMHyXLcBHaU8LS4QXFCLGOscgn7b7eKANRE-s4v.NZbjWKqfCmx0pxCQirS9vhTbbEGMea2dRZmhHxY3xaU&dib_tag=se&keywords=powerful+maisie+hill&qid=1711718650&sprefix=powerful+maisie+hill%2Caps%2C78&sr=8-1

Becoming Flawesome book by Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani

Birthday Gifts, Books, Gifts for Her, Learning, Mental Health Awareness, Women

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

As a co-founder of Mindvalley, the meditation and self improvement app, Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani’s first book highlights one of the most sought-after questions for self development – who are we and how do we improve ourselves?

Using her life history and experience of Mindvalley and the world of work, Kristina takes the reader on a journey with short chapters and daily exercises to question your thinking and hopefully, take you to a new place personally and without the pain that self growth often brings. 

Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani book ‘Becoming Flawesome’ starts by explaining her background, then going into detail about how we lose ourselves over time, and how self-inflicted parameters such as being perfect can affect us and the way we connect to ourselves. The same idea of perfection/imperfection comes again later in the book when Kristina looks at why being imperfect is healthy for you, but not before delving into how to find yourself again. She talks, in her customary short chapters with exercises to do daily, about vulnerability and being authentic. The last section before ‘recovery’ is about honesty, particularly being honest with yourself.

Part 6 onwards changes route and talks about kindness for healing, especially self-kindness and self-love. Lots of us struggle with what self-love really is and how we practice it, so these chapters were particularly useful for me. Courage is the next part, talking about fear and overcoming it, and the types of fear which hold us back and we don’t even know about them yet. Finally, the last section is about Living Flawesomely – how happiness is a skill that needs to be learned for most people and isn’t always natural to attain. 

Becoming Flawesome is a great book for anyone, but I feel women will particularly learn a lot because of the content and the way it’s written by a woman.  The short chapters make it easy to read daily or on a commute and the exercises are a mixture of 2 minutes whilst you eat your breakfast, or life-long exercises to change the way you think.  At the end of the book, you will definitely learn something about how to take the path of self improvement, forgive yourself and most importantly, learn something about yourself too.

Get Becoming Flawesome FREE

Available from £19.99 at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Becoming-Flawesome-Living-Imperfectly-Authentic/dp/1401974341/ref=sr_1_1?crid=34S61JLTEJ44B&keywords=Kristina+Mänd-Lakhiani&qid=1684264827&sprefix=kristina+mänd-lakhiani%2Caps%2C50&sr=8-1

Is He Here Yet? By Tony Ortega

Birthday Gifts, Books, Gifts for Her, Gifts for Him

Disclaimer – We received this item free for the purpose of this review/feature but all words and opinions are our own.

Post lockdown promised a lot of jubilation and freedom but in reality, a lot of us have struggled to find where we were before, especially when it comes to dating. The landscape seems to have changed and is unrecognisable now.  If you’re not single, then ask your single friends what it’s like now and they will unanimously respond: It’s DIFFICULT.

Tony Ortega Psy.D is an American psychologist, based in New York who decided to write a self-help book for people who can’t find ‘him’ (or her, the pronouns are interchangeable) back in 2017 but interestingly, the book is needed more now than it was back then. With his own story of finding The One and some of the errors he made along the way, Tony uses his professional expertise to guide the reader through why they aren’t finding the perfect relationship, or in some cases, any relationship, by working within and asking the awkward questions.

If you’re wondering what on earth he could ask that you haven’t asked yourself already, then be assured that in some cases, it’s the way he asks them that give you the lightbulb moment.  We’ve all heard, “Become the person you want to attract” but few of us understand what this means and fewer actually change their behaviour and attract that person. Tony has several exercises which you can work through at your own pace, whether that be in days or weeks, to get to the bottom of why you aren’t meeting or attracting the right person.

Starting with his own story and background, Tony explains what it was like for him to realise his relationship goals as a gay man. The book talks about finding ‘Him’ as a gay man looking for a man, but the language works just as well for women looking for a man, or a man looking for a woman or any combination. It’s not the pronouns but the exercises that make the changes so you can use Tony’s experiences to learn where you’re going wrong.

Each chapter is aimed at working on one factor of looking at relationships, and asks questions you might not have explored before. For example, you may not be able to find a romantic relationship, but what are your other relationships like? What is the story you are telling yourself about yourself? How do you view yourself differently to your peers? How can you shift your beliefs? Other Chapters where Tony works on factors affecting your relationships include, “Stop Comparing”, “Surrender Outcomes” and “Get Very Clear On What You Want.”

With each chapter there are case studies (with names and details changed) and what he calls Makeover Moments where a list of questions prompts you to work through some of your thoughts, which is important in order to make any changes that are needed!

I’ve read many self-help books over the years, and I’ve read other books by Tony Ortega but this one stands out to me for being very direct in his approach to looking at where you are and what your narrative is, and at the same time provides excellent questions and ways of working through your emotions and history.  Probably more so than any other book I’ve read on relationships and finding The One, Tony’s method of making you think and then helping you change your own narrative seems to work.  I struggled with answering some of the questions and had to go back and journal them, but even then I didn’t feel like I had got to the bottom of the problem.  Throughout the book, there are several lightening moments when you realise how or why you’ve got to your present situation without thinking about it. Sometimes it can be quite raw, but the benefit of a self-help book is that you can work through that pain without having to work to anyone else’s timetable, or do so in private.

For anyone who is looking for love, looking for relationship answers or who needs to work on themselves, I can wholeheartedly recommend #IsHeHereYet? to anyone!

Available at Amazon: www.amazon.co.uk/review/create-review/?ie=UTF8&channel=glance-detail&asin=B078H2XNFY:
Available at Good Reads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/37928405-ishehereyet?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=tkCPErbsTA&rank=1

Follow on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/drtonyortega/ @DrTonyOrtega