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A fresh new year has begun! I love the newness that comes with the changing of the calendar. A new year is a chance for a clean slate and to switch up things, to evaluate what is or isn’t working well and to make plans to do differently in the upcoming year. As I look back over my list of books I read in 2020 there are several that stand out as good companions that will help you on your way when you get the urge to change things up! These books will help motivate you to change, help you to put practices into place to build new habits, help you dig to the root of what you should be doing with your life and why, and ultimately help you to build the life you want! I hope you enjoy these as much as I did!
Essentialism- by Greg McKeown
This book is all about getting to the core of what is most important to you, what are the things you were put on earth to do? What helps to further your goals and what distracts your from them? It may seem like a harmless meeting to have, it is a good cause to lead, but what is it really costing you? Is that project that you’re head of a good thing but not nearly as important as spending time with your kids? Is that side line of work a good revenue maker but ultimately detracting from your major life mission? It’s time to dig deep and get strategic!
Better than Before, by Gretchen Reuben
Ms Reuben really breaks down all the things habit related; why habit matters, how habits are formed, and how to most easily and effectively implement new habits into your life. Habits are what we do without thinking about it. They take away the need to make decisions and free up mental space to allow for us to concentrate our efforts on what matters most to us. If you have had trouble developing new habits in the past give this book a try!
The Compound Effect- by Darren Hardy
This book is great because it stresses the fact that it’s not necessarily the big things in life that make the biggest change in our lives but rather the small things. The little minute changes that you make day after day, that compound on top of each other and add up a big difference over a year or more. A lot of books on creating new habits can be overwhelming, but since this book stresses the importance of small wins you can come away feeling encouraged by a small change that you made!
Off the Clock- by Laura Vanderkam
Feel like there’s never enough time? Want to get more enjoyment out of the things in life that you do have time for? Ms Vanderkam discusses how its not always about the amount of time that we do have but rather is about how we approach it. As a time management expert, Ms Vanderkam also discusses how to prioritize to ensure that you are making time for what matters most to you, so you can spend time on that- and not things that don’t matter to you. I do a pretty good job of squeezing every precious minute out of my day and still there were tips in here that I hadn’t thought of!
The Next Right Thing- by Emily P Freeman
Do you suffer from decision fatigue? Do you ever feel paralyzed by the consequences on decisions could bring? You are not the only one! Whether it’s the dollar menu or a major life change sometimes it’s nearly impossible to decide… and what if we choose the wrong option? Ms Freeman talks about how it’s not always important to know what the next 5 steps will be, a lot of the time it’s just about the next right step. We wear ourselves out making every decision feel like the end all be all but it rarely is.
See other discussion about Books here on Essentially EmmaMarie
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.” But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. Genesis 11:4-5 NIV
There we were, just over a year ago, like racehorses at the gate ready to bust through and give 2020 all we had. We were going to do more, make more, and be more than we had ever had! Just watch and see! We had crazy high goals and we WERE going to hit them all. Then in the beginning of March we were totally blindsided with a pandemic. We were confident that it would only be a couple weeks and we would get our life back on track, but week stretched into week and here we are nearly a year later, little having changed.
What about all of our plans? What about all the things we were going to do? Big things, important things, good things that would bring honor and glory to God? For most of us 2020 did not turn out like we wanted it to and we were left asking God why? Why did He allow a pandemic to ruin our plans? Why did He allow all this craziness to happen? Didn’t He want all the good things we were going to do to come to fruition?
In Genesis we hear the story about the Tower of Babel. All the people of the world were speaking one language at this point and they decided they wanted to build a huge tower reaching to the heavens, because what couldn’t they do if they all came together to work on this? God saw what they were doing and that their intent wasn’t good and He confused their speech by giving them different languages so they could no longer understand each other. Just like that their plans were destroyed and people slowly dispersed to different parts of the earth. I wonder if in 2020 we were a little like these people from Genesis, hurriedly working on building our own Tower of Babel.
Perhaps our problem was not what we intended to do but rather how we intended to do these things. Were we leaning on God to show us HIs will and desires for us in 2020? Or were we hoping He was on board and we raced ahead shouting to Him over our shoulders about all the things we were off to do? Maybe He allowed this very bad thing to happen in order to give us a reminder that we couldn’t miss that we can’t do anything alone. Maybe He wants us to remember how fleeting life really is and that when it comes right down to it the only thing that matters at all is our relationship with Him. Not our todo lists. Not our big plans. Not even if we live or die- but rather where we will go when we die. We have work on this earth to do, but if we aren’t doing the right work none of it will matter. It’s not about the Tower of Babel we had in mind to work on this year, it is about the work He would have us do.
This year rather than racing ahead with our plans like we did last year I invite you to pause, and pray over all your dreams and goals and really seek His will for you in this coming year. I pray we spend this year chasing His dreams for our lives and not just our own.
The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8 NIV
I love color! I love playing with colors; different shades of a color, different color combinations- all of it! There is so much color in the world and so many shades- more than we can even realize! There are many mornings that I find myself driving over the lake of a local state park and I’ll catch my breath at the sunrise over the lake- it looks like an exquisite pastel painting. All misty, diffuse light with the pink and orange rays of sunlight shining through the mist. Later in the day I’ll pass through again everything is different. Later in the day, the lake is a bold picture of a bright blue of the sky, the green of the trees, and dark emerald of the water- a nearly different scene altogether. All because of color.
There are so many places in this world, ones that are absolutely saturated in color that I want to see. I can’t imagine the vivid colors of nature in places like New Zealand. I want to see the deep emerald fields of Ireland, and the sandy browns and dessert greens of the American West.
I see all this and I think how can anything be anymore vivid? Color is a way of interpreting vitality, life. When cheeks become ruddy after exertion or when we take on a tan in summer’s sun we say we look good, healthy, glowing, full of color. How can anything be any more real than this world full of innumerable colors? I tend to think of heaven generally as a golden monotone city, I know this isn’t true but when my young self heard Heaven described for the first time that is what I thought, and that is the image that still first comes to mind today. But that is all wrong. It will be full of color- so much color! More than we can possibly imagine.
The thing is that this earth is not the realest thing that there is. The trust is that Heaven is the realest- and this life is but a dim reflection of the next. I imagine when we get to Heaven and look back that we will chuckle at the fact that we thought this earth was the real deal because we will have then seen all the colors of Heaven in all their glory. And we will see Him in all His glory too.
There are several books that I have really enjoyed reading this fall. Ones that I find my thoughts drifting back to, thinking of the character as friends and real people rather than just fictional personas.
The Jane Austen Society
This book is set in England shortly after World War 2. While there was a real Jane Austen Society formed around this time, this book is about fictional characters whose lives have been touched by Austen’s various works and who undertake to preserve the house in which Austen lived, located in their village. The Author did a wonderful job of bringing to life in vivid detail not only the characters, who I thought were very well formed, but also the setting of the rural English village. This is a great choice to cozy up with this fall.
I decided to read this one because I like the author, not because I had done research as to what this book was actually about. I was most pleasantly surprised to realize that this was definitely a book I needed to read! Ms Bogel discusses how we tend to spend so much time and energy ruminating over a decision that really doesn’t matter- and that we don’t actually want to have spent that much time thinking about. She talks of tactics that she has used to help her start overthinking less. Journaling, like the physical act of writing out thoughts can be helpful, this was a “ah ha!” Moment for me, because while I love lists and often keep notes on my phone I have noticed that just typing up a list on the notes section of my phone is not nearly as effective as putting pen to paper. She also discusses how prepping or the week, and clearing clutter in your house can help to free up emotional space. I knew this to be true for me already but its always nice to hear back up that I’m not the only like this!
This is about Joy Grisham Lewis, C.S Lewis’s wife. I found it a fascinating read on several levels. 1) I know a fair about C.S Lewis’s work, without knowing all that much about him. 2) I knew nothing about Joy and she was a fascinating person as well. And 3) their love story and how they came to know each other, become friends, and ultimately marry, was a shot in a million. I enjoy books that teach more about famous people we already know something about told through the lens of someone close in their lives, who we may hardly know existed.
I heard this book mentioned on a podcast, and then my husband mentioned it as one of his favorite books that he read in college so I decided I must join the club and read it too. The Compound Effect is written by Darren Hardy who started his own business and became a millionaire by the time he turned 24. Mr. Hardy talks of what made the biggest changes in his life, and how its not necessarily the big things that make the biggest change in our lives but rather the little changes day in and day out that add up to a huge difference over a lifetime. If you feel overwhelmed by how far away you are from a current goal, read this book for motivation and encouragement.
Quick reminder that this post contains affiliate links; that means if you click on the link I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you- it’s a way to support my blog! I will only ever share an affiliate link if I love the product and think that you just might love it too!
In theory this is the perfect time of year to curl up with a heart warming Christmas book, in front of a warm fire, under a warm, comfy blanket. Reality tends to look a little bit different! However given that this has been the year of quarantine you may find that you have more time on your hands than you have in the past! Regardless of what your situation is this year I hope you are able to carve out a little bit of time to slow down and drink in the season. Here are a few of my favorite Christmas books- some are young adult or children’s books, others are classics, and one is hopefully for you this Christmas season!
A Season of Giving by Richard Peck
I originally read this one when I was in middle school, but I went back and listened to it this year and I still really enjoyed it! Told by Bob, the 12 year old son of the town newest preacher, this book is full of quirky characters that make up this small town- not the least of which is Mrs. Dowdle, Bob’s next door neighbor. We hear about the many different escapades that happen in the months leading up to Christmas and ultimately are reminded that some of life’s biggest gifts do come in the form we expect.
This is a book from the Dear American Children’s series but it is still one of my favorites. It’s full of all the Christmas feels! Simone is 18, and has to figure out what she is going to do with her life, and then America enters World War 1 and there are many options then available to her. Simone’s brother enters the war, and Simone wants to do her part too. This yearning ends up landing her halfway across the world and introduces to a handsome soldier, the future could be bright for Simone- but only if everyone makes it through the war safely.
I’m sure you are familiar with this story but if you have never actually read it- please do it! Not only is this a classic book that everyone should give a try reading at least once but you will feel your spirits lift so incredibly at the end of the story- you won’t be able to help but get in the Christmas spirit!
This is a short little story about a young family, Richard, Keri, and their 4 year old daughter, who rent out a wing of a house, owned by an elderly woman named Mary. They find their landlord to be a gracious woman and quickly grow fond of her. One day Richard stumbles across a beautifully engraved box in the attic. Later he dreams about and angles and awakes to hear music that leads him back to the box. The box and Mary ultimately lead him to the realization of what Christmas is truly about.
If you want a light and uplifting Christmas read with all the cheesy sweetness of your favorite Hallmark movie this one will scratch your reading itch! Merry is finishing up a year of working as a temp at a consulting firm. She really likes her job and has been grateful to have it as it has allowed her to save up money to finish her college degree. The only thing Merry dislikes is her handsome but disagreeable boss, who always seems to have a bone to pick with Merry. Merry’s mother and brother want to add some fun to her life and sign her up on a dating sight. Merry is reluctant at first but starts to come around to the idea, especially as she meets a very nice guy named Jay online….but what will Merry do when she meets Jay and he isn’t what she expected?
I hope these help to give you some ideas for your reading life this Christmas! In the meantime I am always anxious to hear about any other good books that I haven’t read yet- what are some of your favorite classics? Do you have one that you read year after year and embodies the feeling of the season for you? I’d love to hear from you! Drop a comment below or meet me over on instagram or Pinterest at EssentiallyEmmaMarie!
