We all go through seasons when we feel stuck. Maybe life isn’t going the way we want it to and we need some encouragement. Perhaps you feel like your creativity has been taken away and for the life of you, you can’t come up with a fresh idea to save your life. Or, maybe you have a list of things you’ve been needing to get around to and you just haven’t been able to make yourself do it. In the meantime the to-do list backs up more, and more, making it even more difficult to get started! I’ve experienced all of those things at one point or another and the following is my prescription, if you will, of books that can help inspire us when we need a little nudge!
The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman
We face on average more than 35,000 decisions to make every single day—that’s a lot! No wonder many of us suffer from decision fatigue and by the end of the day we end up zoning out in front of the TV. It’s hard enough to make the mundane decisions in life but when it comes to making bigger decisions—whether to move to a different area or stay put, whether to look for a new job or continue working one we don’t love, we usually put these decisions off. Emily admits to being a chronic over-thinker and a person who has always struggled to make decisions. In The Next Right Thing, Ms. Freeman sets forth a simple, biblical framework that has helped her (and now me) make decisions. Sometimes we don’t have to have the whole journey figured out in front of us, sometimes we need to just take the step of doing the next right thing that we can see to do. Then the next right thing, and the next.
The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp
So often we look at constraints that are put on us as hindrances to our creativity instead of looking at these obstacles as tools that can help inspire our creativity. Ms. Tharp, in her career as a well-known choreographer, gives various examples throughout the book of instances when obstacles such as a tight budget or a really short deadline, forced her to buckle down and look for ways to make do. You may not think of yourself as a creative person but we all have to use creativity in our lives, from day-to-day problem solving, to coming up with innovative solutions at work. This book gives examples of how obstacles were overcome as well as exercises you can do to get your creativity flowing!
13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do by Amy Morin
Do you waste time feeling sorry for yourself? What about worrying about pleasing others all of the time? Do you resent the success of others? These topics as well as 10 others make of the substance of this book. Ms. Morin, a psychology professor and psychotherapist, lost her new husband at a very young age; she then had to figure out how to cope with a life she had never imagined. That experience combined with training as a therapist led her to study what the thought habits are of people who have overcome devastating obstacles in their lives. You may not have any huge obstacles, such as a spouse dying shortly after you had gotten married, but we all have obstacles that we face on a daily basis and this book gives tangible tools of how you can start working through some of these mindset blocks.
168 Hours by Laura Vanderkam
Would you like to take that class in the evenings? Finish organizing your basement? Read that great work of literature but just feel as though you don’t have the time? Not having time is one of our most often used excuses of why we don’t do things. But we do have time. Through lots of research Ms. Vanderkam sheds light on where we usually spend our time, ways we can save time, things we might not think of to batch or outsource. Nothing gets me all excited like a good time management book (I know, I’m a little pathetic) and I loved the analytical look that this book took to examining where our time goes, and how we can reclaim it to do the things that are most important to us.
Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin
While time management books might be the most enthralling thing for me to read, books on habit are right up there with it! In Better than Before Ms. Rubin takes us along her journey to develop new, better habits. We might not be perfect after developing these habits, but we will be better than before! I have a whole post on some of the habit books I’ve read (check out that post here: How to Create Better Habits in 2022) but Better than Before remains one of my favorites for its tangible takeaways and the overview Ms. Rubin offers of many of the different ways to instill a new habit and what methods worked best for her.
I hope these books help to motivate you and inspire you to take the action you’ve been putting off taking in your life, as they motivated me! By being judicious with how we spend our time, taking control of our thoughts, and not overthinking some of our day-to-day decisions we can stop wasting time, and put our efforts into what really matters to us in life, and start becoming the people that God created us to be!