Most people at one point or another have had a moment-or in some cases a lifetime-of feeling helpless, hopeless, and unable to achieve the things they really want. But this can be conquered; happiness is a choice we make every day. In Writing Your Own Life, author Kelly Myles explores ways for you to teach yourself to make that choice. You can learn how to create the relationships you want in every aspect of your life. Learn how to let go of the obstacle from the past. Become self-aware, selfmotivated, and self-fulfilled. With the guidance provided here, you can pull yourself up from your low point, start writing your own life, and discover your own everyday happiness. This guide offers straightforward and practical advice to help you take charge of your life and create genuine happiness in a way that works for you.

Why do some people have to work so hard to find happiness? Discover the practices that can help on your journey to contentment. Have you been a soul-searcher all your life? A seeker, a quester for greater understanding of yourself and the human experience? Do you long to be able to be in this world in ways that you can feel truly sane and happy? Maybe life feels more intense and emotional for you than it does for those around you . . . or you wonder if you’re just crazy because you seem to experience the world so differently than other people do? Perhaps you wonder if you’ll ever get to a place of truly feeling happy. You’re smart, conscious, and self-reflective. You seem to be doing all the “right” things. So why can’t you seem to get there despite everything you’ve tried? Part practical self-help guide, part honest and personal account of one soul-searcher’s quest for happiness, Finding Your Own Happy shows you: The surprising number-one thing you’ve been missing that has kept you from your happiness (until now) Why all the things you’ve tried that seemed to work for other people actually couldn’t work for you Practical tools and practices that can immediately change your experience and put you on the path to true and lasting happiness in your life If you’re tired of trying so hard or searching for answers you cannot seem to find, let the insight and tools Elana Davidson has gained from years of working with clients and decades of searching for the missing keys to her own happiness support and guide you to a place of greater peace and fulfillment in your life.

This is an ideal book for all those who've been wanting to reap the many benefits of personal lifecoaching, but who lack the resources or time to fund a one-to-one relationship. It takes the principles of life coaching and, in a practical yet inspiring manner, shows you how you might apply these to every area of your own life. Covering everything from career development to personal relationships, appearance and money management, it offers a program of change and progress for each area, while encouraging you to examine your own beliefs, confidence and motivation to ensure that change is for the better and for the long-term. Balancing interactive and practical resources such as diaries and checklists with such helpful material as review programs, reward structures and case studies in success, and authored by a qualified life-coach, it offers you all the great benefits of coaching at a fraction of the price for an individual coach. NOT GOT MUCH TIME? One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started. AUTHOR INSIGHTS Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience. TEST YOURSELF Tests in the book and online to keep track of your progress. EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGE Extra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding of how to be your own life coach. FIVE THINGS TO REMEMBER Quick refreshers to help you remember the key facts. TRY THIS Innovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it.

How to shift the “focus on what is right in our lives instead of what is missing . . . This book is a guide to increasing your happiness quotient” (Nina Lesowitz, author of Living Life as a Thank You). As it turns out, Buddha had quite a lot to say on the subject of gratitude, including citing it as one of the four keys to the Gate of Heaven. Studies show?and experts counsel?that gratitude is a key component of our happiness. People who are grateful about events and experiences from the past, who celebrate triumphs instead of focusing on losses or disappointments, tend to be more satisfied. Gratitude can help us transform our fears into courage, our anger into forgiveness, our isolation into belonging, and another’s pain into healing. Even in the midst of over-busyness, stress, and chaos, we can find plenty to be glad about, and this book will start your journey towards Zen and gratefulness. The Buddha’s Guide to Gratitude provides you with positive thinking “power tools” that will help you build a more grateful life, including: Mindful meditations Hands-on exercises Profound practices Inspiring quotations Space for notetaking and journaling Thought-provoking questions “This book will bring you peace of mind and a happy heart.” —Elise Collins, author of Chakra Tonics “Practicing gratitude is like taking your vitamins?you don’t just take them when you’re sick; you also have to take them to stay healthy.” —Louise Baxter Harmon, author of Happiness A-Z “The most magnetic trait of all time is gratitude! Want to transform your outlook and your life, read and enjoy The Buddha’s Guide to Gratitude.” —Susannah Seton, author of Simple Pleasures

Mums are well prepared for pregnancy and birth but when baby arrives, nearly all tend to neglect themselves to focus on their precious new bundle. Minding Mum is a simple yet revolutionary concept – mums need to focus on themselves as well as their children.Wellness expert Alison Canavan shares the tips and tricks she's picked up on her journey through new motherhood and post-natal depression. She looks at the reality of a post-birth body and how it affects our own body image, as well as the importance of good food, exercise and making time for yourself and your own dreams, big or small.You'll learn how to enjoy your children more, worry less and build your confidence as a new mum, so you can create a happy, balanced life for you and your family. Minding Mum is a thoughtful and valuable book for mums to treasure.'If you're not taking care of yourself you're not going to be much use to your child. It's about time a book like this came along.' Kate Thornton

Each book is summarised to convey a brief idea of what each one has to offer the interested reader, while a 'Speed Read' for each book delivers a quick sense of what each book is like to read and a highly compressed summary of the main points of the book in question. The titles covered include thought-provoking classics on psychology, mindfulness, rationality, the brain, mathematical and economic thought and practical philosophy. The selection includes books about self-improvement as well as historically interesting accounts of how the mind works. Titles included go back as far as the Epictetus classic The Enchiridion and Bertrand Russell's charming The ABC of Relativity, and proceed through classics such as Edward de Bono's Lateral Thinking and into the digital era with titles such as The Shallows and Big Data. The books are arranged chronologically, which draws attention to some of the interesting juxtapositions and connections between them. Some of the titles included are: Freakonomics, by Steven D. Levitt; Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell; Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari; The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload, by Daniel J. Levitin; The Descent of Man, by Grayson Perry; How the Mind Works, by Steven Pinker; Black Box Thinking: Why Some People Never Learn from Their Mistakes - But Some Do, by Matthew Syed; We Should All Be Feminists, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond; The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb; Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl; The News: A User's Manual, by Alain de Botton; Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking, by Richard E. Nisbett; The ABC of Relativity, by Bertrand Russell; The Psychopath Test, by Jon Ronson; The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life, by Michael Puett; A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking; Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives, by Tim Harford; Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think, by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger; Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis; The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life, by Ben Sherwood; Black Box Thinking, by Matthew Syed; Chaos: Making a New Science, by James Gleick; A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson; The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, by Nicholas Carr; Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality, by Scott Belsky; The Enchiridion, by Epictetus; Gödel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas R. Hofstadter; What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami; and Lateral Thinking, by Edward de Bono.

Presents extended reviews of noteworthy books, short reviews, essays and articles on topics and trends in publishing, literature, culture and the arts. Includes lists of best sellers (hardcover and paperback).