The start of a new calendar year is an excellent time to reflect on the past and begin to make improvements in areas of your life that you feel need a change. From diet and exercise to personal development and financial success, these reads are perfect for launching your new you!


Embrace a Healthy Lifestyle:

The 4×4 Diet: 4 Key Foods, 4-Minute Workouts, Four Weeks to the Body You Want by Erin Oprea

Kick off the New Year right!

Discover the 4 key foods and the 4-minute workouts that will change the way you look and feel in just 4 weeks. Celebrity trainer and former marine Erin Oprea’s motto is “lean and clean.” Her unique 4 x 4 diet shows how you can get clean by reducing the 4 major hitches in most diets: sugar, starch, sodium, and alcohol. She also tells us how to get lean, using her 4-minute tabata workouts: 8 repititions of 20 seconds of high-intensity moves, then 10 seconds of rest.

Within 4 weeks, the average person will be able to reduce bloating and belly fat; gain increased muscle definition in the arms, legs, and stomach; improve cardiovascular endurance; and break sugar and sodium addictions. Complete with meal plans and recipes, the 4 x 4 diet is perfect for anyone looking to streamline their body and lifestyle.


The Super Metabolism Diet: The Two-Week Plan to Ignite Your Fat-Burning Furnace and Stay Lean for Life! By David Zinczenko and Keenan Mayo

NBC News health and wellness contributor David Zinczenko, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Zero Sugar Diet, Zero Belly Diet, the Abs Diet series, and the Eat This, Not That! series, discloses why some of us stay thin and some of us lose weight with ease—and reveals the secret to how you can stay lean for life.

The answer lies within your metabolism, the body’s crucial, energy-burning engine that for so many of us is revving at less than half speed. With the help of this book, you can quickly and easily turn your metabolism into a fat-melting machine.

The Super Metabolism Diet features daily menus, handy shopping guides, a vast trove of amazing (though optional) workouts, and tons of delicious recipes—all designed to get your metabolism firing hotter than ever before! So say goodbye to bloat, harsh dieting, weight-loss fads, and even stress. Say bye-bye to belly fat and hello to a new and improved you.


The Better Brain Solution: How to Start Now—At Any Age—to Reverse and Prevent Insulin Resistance of the Brain, Sharpen Cognitive Function, and Avoid Memory Loss by Steven Masley, M.D.

It’s never too late to make a positive change!

From the author of the bestselling 30-Day Heart Tune-Up and Smart Fat–comes the first book to show how the brain can become insulin resistant through diet and lifestyle.

In the The Better Brain Solution, Masley offers a program that, in the fight against diabetes, memory loss, and cognitive decline, can reverse insulin resistance, enhance cognitive performance, and stop cognitive decline before it is too late. Masley provides the tools he has developed for his own private patients to prevent and reverse this metabolic syndrome and to achieve normal blood sugar levels (below 95 mg/dL). He explores the impact of insulin resistance on the brain and the heart/brain/diabetes connection, explaining how cognitive function and memory work and he discusses the risk factors for memory loss.

The Better Brain Solution offers a comprehensive plan for achieving optimal brain health, providing information on brain-boosting foods and supplements as well as providing a practical way to assess cognitive function—complete with 50 recipes for foods that improve brain and body and that are easy to prepare!

 


Get Empowered:

Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

At last, a book that shows you how to build—design—a life you can thrive in, at any age or stage!

Designers create worlds and solve problems using design thinking. Look around your office or home—at the tablet or smartphone you may be holding or the chair you are sitting in. Everything in our lives was designed by someone. And every design starts with a problem that a designer or team of designers seeks to solve.

In this book, Bill Burnett and Dave Evans show us how design thinking can help us create a life that is both meaningful and fulfilling, regardless of who or where we are, what we do or have done for a living, or how young or old we are. The same design thinking responsible for amazing technology, products, and spaces can be used to design and build your career and your life, a life of fulfillment and joy, constantly creative and productive, one that always holds the possibility of surprise.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Click for a Discussion Guide.

Visit the Authors’ Website.


The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles that Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too) by Gretchen Rubin

In this groundbreaking analysis of personality type, bestselling author of Better Than Before and The Happiness Project Gretchen Rubin reveals the one simple question that will transform what you do at home, at work, and in life.

During her multibook investigation into understanding human nature, Gretchen Rubin realized that by asking the seemingly dry question “How do I respond to expectations?” we gain explosive self-knowledge. She discovered that based on their answer, people fit into Four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. Our Tendency shapes every aspect of our behavior, so using this framework allows us to make better decisions, meet deadlines, suffer less stress, and engage more effectively.

The Four Tendencies hold practical answers if you’ve ever thought “People can rely on me, but I can’t rely on myself” or “How do I work with someone who refuses to do what I ask—or who keeps telling me what to do?”

With sharp insight, compelling research, and hilarious examples, The Four Tendencies will help you get happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. It’s far easier to succeed when you know what works for you.


Don’t Wait, Meditate:

Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-to Book by Dan Harris, Jeffrey Warren, and Carlye Adler

ABC News anchor Dan Harris used to think that meditation was for people who collect crystals, play Ultimate Frisbee, and use the word “namaste” without irony (sound familiar?). After he had a panic attack on live television, he went on a strange and circuitous journey that ultimately led him to become one of meditation’s most vocal public proponents.

Science suggests that meditation can lower blood pressure, mitigate depression and anxiety, and literally rewire key parts of the brain, among numerous other benefits. And yet there are millions of people who want to meditate but aren’t actually practicing.

In Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, Harris and his friend Jeff Warren, a masterful teacher and “Meditation MacGyver,” embark on a cross-country quest to tackle the myths, misconceptions, and self-deceptions that stop people from meditating.


Bliss More: How to Succeed in Mediation Without Really Trying by Light Watkins

From one of America’s top meditation teachers comes a revolutionarily simple approach to everyday practice—especially if you don’t think you have the time or the patience.

Imagine you’re sitting on a cushion with your legs crossed, ready to tap into unlimited joy. There’s just one problem: You can’t get comfortable (let alone still), and your head is full of way too many thoughts. The problem is not with meditation, or you, though—the issue may be with your approach.

When properly understood and practiced, meditation should feel easy, calming, and comfortable. In Bliss More, maverick instructor Light Watkins provides the tools for making it E.A.S.Y. (Embrace, Accept, Surrender, Yield), dispels the biggest myths and misunderstandings, and shares real-world tips and straight talk for hacking into this ancient practice. The result: a happier and healthier you, inside and out. Whether you’re a novice or experienced practitioner, Bliss More will shed light on the path to a clearer mind, better sleep, and more bliss in everyday life.


The Heart of Meditation: Discovering Innermost Awareness by The Dalai Lama

The heart of meditation—the thing that brings it alive—is compassion. This is not an ordinary compassion but one that is developed and expanded in parallel with wisdom that arises through meditation. Without that essential foundation, other practices are pointless.

Fortunately, the mind can be trained in compassion, and the mind thus trained is fertile ground for the practice of the Great Completeness (Dzogchen), which is considered the pinnacle of spiritual practice by many in Tibetan Buddhism.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama here teaches the Great Completeness simply but thoroughly, using as his reference a visionary poem by the nineteenth-century master Patrul Rinpoche to show that insight can never be separated from compassion. Through practice of the Great Completeness, we can access our innermost awareness and live our lives in a way that acknowledges it and manifests it. The wisdom and compassion that arise from such insight are critical, His Holiness teaches, not only to individual progress in meditation but to our collective progress toward peace in the world.


Less is More:

Soulful Simplicity: How Living with Less Can Lead to So Much More by Courtney Carver

Learn to look at the big picture, discover what’s most important to us, and reclaim lightness and ease by getting rid of all the excess things.

Courtney Carver shows us the power of simplicity to improve our health, build more meaningful relationships, and relieve stress in our professional and personal lives.

We are often on a quest for more—we give in to pressure every day to work more, own more, and do more. For Carver, this constant striving had to come to a stop when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Stress was like gasoline on the fire of symptoms, and it became clear that she needed to root out the physical and psychological clutter that were the source of her debt and discontent.

In Soulful Simplicity, she shows us how to pursue practical minimalism so we can create more with less—more space, more time, and even more love.


Clear the Chaos:

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson

What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson’s answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research.

Humorous, surprising and informative, Dr. Peterson answers questions like, what does the nervous system of the lowly lobster have to tell us about standing up straight (with our shoulders back) and about success in life? And what dreadful paths do people tread when they become resentful, arrogant and vengeful? Or why should you always pet a cat when you meet one on the street?

Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure and responsibility, distilling the world’s wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith and human nature, while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its readers.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up: A Magical Story by Marie Kondo; Illustrated by Yuke Uramoto

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and lifestyle/cleaning guru Marie Kondo, this graphic novelization brings Kondo’s life-changing tidying method to life with the fun, quirky story of a woman who transforms her home, work, and love life using Kondo’s advice and inspiration.

Marie Kondo presents the fictional story of Chiaki, a young woman in Tokyo who struggles with a cluttered apartment, messy love life, and lack of direction. After receiving a complaint from her attractive next-door neighbor about the sad state of her balcony, Chiaki gets Kondo to take her on as a client. Through a series of entertaining and insightful lessons, Kondo helps Chiaki get her home—and life—in order.

This insightful, illustrated case study is perfect for people looking for a fun introduction to the KonMari Method of tidying up, as well as tried-and-true fans of Marie Kondo eager for a new way to think about what sparks joy.


Don’t Worry, Be Happy:

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu with Douglas Abrams

In April 2015, Archbishop Tutu traveled to the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala, India, to celebrate His Holiness’s eightieth birthday and to create what they hoped would be a gift for others. They looked back on their long lives to answer a single burning question: How do we find joy in the face of life’s inevitable suffering?

They traded intimate stories, teased each other continually, and shared their spiritual practices. By the end of a week filled with laughter and punctuated with tears, these two global heroes had stared into the abyss and despair of our time and revealed how to live a life brimming with joy.

The Archbishop has never claimed sainthood, and the Dalai Lama considers himself a simple monk. In this unique collaboration, they offer us the reflection of real lives filled with pain and turmoil in the midst of which they have been able to discover a level of peace, of courage, and of joy to which we can all aspire in our own lives.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


Happiness in This Life: A Passionate Meditation on Earthly Existence by Pope Francis

A collection of homilies, speeches, and “messages of the day” that brings together Pope Francis’s wisdom on finding happiness in the here and now.

For Pope Francis, the appreciation of our everyday lives is a spiritual undertaking. Joy is a divine attribute, and creating joy around us an essential part of faith. Every homily and speech in this book delivers, in warm, engaging language accessible to believers and nonbelievers alike, a key lesson, instructing readers on finding love and happiness in a chaotic world.

Along the way, Pope Francis discusses the sanctity of women’s rights, talks about how the love of sports can bring out our best qualities, and explains why fighting discrimination is the essence of loving thy neighbor. He shares personal stories and anecdotes from his life, provides comforting messages of hope, and discusses the ways flawed families can make you a better person.


Enter Our New Year, New You Giveaway!

Enter for your chance to win a bundle of books that will help jump start your resolutions for the New Year. No excuses! 🙂

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