At the start of every new year, we tend to make vows to do something to improve our lives or, more selflessly, the lives of others—something different, better, transformative. And then we have trouble keeping those promises to ourselves. It's why so many self-help books are published in January, as a recent recent Forbes magazine article points out. Indeed, our areas of desired change are so varied that Amazon has 28 self-help book categories, and so perhaps you should start with the January-release memoir Help Me! by Marianne Power, about reading self-help books to see if the promise of a "perfect existence" could be fulfilled! Forbes also makes some recommendations for achieving common resolution goals. For example, perhaps you want to improve your mental well-being via the popular "mindfulness" (being aware of and controlling your experience in the moment so you are acting not reacting to life), then you can read Love 2.0: Finding Happiness and Health in Moments of Connection by Barbara Fredrickson. Or perhaps you want to be more productive and efficient, so page through Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport. If you want to embrace a healthier lifestyle (better diet, more exercise, bad habits kicked), then Are You Fully Charged? The Three Keys to Energizing Your Work and Life, by Tom Rath, is the book for you. For women who feel glumly mired and need the confidence and will to move forward with any resolution, there is the aptly titled How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t: 14 Habits that Are Holding You Back from Happiness by Andrea Owen. Maybe you've decided that 2020 is the year to declutter your house and your life, then it's time to turn to tidiness guru Marie Kondo and her best-selling The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Finally, you may want to think about issues beyond the self and, in an increasingly diverse and yet fractured and tribal society, understand the source of our divisions and solutions for increased inclusion. Then Our Search for Belonging: How Our Need to Connect Is Tearing Us Apart, by Howard J. Ross with Jonrobert Tartaglione, offers food for thought—and action. For more books that can help bolster your new year's resolutions, see https://www.forbes.com/sites/amberjohnson-jimludema/2020/01/03/new-years-resolution-book-list/#7143efd61592
