New Year's Resolution Fatigue? Here's Some Books to Help You Pause Before You Begin
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✨🌱 The new year can feel heavy with the weight of expectations—resolutions to make, goals to chase, and a pressure to become all at once. That urgency to start fresh often leaves behind the quieter, SLOWER and necessary work of taking stock, metabolizing, and composting what’s come before. A lot of happening has happened. And let’s be honest: this past year has been a lot to hold. Before we leap into the “new,” we need space to sit with what’s still settling, to honor what’s ending, and to let the soil rest before we get caught up in a new cycle of planting and harvesting.
If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or unsure where to begin, you’re not alone. I am RIGHT there with ya.
Instead of forcing productivity or rushing into resolutions, here’s a gentle invitation to slow down.
These books are like soft places to land (or at least they have been for me!)—offering comfort, perspective, and a reminder that tending to yourself is its own kind of beginning.
I’ve moved this over from the free section of my Patreon, and tagged each other that’s active here on Substack to keep y’all’s reading list STACKED. 💛📚
The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness
In a culture that chases happiness like a trophy, Emily Esfahani Smith offers a refreshing alternative: a life anchored in meaning. Through research and storytelling, she explores the four pillars of a meaningful life—belonging, purpose, storytelling, and transcendence—showing how fulfillment isn’t about fleeting joy but deep connection and contribution. This book is an antidote to the hollow promises of “good vibes only,” inviting us to embrace a richer, more grounded existence.
Loving Our Own Bones: Disability Wisdom and the Spiritual Subversiveness of Knowing Ourselves Whole
Sonya Renee Taylor magnificently blends disability wisdom, spirituality, and self-love, challenging the narratives that devalue bodies outside societal norms. This book is an act of radical reclamation, inviting readers to honor their wholeness as they are—not as the world demands they should be. Tender yet fierce, it’s a guide to dismantling ableism and finding liberation in the truth of our embodied selves.
Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto
, founder of The Nap Ministry (check out there work bc wow!), delivers a rallying cry against grind culture and the relentless push for productivity. This book is both a call to rest and a vision for liberation, reclaiming rest as a form of resistance and a birthright, especially for marginalized communities. Hersey’s words are grounding and prophetic, reminding us that rest is not indulgence—it’s survival, healing, and revolution.
Laziness Does Not Exist
dismantles the myth of laziness with compassion and clarity, exposing how overwork and self-judgment have become normalized in our culture. Through research and personal stories, they show how “laziness” is often a label slapped onto people overwhelmed by systemic barriers, unrealistic expectations, or burnout. This book is a permission slip to rest, to stop equating worth with productivity, and to treat yourself with the care you deserve.
Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home
writes with poetic wisdom about the deep ache for belonging and how we can find it—not through external validation, but by coming home to ourselves. Drawing from Jungian psychology, mythology, and her own experiences, she explores how estrangement can be transformed into connection. This book is a soulful guide for anyone seeking to return to themselves and get back into the living-breathing-feeling of their own life.
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
invites readers into a vibrant, playful relationship with creativity, free from the weight of perfectionism or fear. With warmth and candor, she shares her philosophy on ideas and where they come from, inspiration, courage, and the magic of making things for the joy of it. This book is a love letter to anyone yearning to create, reminding us that creativity is our birthright—and it doesn’t have to be so serious.