Books Review - Brightening: The Positive Attitude That Will Change Your Life
Name
Brightening: The Positive Attitude That Will Change Your Life
Author
Oskar Nowik from Growthzer.com
Amazon Link
Rating
5/5
Why I Read It
I’m a quite a fan of Oskar’s newsletter and blog, so when I heard that he had published a book, I knew that I would probably find it helpful. I wasn’t disappointed.
I also was going through a spell of self doubt, so a book about having a positive attitude was just what I needed to reinvigorate myself and keep going.
Who Is It For
It’s for almost anyone, but chiefly those who feel that they don’t currently have control over their lives. It’s a particularly helpful book to lift your spirit and motivate you to improve yourself.
I would recommend is specially to people with depression, bad habits, or procrastination problems. I was once in the latter group and found that most of the advice in the book were related in one way or another to the things I did to overcome those problems. Now I wish I had been able to read this book back then, it would have saved me tons of trial and error.
Description
It’s been a while since I was truly surprised by the novelty of the ideas contained in a book. Probably the last time I felt the same way was when I read Delivering Happiness or The Obstacle is the Way.
The book is basically a compendium of different hacks and techniques to overcome the deceptions that your own mind makes you believe, the main one being: “You’re not good enough to accomplish your goals”.
It’s full of great advice that make perfect sense when explicitly written down, but that we don’t normally realize on our own.
It will help you:
- Feel good about yourself
- Understand that you’re the efforts you make, not the outcome
- Stop worrying about other people’s opinion and their approval
- Surround yourself with the right people
- Give more importance to your health
- Achieve your personal goals
On a side note, the final chapter is one of the best treaties on minimalism that I have ever read. That alone is worth the under priced cost of this book.
Favorite Lesson Learned
The best thing this book taught me is to not worry too much about other people’s opinion and take their advice with a critical eye.
I’m sure that most people are only trying to help you when they give you advice. However, those advice are based on that person’s own abilities, points of view, values, and specially, limitations. So, in a way, they are unknowingly transmitting you all that baggage.
I found this lesson valuable because I’m currently struggling with the fact I take other’s people advice too seriously. Thanks to this book I now understand why doing so can be harmful, and can work more purposefully to overcome this limitation.
Favorite Quote
“Outstanding results are a consequence of unnoticeable daily disciplines which combine over time.”
Length
58 Pages
