Review: Change Your Thinking to Change Your Life

Change Your Thinking to Change Your Life by Kate James
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A lot of the information in this book I'm already familiar with, but it honestly didn't hurt to hear it again. It also served as fantastic confirmation that I'm finally on the right path.

Kate James is a psychologist and mindfulness coach and she brings her knowledge and personal experiences to this book to help you re-shape your thoughts in order to re-shape your life. There's a spiritual side to it - with its strong focus on meditation and mindfulness - but it also offers practical methods suggested by other respected experts. The general idea: if you can recognise negative thoughts and where they come from, you can learn to manipulate them so that they have a positive influence on all aspects of your life.

I really enjoyed the multi-faceted approach. This book provides multiple theories and exercises, so that even if some don't resonate there will still be something that does. Personally, I found Internal Family Systems (IFS) to be a little too wacky for me, but I really loved the information on 'fixed mindset' vs 'growth mindset'. There were a lot of things that resonated, and I enjoyed learning about them; and about myself through thinking about them.

I also particularly enjoyed doing the 'Strengths' test HERE and comparing results with my family and friends. If you decide to take it, please feel free to share your results and/or thoughts!

The 'workbook' format bothered me a little as I'm someone who likes to read uninterrupted, but I can definitely see the benefit to it. It does provide lines in the book so that you can jot down your answers and thoughts but it also recommends writing things down in a journal and I personally think that would be more beneficial. This is a book you should take your time with if you want to get the most out of it. Particularly Part One, which covers Connecting With Your True Self. You picked it up for a reason, right? So take your time and maximise the benefits.

I loved the practical element of it, and how there are plenty of questions you can challenge yourself with. A lot of it comes back to meditation, as this helps still the mind and allows you to connect deeper with your thoughts, but I think even if you're not a fan of meditation you can still get a lot out of just taking the time to think about your answers to the questions proposed. The author has done all the leg work in gathering information and strategies from notable experts - all we have to do is apply what works best.

This would be a great starting point for someone wanting to gain a better understanding of how our thoughts shape our lives. It's fairly easy to digest and the exercises are quite practical. At the same time, for those of us to whom this information is familiar, I believe it's still worthwhile having it reiterated. I believe working through the exercises properly will help weed out any lingering difficulties and bring more to the surface that we can work on. I may be familiar with the concept of questioning my thoughts but I'm certainly no expert at it, so it was helpful to go through the processes here and I'll likely go back to it repeatedly.

My advice? Start the year right by treating yourself to a beautiful, new, blank journal, get a copy of this book, and enjoy the process of getting to know yourself and your dreams a little better.

Releasing 27th Jan 2021. With thanks to Macmillan for my ARC

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