You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero

The New York Times Bestseller, You are a Badass by Jen Sincero has been popping up all over Instagram. So many women were telling me how much they loved the book that I had to read it. With it’s bright yellow cover and a catchy title, You are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life, I can see why it appealed to people.

The purpose of the book is to change your life for the better. Jen starts by starting that, “You need to go from wanting to change your life to deciding to change your life”. There is a difference between wanting to change your life and actively deciding to draw a line and make a change.

Mindset
One of the initial barriers is an individual’s beliefs and “the first key to ridding yourself of limiting subconscious beliefs is to become aware of them”. The problem so often is we have limiting beliefs and aren’t aware of it. Our thoughts hold so much power, but you need to remember that “It’s just as easy to believe we’re awesome as it is to believe we’re giant sucking things”. We all have a choice with our mindset, so surely we should be positive.

“Most of the time it’s not lack of experience that’s holding us back, but rather the lack of determination to do what we need to do to be successful”

Overwhelm
There are so beautiful quotes in the book. I loved Jen’s attitude to overwhelm, “Do what you can do in joy, instead of trying to do it all in misery”

Fear
Fear is a major boundary and it what stops so many people from following their dreams and living the life they want. The thing is “on the other side of fear is freedom”.

Other People
Numerous people have talked about the importance of the circle of people you surround yourself with. Jen adds a new angle to this discussion. She states that, “The people you surround yourself with are excellent mirrors for who you are and how much, or how little, you love yourself”. We all believe that there are some people who can associate with and some are too good for us. Think about the people you currently surround yourself with. Do they reflect the true greatness of who you are?

Failure
Jen has a great attitude to failure. She says that “the only failure is quitting. Everything else is just gathering information”. Adopting a different attitude to failure will free you. Failure is part of life and we all need to stop being afraid of failure.

You are a Badass is full of great quotes. One I particularly liked is.

“One of the best things you can do to improve the world is to improve yourself”.

So often it is seen as selfish to focus on you, but Jen turns that notion on the head. By working on you and being your best self you are doing a good service to the world.

Overall, I had BIG expectations for this book. Jen covers lots of topics that are central to coaching. Chapters are short and it makes for an easy read. The tone is informal and ‘badass’, which is why I am sure it resonates with so many people, especially millennials. However, for me the tone didn’t help me associate with Jen any more than I have with other self-help authors.

Want to find out more? Buy a copy of You are a Badass for yourself.