Why there are so many New Year/New You self-help books out in January

I've been on a roll at Forbes online, writing about everything from the writing career of American Book Award winner MacKenzie Bezos, who's getting divorced from world's richest person, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, to the controversy over Kathleen Hale Is a Crazy Stalker and have lots more in the works over the next few months. One I'm particularly proud of (and was excited to see Goodreads post on Twitter and Facebook) is about why so many self-help books are published in January. If you're curious, check it out. I'm really enjoying getting to geek out about books and learn more about the industry. And if you visit my Forbes profile page you can follow me there and get emailed whenever my new articles are posted. You just have to make an account with the site (for free) and then click "Follow" under my bio.

All apologies

"Our thoughts are the most powerful tools we've got." Jen Sincero, whose work I adore, in You Are a Badass

Here's what happens when I make a mistake, like the one related to this article where I had the quote written three times in my notes correctly, but somehow still wrote "free trade" instead of "fair trade." I apologize, then do what I can to fix it, in this case, letting my editor know and updating my posts about it. But then where I go off the rails is not being able to let it go. In my head, it's not the mistake that's the mistake, it's me who's the mistake. It's all I can think about, and I feel awful for letting down both the publication I'm writing for and the person involved. Then from there I go to: I'm a bad writer, and therefore a bad person, I will never get another assignment from them again, what was I thinking trying to work on such a project, maybe I should just give up on all the other things I'm writing. Okay, maybe not quite that, but I do know that all day, until I finally addressed it directly with my boyfriend when I had to because I was freaking out.

I forget sometimes that mistakes are human, and that when I allow myself, I learn from my mistakes and work as hard as I can not to make the same ones over and over again. Yet there is still that underlying sense that the mistake mars not just whatever it was related to, but that it's this giant black mark on me, that it will stay with me through everything else I do. In this case, it's relatively minor and has now been fixed, but I've made more than my share of mistakes that I've then expanded because I could only see the mistake, taking up more than its fair share of space in my head. I worry it like a loose tooth that always stays on the verge of coming out but never does; it just teeters in that space between almost being gone but holding on.

I'm in the midst of trying to correct/amend/fix a many years long financial mistake and while it's wonderful to be addressing the problem, the fact that it's actually taking many months to even get to the part where I can start digging in to fixing it makes me, once again, feel like a failure, like I will never be rid of this problem and that that means that I shouldn't even bother trying. It's the inertia, and the tying of all my problems into one giant problem that seems to multiply until it overtakes everything else that's the real issue. Because even I'm smart enough to know that it's pretty much guaranteed that I'll keep on making mistakes of one kind or another until I do, but that what I do when faced with them is what matters. I could tell you that I was working too fast or had a cold or any other excuse, but I don't have one. It was an error, and what I can do to avoid such errors in the future is to very minutely go over everything before I turn it in.

If I'd been alone today, I likely would've simply obsessed over this and kept on feeling awful. Instead, I was able to talk to my boyfriend about the various mistakes that feel so overwhelming lately and help make a plan for how to deal with them in the future, how to tackle the ones still pending and, most challenging of all, how to let it go. Sometimes it's much easier for me to see my faults and flaws and fuckups, which feel myriad, than the fact that sometimes I do make mistakes and as long as they are not deliberate or mean-spirited, all I can do is try harder next time, and know that a mistake doesn't negate the other parts of my article or day or life or career.

I hadn't thought of this aspect when I read the chapter in You Are a Badass called "Forgive or Fester," because I was focused on where I have to forgive other people for their flaws rather than hold on to my anger at their misdeeds, but when she writes "Holding onto resentment is like taking poison and waiting for your enemies to die," that can be turned inward just as much as outward. I can't ever expect anyone else to forgive me for my mistakes and imperfections if I don't forgive myself first. The first step she suggests is to "find compassion," and elaborates: "Finding compassion for yourself or someone else who did something so so so so awful is like pulling a bullet out of your arm: You may kick and scream and hate it at first, but, in the long run, it's the only way to start the real healing." I gained a lot of wisdom from her book, but that chapter was perhaps the most eye-opening. It was a wakeup call saying, There is a better way. And now I feel like it's a double gift, because I can apply those actions to myself. I can take responsibility, apologize, recognize that I have no control over what happens after that, and move on and try to be as badass as I can on the next piece, and the next, and the next.

Or as Steve Tobak wrote at Inc.:

Don't wallow in it or lament what could have been. Just pick yourself up, gain whatever wisdom you can from the experience, accept it as the new reality, and go from there. You're still in the band. Play your next note.

Jen Sincero made me do it

I told you how big a fan I am of the forthcoming book You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero, but I wanted to share some ways it's influenced my thinking and actions recently.

1. Thursday night, I had just landed in Toronto, was in the depths of my cold's fogginess, and decided I wanted the kale salad at Lola's Kitchen. Somehow, in my haste, though I said Church Street when entering the taxi, I'd typed "College" on my phone so wound up having to take an extra long cab ride. When I realized we were going in the wrong direction, I lost it. I started crying. I was so mad at myself because I was tired and hungry and sick, and that meant I would miss the Feminist Porn Awards pre-party at Good for Her, which I then thought was a signal that my whole endeavor covering the awards would be a failure. I considered skipping dinner and going straight to the party, but instead, I went to the restaurant and had orange juice and watermelon juice and nachos and purple kale salad and was still a bit delirious when I got to that night's screening, but at a certain point I gave up on the idea of going to the party. I let it go. I realized I had to be in that moment, taking care of myself, in order to be present for the rest of the weekend.

2. Last year, an incident occurred in which I was asked to not attend an event. That's all you need to know for the purposes of this post, because what I want to talk about is my reaction. I was hurt, angry and upset, but instead of standing up for myself, I caved. I thought, This person is right, and I will do what is being asked, even though it went against my core values. Even though I didn't have any respect for that person before that moment and certainly didn't afterward. But because I caved, because I assumed that if that was being asked of me that that is what I deserved, I lost out. The upside is that, after I spent much too long agonizing about the unfairness of this situation, I realized that this didn't mean I didn't belong in that world at all, and that if I wanted to belong, all I had to do was invite myself. It's a free country, after all. So I did, and you know what? Just by virtue of showing up, I have been educated, enlightened and entertained by that world. I've gotten so much back from simply showing up, and all of it has served to validate me that I don't need anyone's permission, and that anyone who would seek to exclude me isn't someone I should waste even a millisecond on. So I stopped, and my life has been so much freer, mentally and in other ways, since I stopped caring. Putting my energy into the wrong places and people is a way to zap me of my strength, and I need every last ounce of it. This idea of letting go of your past to be a better person in the present and future is a key one in the book, and one I keep having to reapply and remind myself of its total truth.

3. I was at the coat check at the Feminist Porn Awards, and the cost was $2 Canadian. Someone in front of me only had U.S. currency and they were going to let her pay with that, but I had a $5 Canadian bill, so I just paid for her (and tipped the extra $1). I'm not saying this was a revolutionary act, but it made me feel good, and hopefully made her feel good, and it was inspired by reading Sincero and realizing that I can take action at this very moment to get to where I want to be. Not every action is huge and grand, but each is a building block, like weight lifting, where the smaller actions gradually come together and create a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

4. I am a creature of habit and love routines, which so often become ingrained to the point that when life throws up an obstacle I freak out. Like last night, when I went to get on the J train at JFK and found it closed for the weekend. I'm still recovering from a cold and pretty exhausted and was cursing myself and the MTA and wondering if I should turn around and take a cab. Instead, I got on the E train and discovered that I could take it to the G train, which is also near my home, and I got there in probably the same amount of time my normal route would've taken. I only let myself freak out for a few second, I didn't cry or throw a tantrum or feel like the world was against me. I just thought, so this is what it's like to be back in NYC, and got on the train, and had a seat the whole time, on both trains.

5. Today it was stating succinctly, and fully believing, "I can't afford travel unless I have a paid speaking gig attached to it." Because it's not just that the times I've done that I've wasted money; it's that I've put myself out as someone who doesn't deserve to get paid, and that means that gigs can get canceled at the drop of a hat, because there's no contract, because I haven't put it out into the universe that I'm a businesswoman and, while a creative soul, I need to make a living if I'm going to continue doing the work that I do. It means that when I spend money in ways that don't either further my business or add something as valuable as their price to my personal life, I am selling myself short, thereby enabling others to do so, because I haven't demanded more. This switch in thinking about money is going to be a long slot, but is one I am realizing that, if I ever want to be a parent, I need to enact immediately. Not just because I don't want to set a horrible precedent for my children around money, I want to be able to raise them in a way that affords me the time and energy to take care of them to the best of my abilities.