Looking to Find Work-Life Harmony? 7 Authors Offer Advice for Fulfillment. Finding the right way to balance your work and home responsibilities to avoid heavy-duty stress can be hard.
By Peter Daisyme Edited by Ryan Droste
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You didn't set out to meet up with burnout, but you may find yourself face-to-face with stress's nefarious cousin.
True burnout is more than a fleeting feeling of powerlessness. It's a looming cloud overshadowing every aspect of life — and The Wall Street Journal reports that it's a serious problem for about three-quarters of working Americans.
Maybe you're toe-to-toe with burnout or feel like it's just lurking around the corner. Either way, the key to avoiding any further encounters is to focus on harmonizing your occupational and private identities. For instance, you may want to consider flirting with four-day workweeks, or you might want to reevaluate your career aspirations and path altogether like 71% of people.
Without a doubt, there are countless ways to sidestep burnout and give yourself the work-life balance you deserve. And that includes picking up some new reads. Books can help you gain a better perspective on how to manage all those nagging office and personal responsibilities.
Below are seven books that contain nuggets of inspiration for honestly living your best life. They're exactly the support you need to keep burnout at bay.
Related: Understanding Entrepreneurial Burnout (And How To Deal With It)
1. Richard Thalheimer — The Sharper Investor
What's one of the worst-kept secrets? Personal anxiety frequently stems from money worries. Even if you have a sense of financial security today, you may worry about how your investments are performing. Certainly, the stock market has fluctuated wildly in the past two years. That's not necessarily good for your blood pressure or ability to relax at the end of a hard day.
Instead of feeling like you have little control over your personal destiny from a fiscal standpoint, let Richard Thalheimer share his investing tips. Thalheimer, who launched the remarkably successful company The Sharper Image, offers sage advice in The Sharper Investor. Let him guide you toward improving your annual returns to feel less concerned about being able to provide for yourself and your loved ones down the road. The Sharper Investor is likely to become your go-to resource whenever you have extra dollars to put toward your nest egg.
2. Barry Magliarditi — Sex, Drugs, and Radical Self-Expression
Sometimes, you need to hear someone else's journey out of darkness to find the way into the light. Author and renowned public speaker Barry Magliarditi freely shares the sometimes-treacherous road he traveled to become successful in Sex, Drugs, and Radical Self-Expression. Though he's a worldwide success now, Magliarditi made many questionable choices that could have derailed his efforts. Yet he turned his life around and is eager to show you how to do likewise.
Whether or not you have a mentor, you'll appreciate Magliarditi's mentoring approach to writing this work. A rich life isn't out of your grasp, no matter where you're sitting at the moment. Learn strategies to repair yourself, reclaim your confidence, and apply daily rituals to add joy to each day.
3. Katie B. Happyy — Cheers to Chaos
Entrepreneurism can be lonely. When you feel like no one understands you, let Katie B. Happyy show you how wrong you can be. A west coast yoga instructor who believes in leaning into the crazy unpredictability of everyday life. Katie B. Happyy's stories of high-highs and low-lows in Cheers to Chaos will help you see that you're not the only one grappling with the unexpected, a busy schedule or frustrations.
Of course, Katie B. Happyy doesn't force you to reinvent the happiness wheel. She teaches you how to choose faith over fear, sit with your discomfort, and find your inner GPS. You'll fly through this book, which is a terrific choice for a long weekend read.
Related: How Incorporating Mindfulness Into My Morning Routine Has Made Me a Better Entrepreneur
4. Azrya Bequer and Benjamin Bequer — BEQOMING
Does it ever feel as if all the self-help style books just don't speak to your needs? Authors Azrya and Benjamin Bequer have you covered. This husband-wife writing team looks at life, love and enlightenment from a different angle than most. In BEQOMING, they outline a roadmap for you to embrace your deepest challenges and ultimately move past them.
BEQOMING sets itself up to be transformative from the get-go. Though it's a blueprint for reframing the way you see the world, everything's considered from a love story perspective. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more "out of the box" book to dive into this year.
5. David Axelrod — Get Away!
Maybe you're finding yourself flirting with burnout. It's a real problem, especially after a couple of years of global upheaval. One method to tackle the stressors that threaten your satisfaction is to travel. And Get Away! will provide you with the information, insights and inspiration to choose your next exploration adventure.
Written by explorer David Axelrod, Get Away! gives away all the traveler secrets you couldn't possibly have considered. From designing an itinerary to conquering anxiety in foreign lands, you'll learn how to seriously decompress. Even if your finances are limited, Axelrod illustrates how to budget your way to the respite you need.
6. Rocco A. Carriero — Three Cords Approach to Life and Wealth Management for Business Owners
According to Rocco Carriero, most business professionals find themselves trying to balance three major responsibilities — running their careers, supporting their households and staying healthy. Unfortunately, when one of these responsibilities takes precedence over the others, your world can start to feel out of whack. That's when you need to hear about Carriero's Three Cords Approach to Life and Wealth Management for Business Owners.
The Three Cords Approach highlights how to interweave all your cords into one super-strong braid. Intermixed within the chapters are helpful endorsements for growing your wealth at the same time. That way, money worries won't curtail your ability to create a triple-threaded cord that doesn't unravel at the first sign of tension.
Related: Life-Work Balance Is Becoming the New Normal
7. Tracey Lovejoy and Shannon Lucas — Move Fast. Break Shit. Burn Out.
Since you were little, you couldn't "leave well enough alone." You had to change everything, try new things and experiment. You didn't settle for the status quo. You just tinkered and toyed. In other words, you're what Tracey Lovejoy and Shannon Lucas would call a Catalyst. But you need to harness your Catalyst gift the right way. Otherwise, you might crumble under the pressures of constantly running toward the next horizon.
Think of Move Fast. Break Shit. Burn Out as a manual for Creators tired of the exhaustion of moving in hyperdrive. You'll be introduced to methods that will allow you to invent and re-shape with intention, not chaos. Best of all, you'll hear how to recognize signs of mental collapse before it threatens to take away your magic Catalyst powers.
Work-life balance isn't a pipe dream. Sometimes, all you need is a little enlightenment in book form to break free from the weight of burnout.
