Review: The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k

| 3 Minute Read |

One of my absolute favourite self-help books ever! The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k is a blend of really useful and extremely funny all at the same time. A book that Vogue magazine describes as “Self-help with an edge”.

What makes me love this book more than anything though is that I read it in a bit of a “book club” setting with a difference. I bought this book at the airport as I was heading to my first EVER girls’ holiday in Spain. As part of some joint 50^th birthday celebrations, five of us, who have known and adored each other since we were 16, were heading-off for the first time as a “wee gang”.

As is typical for any group of humans – we’d all had a fair amount of “life” going on for us in recent years. Although it was a bit of a laugh to all buy Sarah Knight’s book, they ended up being incredibly helpful to all of us in different ways. To have those type of conversations with people you trust literally 100% is honestly quite amazing.

In a nutshell, this is a book which will help with some mental de-cluttering and give space for what you really do give a f**k about, not just what you feel you SHOULD. It’s a fun and light read to get you through some heavy topics, and it was fascinating how a group of five us with really different personalities, outlooks and lives could ALL got something beneficial from it.

For me, it was a shift away from doing things out of guilt or obligation and really paying attention to your energy, or as Sarah puts it, “notice the annoy -v- joy”. I mentioned elsewhere on the Behind the Hashtag website that I’m “a recovering people pleaser” and letting go of caring what others think is a big part of this book.

How do you let go of caring what people think and avoid being an assh*le, though?

That was probably my biggest worry – do you have to be unkind to others to be kind to yourself?

Absolutely not was the message from this book. You can empower yourself to put boundaries in place, create a more carefree life for yourself without causing any harm to other people or being rude about it.

This book is a brilliant start to paying attention to yourself and how much of your time is spent doing things you really would rather not do, with practical advice on how to make more space for what you love and what energises you.

My friends all wrote messages in the book as a gift from my daughter’s “aunties”, and she found the message of the book ‘around caring too much what others thought’ as very liberating!

A fun read if you’re not offended by the odd F-bomb.