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The Book That Changed My Life

I read a lot so don't take this lightly. This also isn't an ad. And of course it wasn't just the book, it was years in the making, but this book did give me a rather good push.

Rena

9/6/20263 min read

It was the last week of December 2025 heading into the new year when I began reading All the Best for the Future by Greg James. The previous year I'd ditched the traditional overwhelming and ineffective new year's resolution in favor of the now popular bingo card. Having had more success turning my goals into a game of bingo in 2025, I was doing the same again as we entered 2026. I tend not to think about what I want for the upcoming year until New Year's Eve and, in this instance, I was completely hooked by Greg's book, which influenced the decisions I made on my goals.

I'd spent the first 5 years of my 20s in the kind of jobs that take over your entire life, the ones that demand everything you have to give even when you're running on empty, the ones that eventually make you sick. My personality had become work; when I wasn't working, I was studying to improve my skills. All the hobbies I loved before had been left on a shelf, and I saw my friends twice a year. I was, in many ways, addicted to my work. I won a rather prestigious award and was set on that being a trend of my career. What I got instead was a heavy dose of burnout and a kick while I was down from toxic work environments. The 'dreams' I built up were heavily rooted in unhealthy soil borne from long-standing trauma and a desperation to get myself to a place in life that was so far from my childhood it would be impossible to associate it with the person I'd become. Naturally, years of therapy had cultivated this insight, and I realized I was on the wrong path. I shifted my career into something that actually gave me a work-life balance among other things, but I suddenly didn't know what to do with myself, which led to an unhealthy amount of time on the internet. However, that is how I found Greg's book, thanks to a wholesome set of Christmas reels by Jacob Rickard.

All the Best for the Future quietly moved into my thoughts and adjusted my perspective on how I'd been living my life. It had been over a decade since I made a new friend, a similar amount of time since I made a decision to do something for myself just because it brought me joy, and it had been since I picked my A-levels back in 2017 that I'd considered what little me wanted for our life. So, I set a series of tasks on my 2026 bingo card that would right this. While this is symbolic, there is a difference between setting a goal and overcoming fears holding you back from getting them done. I'd done the groundwork with my therapist over the years, but it was the humanity in what Greg wrote about seeing your friends, following what shaped him as a child, and doing the things he enjoyed that set the understanding of what being a human is. It made me take a long hard look at the expectations I set on myself, that no one else was operating on that kind of perfection, that we all just seek connection and joy.

The first goal I completed was to join a club, which ended up being a women's-only kickboxing class. I put myself out there, asked someone I met at the club for coffee; she's now one of my closest friends, and I see her every week for one reason or another. I applied to host a book club, and now I host 2 book clubs. I took my health seriously again and started with a personal trainer, starting the gym for the first time ever. I started an Instagram for my artwork, listening to what I always loved growing up, then this website and blog. Renastrate has not been successful in business terms; it makes me a loss every month, but I didn't start this for it to be a full-time income. I'm fortunate that I have a good job in tech and I can keep this up without the pressure of it having to be something. Do I have those aspirations to make Renastrate into something I could live off? Sure, I have a rather whimsical picture in my head for my future, but I don't have a timeline for it. I'm treating this as an adventure without a map. The person I was a year ago wouldn't have thought this way, but she was tired, wasn't seeing her friends enough, and was fully fed up with her lot, so what did she know anyway?

So there you have it, the book that shifted my perspective and helped me live a more fulfilling life again: Greg James, All the Best for the Future. Reading it feels like being hugged and waved off at an airport, wholesome and grounding but exactly what you needed as you face your next adventure. It'll no doubt be a book I read again when I inevitably get lost or need a sense of comfort in approaching the unfamiliar.

Thank you Greg, your book and radio show give a brightness much needed in these times.