#FuturisticFriday Review: You Do You by Sarah Knight

This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration.

You Do You

Summary: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck and Get Your Sh*t Together comes more straight talk about how to stand up for who you are and what you really want, need, and deserve–showing when it’s okay to be selfish, why it’s pointless to be perfect, and how to be “difficult.”

Being yourself should be easy, yet too many of us struggle to live on other people’s terms instead of our own. Rather than feeling large and in charge, we feel little and belittled.

Sound familiar? Bestselling “anti-guru” Sarah Knight has three simple words for you:

YOU DO YOU.

It’s time to start putting your happiness first–and stop letting other people tell you what to do, how to do it, or why it can’t be done. And don’t panic! You can do it without losing friends and alienating people. Knight delivers her trademark no-bullsh*t advice about:

The Tyranny of “Just Because”
The social contract and how to amend it
Turning “flaws” into strengths–aka “mental redecorating”
Why it’s not your job to be nice
Letting your freak flag fly
How to take risks, silence the doubters, and prove the haters wrong

Traveling With T’s Thoughts:

Having read both of Sarah’s previous books, I was eager to see what You Do You was going to be about and I felt it would have some laugh out loud lines, some positive encouragement, and some great advice.

I was NOT wrong.

For the most part, I feel fairly ok (please note I said: fairly) on the whole You Do You thing. My personality is well formed, I don’t have to have people join in on the things I get excited about (although they are missing out on on fun) and I’ve kicked a lot of judgy people out of my life (or at least limited my contact with them) However, it never hurts to have a refresher course- and Sarah’s books always put things in perfect sense order for me. Sometimes I am too nice to people. Sometimes I’m too nice to people I really want to kick in the shins.

And on the note of selfish…….. It is NOT a bad word all the time and we’ve got to start looking at like a grey word- there is “good” selfish and “bad” selfish and we need to start getting a grip on it. And maybe with people like Sarah- we’ll get there!

Now some parts of Sarah’s latest book did make me THINK- taking risks, for example. I have ideas for things and sometimes I talk myself out of them ( I’m not being judgy, exactly- more like I to really LOOK before I leap- but sometimes I need to leap a bit faster!)

I had to laugh at the letting your freak flag fly and I have a story…..

A gajillion years ago, I was friends with 2 girls- one was my childhood best friend that I had reconnected with and the other was a friend I had made during some of my college years. My college year friend and I were talking about going to see New Year’s Eve and I suggested that why don’t we bring NYE tiaras and wear them at the movie….. And she was all no. No. No. Why would we do that? I really had no explanation for why except that it would be fun and would make us laugh. But we didn’t. Because she was all what if people laughed and I was like well…. ok. Whatever. So we went to the movie and I put it out of my mind. Until my childhood best friend and me were making plans to go out for dinner and movie. It was closer to NYE and she had a babysitter and I was ready to get out on the town. We talked about movies and there was really none to see but New Year’s Eve and I laughed and said “Oh we should wear NYE tiaras to the movies and….” and that’s as far as I got because she was all YES. We would wear them. We would get our pictures taken. And we would laugh about this for years.

We did. A nice worker at the movie took a picture of us. He was grinning (maybe he was trying not to laugh, maybe he was thinking he had a story to tell- IDK, but we did something fun!)

So… let your freak flag fly….. and take the picture. Have a laugh. Be you. Have your thing- the thing that you’re known for. And just because others don’t want to join in- well, they don’t have to- but don’t let them stop you from your fun.

Bottom line: Good book, Sarah. Good advice and something I will refer to (as I do with Get Your Sh*t Together and The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck) often. And remember… if you aren’t doing you, you’re screwing you.

*This book was sent to Traveling With T for review consideration. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.”

**You Do You was a November 2017 #FuturisticFriday selection of Traveling With T’s.**