Rating: 3.5 stars

In this refreshingly entertaining how-to guide, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author and world-traveling success coach, Jen Sincero, serves up 27 bite-sized chapters full of hilariously inspiring stories, sage advice, easy exercises, and the occasional swear word. If you’re ready to make some serious changes around here, You Are a Badass will help you: Identify and change the self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviors that stop you from getting what you want, blast past your fears so you can take big exciting risks, figure out how to make some damn money already, learn to love yourself and others, set big goals and reach them – it will basically show you how to create a life you totally love, and how to create it now.

By the end of You Are a Badass, you’ll understand why you are how you are, how to love what you can’t change, how to change what you don’t love, and how to use The Force to kick some serious ass.

Self-help books aren’t something I actively set out to read because I usually feel like I have to take time to reflect on what I’m reading in each chapter before going on to the next one. But being referred to as a badass made me feel pumped up to get into this book and see what it was all about. You Are a Badass was overall a good read for me. I enjoyed it because of how when I read these chapters, I felt inspired by the author and what she was saying. I found her insight very light-hearted but also funny and I felt like she offered overall some good advice. And while at times I found it annoying that she put as her last piece of advice in every chapter “love yourself,” there were some chapters after reading them where I found that advice more helpful than others.

The first couple of chapters in this book were really good and made me interested in continuing to read what she had to say. I especially appreciated the chapter about affirmations and meditation along with her thoughts about source energy as a whole.  

But I feel like as this book went on, I was slowly starting to lose interest in what she was saying. I think that’s because in certain chapters Jen Sincero didn’t sound overall empathetic to other people. And what I mean by that is she sometimes sounded tone-deaf to me when offering some of her advice. I understand that sometimes tough love is needed to get a point across, but I don’t think that’s where the issue came from for me. I think for me it was more she was talking from a point of privilege than anything else. I saw this in the chapter where she talks about money along with some of the other chapters as well.

I feel like this criticism for me stems from the idea of “visualize what you want your life to look like and it’ll happen.” I feel like the problem I have with the idea of visualizing your life is that there are things you actually have to do to make what you want in life to happen. You can’t just sit and do nothing and then what you want will happen. Depending on what you’re trying to achieve, there are some steps you have to take to make changes in your life. You can’t just visualize them or want them really badly to get it. Even if there are things you want to do and you try and set yourself up for those things, there’s no guarantee that you’ll get what you want.

And in order to accomplish your goals, there are going to be some challenges along the way you’ll have to deal with, which she didn’t mention at all throughout this book. I feel like she was overall saying in that regard that if you want something, you won’t use excuses not to make it happen. While that is overall true in most cases, there are some things that are beyond your control when it comes to achieving what you want from life, and she never once acknowledges how to overcome any challenges you could potentially face to achieve the life you want for yourself. And I have a problem with that in this self-help book.

You Are a Badass is overall a good read that got me pumped up and I found inspirational. However, not all of the information within its pages will benefit you so I think it’s okay to pick and choose which pieces of advice she offers you want to use since you won’t be able to relate to every single thing she’s saying.  

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