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A review by pmathur
Before Happiness: The 5 Hidden Keys to Achieving Success, Spreading Happiness, and Sustaining Positive Change by Shawn Achor
4.0
Overall, I liked the book. I appreciated the easy to follow writing style, the summaries in the beginning of each section, and then the cliff notes at the end of each. I appreciated the examples, research, and anecdotes explaining his points. This book is an easy to follow guide on how to apply positive psychology in one's own life.
I do feel like it's important to mention that it was preaching to the choir because I like positive psychology. So maybe I'm biased? It has resonated with my mindset ever since I first learned about it. I'd be interested in hearing from someone who's new to positive psychology, for example.
I didn't give it five stars because of a few reasons. Maybe because I've read other books and taken some classes on positive psychology (and the book was from 2013), so some concepts seemed like common knowledge. Not that it wasn't good, or the points weren't valid. They were, just not revelatory for me. The other concern I had about this book was that, while Achor does switch between pronouns to be a bit more inclusive (instead of just using "he" all the time - yay!), I wonder if the research that was cited was also inclusive? There were a couple examples that made me wonder about it, but I will be honest, I haven't had enough time to review every citation to its fullest.
But again, I liked the book overall. I'm glad I read it. I'm looking forward to putting more of the strategies into practice.
I do feel like it's important to mention that it was preaching to the choir because I like positive psychology. So maybe I'm biased? It has resonated with my mindset ever since I first learned about it. I'd be interested in hearing from someone who's new to positive psychology, for example.
I didn't give it five stars because of a few reasons. Maybe because I've read other books and taken some classes on positive psychology (and the book was from 2013), so some concepts seemed like common knowledge. Not that it wasn't good, or the points weren't valid. They were, just not revelatory for me. The other concern I had about this book was that, while Achor does switch between pronouns to be a bit more inclusive (instead of just using "he" all the time - yay!), I wonder if the research that was cited was also inclusive? There were a couple examples that made me wonder about it, but I will be honest, I haven't had enough time to review every citation to its fullest.
But again, I liked the book overall. I'm glad I read it. I'm looking forward to putting more of the strategies into practice.