Self-Help

An interactive guide to our complex and elusive inner selves.

One of the most difficult tasks we face as humans is figuring out who we are. "Describe yourself" can be a surprisingly difficult task. Sometimes, we need prompts and suggestions to engage and energize us.

With unusual, entertaining, and playful exercises, this journal is designed to help us tease out and organize who we are. With beautiful designs by Marcia Mihotich throughout and mini essays on topics like relationships and work, this book shows us how our complicated, beautiful, and sometimes painful experiences all contribute to the richness of who we are.

• UNCONVENTIONAL AND PROVOCATIVE QUESTIONS to prompt honest self-reflection.
• AN INTERACTIVE JOURNAL OF SELF DISCOVERY with space for written answers.
• FULL COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS THROUGHOUT
• A COLLECTION OF MINI ESSAYS on topics like relationships, work, and culture.

Alain de Botton's redemptive volume charts a course from collapse to recovery with kindness, compassion and wisdom.

“Alain de Botton, one of our era’s most uncommonly perceptive, lyrical, and lucid existential contemplatives.” — The Marginalian

A Therapeutic Journey is a collection of essays about mental challenge and health. Written with kindness, knowledge and sympathy, it is a practical guide to well-being and a source of consolation and companionship in what might be some of our loneliest, most anguished moments.

Alain de Botton explores how we can cope with a variety of forms of mental pain and illness, from the mild to the severe. It considers how and why we might become ill; how we can explain things to friends, family and colleagues; how we can find our ways towards recovery; and how we can build resilience, so as to live wisely alongside our difficulties.

At heart this is a book about happiness - about regaining the thread of our lives, rediscovering meaning, and finding our way back to connection, warmth and joy.

This book explores ideas around minimalism, simplicity and how to live comfortably with less.

We live in a complicated, frenzied, and noisy world, filled with too much information, too many products, ideas, and opinions. As a result, many of us long for simplicity: a pared down, more peaceful, and less cluttered life. 

This book is a guide to the simpler lives we crave and deserve. In it, we learn about Zen Buddhism, modernist architecture, monasteries, psychoanalysis, and why three good friends and a few treasured belongings are enough. 

Taking a psychological approach, the book also guides us toward inner simplicity. For too long we've been drowning in excess, clutter, and confusion. A Simpler Life helps us tune out the static and focus on what really matters.

• DECLUTTER YOUR LIFE practical ways to get rid of physical and psychological clutter.
• HOW TO BE DIRECT advice on adopting a simpler, more straight-forward mindset.
• THE APPEAL OF MINIMALISM looks at why more of us are drawn to a pared down existence.
• HOW TO SIMPLIFY everything from relationships, social life, lifestyle, and work.

A toolkit of 100 questions to spark exciting and meaningful conversations. 

It isn’t easy to get into a good conversation. Many of our best ones seem to happen by chance. Far from it! A great conversation starts with someone asking a great question. Inside this portable, design-forward box, on beautiful cards, you’ll find 100 of the very best questions around—carefully designed to get a group of people into exceptionally entertaining and meaningful conversations.

A guide for helping us focus on what we need to be fulfilled so that we can direct our energies and thoughts most effectively

Finding a partner.
Paying off the mortgage.
Reconnecting with my parents.
Less screen time.

It can be hard to decide what we really want to achieve in our lives; our ambitions are often scattered, diverse and difficult to pin down. This is a tool for helping us focus on what we need to be fulfilled so that we can direct our energies and thoughts most effectively. It can be hard to decide what we really want to achieve in our lives; our ambitions are often scattered, diverse and difficult to pin down. 

This attractive box contains 160 cards detailing our most common ambitions and longings, along with instructions on how to reflect on our goals, arrange them in a logical order of priorities and, where necessary, weigh up trade-offs. Using the cards will help us to reveal our true goals, even our purpose in life. The cards can be displayed, photographed or kept close to hand as a reminder of the path ahead. 

A simple-seeming but ingenious psychological tool for converting hunches and dreams into a realizable future.

Calmness isn’t just a state of mind. It’s an essential life skill that, when practiced, can dramatically improve our everyday lives. This fascinating and pragmatic book argues that we can educate ourselves in the art of keeping calm not through slow breathing or special teas but through thinking. It patiently unpacks the root causes of our collective anxieties and gives us a succession of highly persuasive, beautiful, and sometimes dryly comic arguments with which to defend ourselves against panic and frustration. Part of a new essential paperback series from The School of Life, covering a range of emotional lessons needed in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

• THE ESSENTIAL MENTAL TOOLKIT provides readers with the skills needed to face life’s challenges with serenity. 
• EXPLORES THE ROOT CAUSES of our collective cultural anxieties. 
• A REFRESHING APPROACH to the art of finding calm in a chaotic world. 
• CLASSIC BLACK & WHITE IMAGES throughout. 
• PART OF THE NEW PAPERBACK SERIES 'LESSONS FOR LIFE'

Therapeutic exercises to help couples nurture patience, forgiveness, and humor. 

Love is not just an emotion - it's a skill. And just like any other skill, we need to practice in order to get good at it. 

We often have fairy tale expectations for our romantic relationships, but realistically, after a heady and passion-fueled start, we end up in partnerships that are a confusing tangle of hope, distance, boredom, loyalty, and betrayal. 

Full of accessible and though-provoking exercises, this workbook fosters understanding, patience, forgiveness, humor, and resilience in the face of the many hurdles that invariably arise in a long term relationship. 

Couples are guided to have particular conversations, analyze their feelings, explain parts of themselves to one another, and undertake rituals that clear the air and help recover hope and passion. The goal is always to unblock channels of feeling and improve communication - and to have fun while doing it.

No one can be intuitively good at relationships. We all need to do some homework to become the best partners and couples we can be.

• A GUIDED JOURNAL WITH OVER 60 EXERCISES to encourage couples to share their feelings with each other and open up about their insecurities.
• A THERAPEUTIC WORKBOOK drawing from research from The School of Life’s therapy department.
• INCLUDES INTERACTIVE SPACES to complete the activities and illustrations throughout.
• BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED hardcover in high end gift format.

20 Menus with 12 questions per menu, across varying themes - to foster friendship and bring meals to life. 

So many of us spend a lot of time getting the food right when we invite others over for a meal, but in the end what makes a really great dinner party is the conversation.

Typically, we stumble on fascinating conversation topics by chance. Shyness can hold us back. Too often, we revert to polite, but not especially inspired, staples or anecdotes. Arranged to accompany each course, these twenty beautifully designed Conversation Menus lead us artfully to some of the most fascinating and revealing conversation topics. They invite us to open up about themes such as love, money, travel ambition, self-knowledge and the meaning of life. They contain questions and invitations to discussion that will raise smiles, build friendships and foster the best kind of intimacy, ensuring that our meals together can be everything we hoped.

Exercises to build better team dynamics 

In order to work well together, people need more than just technical skills; they need to get to know and understand each other. We know this intuitively: it’s why fortunes are spent on team-building exercises. But because expensive off-site work retreats aren’t always possible, The School of Life has designed a game that requires nothing more than a room and a little free time. 

Teamwork contains 100 questions that playfully and sensitively introduce us to our colleagues by setting up the best kinds of conversation about everything from our childhoods to our values. Played as a group, these cards promote conversations that humanize colleagues in each other’s eyes and help to create an atmosphere of forgiving and kind collegiality around the office. A proven, easy way to turn individuals into a team. 

Topics covered include: Flaws, Fears & Regrets, Character Work, Likes & Interests, The Past

The School of Life’s approach to calm - in a pocket format.

In the third of a series of pocket books, The School of Life has distilled its most essential ideas on serenity in order to produce a bitesize manual that is both useful and entertaining. 

Knowing how to fight off anxiety and remain calm belong to the greatest skills we can ever aspire to. Only with a serene state of mind are we in any position to enjoy all the other good things in life: friendship, love, family or work. Here is selection of The School of Life’s finest essays on the art of serenity. They teach us how to achieve the correct perspective on our problems, how to understand the worst of our fears and how to surround ourselves with the sort of people who can help us in our quest for a less anxious existence. 

We have – most of us – already spent far too long on needless worry; here at last is a crucial guide to the less turbulent future we deserve.

• A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AT WORK
• EXPLORES TWENTY KEY SKILLS: such as giving feedback, responding to criticism, and communicating effectively.
• INFORMATIVE FOR INDIVIDUALS AND BUSINESSES ALIKE
• INFORMED BY RESEARCH FROM THE SCHOOL OF LIFE BUSINESS: who deliver in-house training for clients including: Facebook, The Financial Times, Google, Havas Media, Nike, and Sony Music.

An exploration of the many reasons to remain hopeful in the face of life's disappointments and challenges.

In a world that isn’t short of darkness, there could be few more urgent priorities than to spend time rehearsing for ourselves why life – despite all its challenges – still has so much to offer us; why there are still so many reasons to be hopeful.

Here is a collection of some of the most persuasive arguments for staying on the side of optimism, creativity, kindness, calm and hope. Across a series of essays, we learn why we still have the right to feel purposeful and buoyant despite everything that is challenging: because there is still so much more to discover, because love can triumph sometimes, because we can delight in summer days and the light of dawn, because we are not alone in our suffering, because we are never far from the option of a slice of cake or a bath, because we are very small things in a mighty and beautiful universe and because we don’t require perfection for things to feel good enough.

In a tone that avoids the pitfalls of sentimentality and cynicism, the book urges us to reconnect with our more resilient selves, bidding us to recover faith in what is still possible. At points funny and always encouraging and kind, here is an ideal friend to guide us back to courage and delight.

• A TOOL TO ASSIST US IN OUR SEARCH FOR A REASON TO BE: the book is an eclectic collection of short essays on wide-ranging subjects, from an extraordinary encounter between Mick Jagger and an unfamiliar Jesuit priest to the escapism found in Iranian cinema.
• HOPEFULNESS FOR PESSIMISTS: an honest and accessible guide to navigate us through the darkness to light.
• ILLUSTRATED THROUGHOUT: with a vibrant mix of artworks, photography and illustration.
• A HIGHLY RELATABLE BOOK: that offers comfort and support in our darker moments, while guiding us towards an optimistic future.

From the distinctive delight of holding a child’s hand to the paradoxical fun of a friendly argument to the peaceful joy of watching a sunset, this is a guide to the wealth of small pleasures that comprise our daily lives. 

In a culture that encourages the pursuit of large, self-aggrandizing gratification, this book is a refreshing reminder that small pleasures are in fact points of access to the great themes of our lives. By focusing our attention on the small moments that move us, we heighten our senses and return to the world with newfound excitement and enthusiasm. Part of a new essential paperback series from The School of Life, covering a range of emotional lessons needed in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

• 52 SHORT AND DIGESTIBLE meditations on life’s small pleasure, designed for five minute snatches of time in between real life demands.
• REFOCUS YOUR GAZE ON THE SMALL THINGS — and gain a fresh perspective and look at life with new found enthusiasm and energy.
• CLASSIC BLACK & WHITE IMAGES throughout.
• PART OF THE NEW PAPERBACK SERIES 'LESSONS FOR LIFE'

"The School of Life: On Self-Hatred may be the most essential of The School of Life’s essential philosophy handbooks: it reminds us, yet again, that we are not alone, that much more connects us than divides us and that self-acceptance is one of the most important keys to peace of mind." - Emma Thompson, DBE British actress and screenwriter

A guide to emotional healing and living a more self-accepting life.

Behind many of our problems lies an often ignored factor: we don’t like ourselves very much. We are sufferers of self-hatred. We tell ourselves the meanest things. It’s because of self-hatred that we tend to neglect our potential at work and get entangled in unfulfilling relationships, that we lack confidence in our social lives and suffer from anxiety, despair and imposter syndrome.

This is a book that, with immense compassion and fellow feeling, investigates the phenomenon of self-hatred while giving pragmatic advice on how to overcome it. It asks where the feeling comes from, what it makes us do and how we might become kinder and more compassionate towards ourselves.

We have probably spent far too much of our lives disliking ourselves and attacking everything we say, do or feel, while not even realizing what we’re up to. It’s time to overcome our masochism and move towards a more self-forgiving and accepting stance. The School of Life: On Self Hatred is a guide to the more compassionate and gentle relationship we should have had with ourselves from the start, and can all achieve now.

• IDENTIFIES THE ORIGINS AND CONSEQUENCES OF SELF-HATRED: and provides advice for living a more self-accepting life.
• ENCOURAGES US TO DEVELOP ASSERTIVENESS AGAINST SELF-LOATHING: and gives us the tools to challenge our inner critic and deal with imposter syndrome.
• ACCESSIBLE AND PRAGMATIC: with a compassionate and realistic tone, outlining the importance of self-care.
• PART OF THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S SERIES OF GIFTABLE ESSAYS: other titles include: Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person, On Confidence, How to Find Love and Self-Knowledge.

A hopeful guide to living well in the 21st century.

The modern world has brought us a range of extraordinary benefits and joys, including technology, medicine, and transportation. But with these advances, it seems, we've also seen an increase in greed, despair, and agitation. 

How to Survive the Modern World is the ultimate guide to navigating our unusual times. The book tackles our relationship to the news, our identities, our careers, our relationship to the natural world, our admiration for science and technology, our belief in individualism and secularism - and our suspicion of quiet and solitude. 

This book helps us form a calmer, more authentic, more resilient, and more light-hearted relationship to the complexities of our age. If modern times can feel like a disease, this book is both the diagnosis and the soothing, hope-filled cure.

• IDENTIFIES THE SOURCE OF SHARED ANXIETY helps us identify the sources of our sorrows in the modern world.
• PRACTICAL ADVICE on dealing with the challenges presented by capitalism, advertising and the media.
• CHAPTERS INCLUDE Media, Materialism, Family, Love, Work, Sex, Science & Religion, Democracy and Nature.
• BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED premium gift format.

When Socrates was asked to define our highest purpose as humans, he said, “To know ourselves.”  This advice holds true. Without self-knowledge, all other efforts are in vain. 

The second title in the '40 Images' series, Self-Knowledge in 40 Images takes us on a tour of certain key ideas that we need to befriend our deeper selves, accompanied by the work of photographers and artists such as David Hockney, Cy Twombly, Edgar Degas, Isabella La Rocca González and Elise Corten. Featuring culturally and historically diverse artwork alongside a series of elegant essays inviting contemplation, this book helps us to understand how our childhoods have shaped us, what difficulties we characteristically experience in relationships and what our purpose should be. 

Modern society gives us no shortage of ambitions. We will have landed on the one that can finally brings us peace and freedom when we are ready – with the help of this book – to begin the inward journey: self knowledge.

Pair with the Know Yourself Prompt Cards, designed to help lead you through the important task of knowing yourself a little better in life.

A collection of simple - and surprisingly relevant - tools from great thinkers throughout history. 

Focusing on important ideas from Western and Eastern philosophy, sociology, psychotherapy, art, architecture, and literature, this collection of wisdom and insight includes everyone from well know thinkers like Sigmund Freud and Lao Tzu to more unexpected names like Coco Chanel and St Benedict. 

With original color illustrations for each featured thinker, this book presents a fascinating gallery of individuals from across the millennia who have shaped the intellectual project of The School of Life.

• A REFERENCE BOOK OF 60 GREAT THINKERS: and their most useful ideas.
• THE SCHOOL OF LIFE CANON: a gallery of individuals from across the millennia who have shaped the intellectual project of The School of Life.
• ORIGINAL COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS BY STUART PATIENCE
• THE ULTIMATE RESOURCE: for those seeking both answers and inspiration.
• PREMIUM GIFT FORMAT: shrink-wrapped with ribbon marker and belly band.

A journal to help us process our lives—from The School of Life’s line of beautiful, elegant journals

The Self-Reflection Journal is the first in a new range of guided journals from The School of Life, that uses a series of repeated questions to help us think about what we really want, what we are actually feeling and what might be holding us back from our goals. Each question has been careful chosen for its psychological insight and draws from the teachings of The School of Life, to guide us on a journey of self-discovery. 

The questions, such as 'What is still lovely?' direct our minds to areas that we tend to neglect. With 150 pages of questions, we can revisit these thoughts regularly and digest the concerns, emotions, and events that repeatedly trouble us. With time, we can lessen our anxieties, and begin to reach the calm, contended lives we deserve.

With its high quality cloth-bound cover, ribbon bookmark, and inspiring quotes from The School of Life throughout, this is a beautiful and thoughtful addition to any bookshelf.

The difference between a successful and a disappointing life often comes down to a critical ingredient that we overlook at our peril: confidence. 

This is a book with a practical purpose: to take us through exercises that help us rediscover the confidence we all already have inside us—the confidence that we have neglected out of habit, fear or meekness. It’s a faculty we are all endowed with and confidence can flourish with the right kind of practice and encouragement. 

This workbook contains over fifty exercises that flex our confident faculties and guide us to greater effectiveness in our relationships, in our working lives and in our approach to ourselves. This includes a Self-Esteem Audit to identify what we might have gone through in our early lives, asking  questions such as: Do you think you are essentially a good person? Were your parents essentially supportive or not? Do you hate or like being you? There are sections focusing on confidence in relationships, friendships, and at work.

This is a tool to unlock our latent powers – and help us become who we long, and deserve, to be. 

Pair with the Confidence Prompt Cards, designed to help you find confidence and battle against timidity.

A linen-bound notebook designed to accommodate ideas, aspirations and worries in the therapeutic activity of writing down your thoughts

It’s too un-comfortable and especially difficult because we are so often busy and frazzled, hyper-connected yet a bit lonely. To really understand what we feel and think, we must turn away from distractions, common sense, and other people’s opinions. We need to develop intimacy with ourselves. Writing is ultimately the task of discovering and developing what we think. There could hardly be a more important personal goal.

A therapeutic and consoling workbook with exercises to soothe anxiety and create a state of calm.

Most of us long to be a little calmer: too many of our days are lost to agitation and worry, stress and discord. Yet we know that we are at our best when we can manage not to panic and take challenges in our stride.

Fortunately, a calm state of mind is not a divine gift. Even those of us starting from a more agitated position can systematically understand and lay claim to it. Too many books on this subject simply explain what it would be like to be calm. This is a workbook that takes us through the practical steps required to actually become calm. It is filled with exercises and prompts that deliver the self-understanding and self-compassion on which true serenity depends. Furthermore, the book invites us to build calming routines into our daily lives so that what we learn can stick with us and change us for the long term.

Based on years of The School of Life’s work in the area of anxiety and calm, this is a landmark workbook guaranteed to bring about the calmer state of mind we long for and deserve.

• EASY-TO-FOLLOW JOURNALING PROMPTS to explore our inner landscape and cultivate calm.
• DRAWING EXERCISES for everyone, no artistic ability required.
• A THERAPEUTIC WORKBOOK with plenty of space to track moods, set goals, and reflect.
• SOOTHING packaging and simple layout - a journal to keep close at hand.
• A TIMELY TOOLKIT to achieve calm in a frenzied, chaotic world.

• EXPLORES THE LIFE-CHANGING POWER OF UNDERSTANDING OURSELVES
• A PRACTICAL TOOLKIT for self-discovery.
• INCLUDES THOUGHT-PROVOKING EXERCISES for self-analysis.
• THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S MOST POPULAR SUBJECT the associated YouTube video "Who Am I?" has 1.5 million views.

60 prompt cards with ideas and questions designed to help you find confidence 

We often assume that we must accept the levels of confidence we currently possess. But confidence is not a given: it is a quality we can learn about and develop in ourselves. 

These Confidence Prompt Cards keep a variety of consoling and invigorating arguments at the front of our minds, ready for the greater and smaller challenges of our lives. They remind us, for the sake of confidence, to speak to ourselves in a kind way, and to remember that the greatest thing we should fear isn't messing up, but not trying it out in the first place.

A Living Eulogy. A portrait of your ideal evening. A prompt to breathe—40 activities to help us get in touch with our inner playful and introspective selves

We are used to thinking of good conversation as the glue that holds friendships together, but we shouldn’t forget the immense value of playing games, with some of the same spirit of fun and adventure that we once deployed when we were children. Here is a pack of forty activities to draw us away from static conversation. Among other things, we will build a fort together, dance in surprising ways, deliver funeral orations, practice our acting skills, and play some entertaining (but kindly) pranks. The games are an invitation to cast aside reserve and get in touch with neglected imaginative aspects of ourselves. They are a reminder that friendship doesn’t only require talking; it thrives just as much on the light-hearted but significant business of playing together.

As our smartphones have become indispensable to our daily routine, it is important to take some space to reflect on our lives outside of technology. 

The School of Life has designed Phone Detox, a palm-sized book filled with a variety of insights, as a clever counter to those idle moments so often filled with endless scrolling. 

Full of ideas and meditations, these mini-essays offer a refreshing analog experience. From poetry, to travel, to tips on dating - and even headier, bite-size meditations on topics like addiction, monasticism, nature, utopia - Phone Detox offers a much needed (occasional) reset for our addled, buzzing minds. This flip book is a tool that aims to bring a little sanity to our closest, most intense technological relationship. 

Mini-Essays Cover Topics Including: 

- Addiction 

- Monasticism 

- Poetry 

- The News 

- Beyond Instagram 

- Dating 

- Nature 

- Shopping 

- Travel 

- Death 

- Utopia 

• FITS IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND: Like a phone, only - cleverly - it's not a phone. 
• FROM THOUGHT-PROVOKING TO HUMOROUS: The quick-read style of this book runs the gamut from serious, to philosophical, to practical and even funny. 
• TAKE A BREAK FROM YOUR CELL PHONE TO RETURN TO YOUR CELL PHONE: Have fun with our analog flip book to clear your brain for more scrolling!

We’re surrounded by books telling us how to be rich, or thin. This book is different from other self-help books—because it teaches us to be nicer. Niceness might not have the immediate allure of money or fame, but who among us wouldn’t like to be more patient, less irritable, or better listeners? 

 With a gently philosophical tone, this book gives us practical advice on how to forgive, how to reassure, and how to be generous. Being nice isn’t at all the same as being weak, or naive. In fact, niceness is one of the highest planes of human achievement—a super power, and a strength. Niceness deserves to be rediscovered and cultivated, and this book shows you how. Part of a new essential paperback series from The School of Life, covering a range of emotional lessons needed in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

• BEING NICER CAN BENEFIT OUR LIVES, often in unexpected ways.
• IN A TIME OF GLOBAL TURMOIL, this book encourages a focus on human kindness and empathy.
• CLASSIC BLACK & WHITE IMAGES throughout.
• PART OF THE NEW PAPERBACK SERIES 'LESSONS FOR LIFE'
• PRACTICAL AND ACCESSIBLE TIPS makes this an easy book to use in everyday life.

A small “museum”—in book form— of calm 

A psychological guidebook that can help to quieten our worries and bring on a new mood of serenity and ease. 

Knowing how to be calm is one of life’s greatest skills. It doesn’t matter how well our own life is going; if our mind is frantic, happiness will always be just out of reach. 

The third title in the '40 Images' series, Calm in 40 Images is a comprehensive guide to the art of calm. Featuring the work of photographers and artists including Hiroshi Sugimoto, Gustav Klimt, Gwen John, Johannes Vermeer and Edward Hopper, alongside essays to invite contemplation, it takes us systematically through the many things that unsettle us and arrives at a range of solutions to ease our spirits. Gustav Klimt’s Pear Tree (1903) reminds us that we do not need a life of fame or melodramatic relationships, we should instead make our peace with so-called ordinariness. Mark Salamon’s photograph, The Rays (2020), accompanies a guided anxiety-reducing exercise that we can partake in when the noise of the day has subsided. 

We are invited not just to understand calm, but to appreciate it with our eyes and, more crucially, discover it with all of our senses. 

Companion book to Confidence in 40 Images and Self-Knowledge in 40 Images. Pair with the Stoicism Cards for insights into building resilience and calm.

52 cards for greater serenity, ease and clarity

In an overcomplicated world, what many of us crave deep down is greater simplicity: less clutter, fewer commitments, less static and chaos. This ingenious set of cards asks us a range of deceptively simple questions – which we can answer by ourselves or with friends – that focus our minds on what really counts. They give us confidence to assess what we might give up on and where our true focus should lie. They ask us to look at our careers, our relationships, our family lives, and our ambitions more broadly. In a few easy steps, these cards help us prioritize and sift – and, with gentle humor, guide us to the simpler lives we long for and deserve.

60 prompt cards designed to help lead you through the important task of knowing yourself a little better 

It's hard to understand who we really are: what we want, how we feel and why we react as we do. This lack of self-knowledge can cause trouble. It makes us get into the wrong relationships, pick jobs we don’t love or spend money unwisely. No wonder Socrates summed up all the counsel of philosophy in just two words: “Know Yourself.” 

These cards are designed to assist us in a journey of self-knowledge. They present us with a range of ideas and questions that can help us to understand ourselves better. Each card carries an exercise on one side and a piece of analysis on the reverse to help you gain insight and clarity on that ever elusive subject: yourself.

A practical guide to finding fulfilling work - by understanding yourself.

The idea that work might be fulfilling rather than just necessary is a recent invention. These days, in prosperous areas of the world, we don't only expect to get paid, we also expect to find meaning and satisfaction. It's a big ask and explains why so many people have an identity crisis in their work lives.

The School of Life: A Job To Love is designed to help us better understand ourselves in order to find a job that is right for us. It explores the myths, traps and confusions that get in our way, and shows us how to develop new, effective attitudes and habits.

With compassion and practicality, this book guides us to discover our true talents and to make sense of our confusion, desires, and aspirations - before it is too late.

• FIND A CAREER YOU LOVE: a guide to finding fulfilling work through self-exploration.
• PRACTICAL EXAMPLES AND EXERCISES: to inspire fresh thinking about our jobs and ourselves.
• BEAUTIFULLY PRODUCED: with classic black and white illustrations.
• PART OF THE NEW PAPERBACK SERIES 'LESSONS FOR LIFE'

A guide to the art of failing well—with actionable tips and a gentle approach

This is a hopeful, consoling, gentle book about failure. Our societies talk a lot about success, but the reality is that no one gets through life without failing – in small and usually also in large ways. Sometimes our failures are very obvious, at other times, we feel we have to conceal them out of shame. This book encourages us to accept the role that failure plays for all of us and to feel compassion for ourselves for the messes we can’t help but make as we go through our lives.

Full of actionable tips on how to approach life's inevitable failures from small to large, this is the perfect volume for anyone who has ever gone through a breakup, suffered a career crisis, made enemies, fumbled a project, or wasted their time. (In other words: everyone.)

There is nothing more human than failing—and nothing wiser and more necessary failing well.

• PRAGMATIC ADVICE ON how to be resilient and endure regret, so we can recover and move on from despair and catastrophe.
• WE ARE NOT ALONE explores various examples of real-world failure and reminds us that we are not alone in making mistakes.
• EMPATHETIC AND REAL written from the perspective of those who have failed and survived their failure.
• CHAPTERS INCLUDE How to Deal with the Meanness of the World, What Love Really Is and Why It Matters, Finding Perspective, Fear and Self-Hatred, and Self-Compassion.

We are all familiar with procrastination, and often feel guilt about all that is left to get done. We rarely get around to reflecting on why we put things off. This insightful pocket guide argues that procrastination isn't a weird affliction, it sometimes has things to teach us. 

With mini-essays on Perfectionism, Deadlines, and The Limits of Hard Work, this is a book about understanding the root of our procrastination, managing it, and getting the most out of our afternoons on the couch.

A practical guide that explores the roots of procrastination and offers the reader thoughtful advice on the art of managing it, all written in the soothing, trademark voice of The School of Life.

• HOW TO USE, AND CONQUER, PROCRASTINATION: An insightful pocket guide that teaches us how to better understand and manage this common affliction. 
• ADVICE YOU ACTUALLY WANT: Mini-Essays offer advice and guidance on a variety of topics including Perfectionism, Deadlines and The Limits of Hard Work. 
• SPIRAL-BOUND GIFT FORMAT: With full color illustrations throughout. 
• PORTABLE: Comes in a nice, compact size.

A collection of the essential emotional lessons we need in order to thrive.

We probably went to school for what felt like a very long time. We probably took care with our homework. Along the way we surely learnt intriguing things about equations, the erosion of glaciers, the history of the Founding Fathers, and the tenses of foreign languages.

But why, despite all the lessons we sat through, were we never taught the really important things that dominate and trouble our lives: who to start a relationship with, how to trust people, how to understand one’s psyche, how to move on from sorrow or betrayal, and how to cope with anxiety and shame?

The School of Life is an organization dedicated to teaching a range of emotional lessons that we need in order to lead fulfilled and happy lives – and that schools routinely forget to teach us. This book is a collection of our most essential lessons, delivered with directness and humanity, covering topics from love to career, childhood trauma to loneliness. 

To read this book is to be invited to lead kinder, richer, and more authentic lives – and to complete an education we began but still badly need to finish. This is homework to help us make the most of the rest of our lives.

• EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE essential skills and lessons to help you thrive at work, at home, and in relationships.
• GIFT beautifully packaged in premium gift format.
• A HELPFUL GUIDE to what really matters, written with directness and humanity.
• A PRIMER ON LIVING WELL philosophical concepts simplified and applied to modern life.

52 cards to deepen and transform the experience of travel

Going travelling can be one of life’s greatest activities – but often, we fail to deepen the experience as much as we should and return home with some of the promises of our trip unrealized. 

Here is a pack of cards designed to help us get the very best out of travel – and to embed its greatest lessons in our minds. These cards contain questions that we can reflect on privately (in a journal or on a train ride) or ask others in a group. This is an ingenious, low-tech, high-impact solution to one of the great conundrums of travel: how to ensure that the reality of going away will match our hopes. And it makes a great bon voyage gift!

• THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ETIQUETTE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
• NAVIGATING OUR MOST AWKWARD SOCIAL SITUATIONS this practical and relevant guide offers tips and scripts.
• TWENTY CASE STUDIES AND ACTIONABLE ADVICE for dealing with common social dilemmas.
• HOW TO WIN PEOPLE OVER, how to approach strangers at a party, and how to write an effective thank you note-the chapters in this book address common perplexing social situations head on.
• BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY THROUGHOUT

50 heartfelt photographs and interviews, reflecting on the universal experience of loneliness.

It’s easy to feel that we are alone in feeling alone. Not only do we suffer, but we also destroy our self-confidence with repeated convictions that we are the only ones who are so confused and at sea, the only ones without a partner and who will be alone (again) on Saturday night.

Through fifty touching interviews and captivating portraits by the talented photographer Julia Hawkins, this transformative book uncovers the ways that loneliness touches so many of us. We hear from a diverse array of individuals whose lives have been shaped by isolation – those who feel invisible, misunderstood and alienated, as well as those who have found unexpected paths to understanding and connection.

We come to understand that we are not unique in our solitude, and that being alone is a natural part of the human experience - and so we have every reason to hold out a hand to our similarly complicated, kind and lonely neighbours. 

"These entries imaginatively connect confidence to everything from capitalism to leaving a party early, make for a thought-provoking and wide-ranging exploration. Those seeking an extra shot of self-esteem will be rewarded" - Publishers Weekly

A curated selection of 40 photographs and artworks with accompanying essays examining confidence as a skill

James Baldwin on a bridge in Paris, happy in the freedom of his self-determined exile…

The Bloomsbury Group, well-mannered disruptors…

Barack Obama, captured at ease in the Oval Office…

Everyday life, unique architecture, people in movement going against the grain: in forty iconic images, On Confidence illustrates moments of happiness and ease. 

This first in a new giftable series—with photographs and short, inspiring essays, and featuring artists and photographers like Vincent van Gogh, Mary Cassat, Pablo Picasso, Adrienne Salinger, and Sian Davey — On Confidence shows us that confidence is a skill that can be learned, and used for success.

• A PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH to a more meaningful life.
• PRACTICAL TIPS ON NAVIGATING ANGER, INTIMACY, AND EXCEPTIONALISM
• A GUIDE TO FINDING EXCITEMENT at work, in relationships, and within.

A collection of enlightening quotes, delivering some of the most important lessons The School of Life has to offer.

This is a selection of the very best and most psychologically acute quotations from The School of Life, covering such large and diverse topics as relationships, regret, anxiety, work, friends, family, travel and, not least, the meaning of life. Some of these quotations elicit an immediate nod of recognition, others leave us thoughtful and a few are just plain funny.

The book is organized by The School of Life’s key themes – Relationships, Self-Knowledge, Sociability, Work, Calm and Leisure – that together amount to a tour around the most profound sorrows and joys of the human mind and heart. Offering comfort and consolation in a compact format with quirky illustrations by Avi Ofer, The School of Life: Quotes to Live By is ideally suited to our impatient, anxious and searching times.

• QUOTES ARE FOCUSED AROUND THE KEY MESSAGES FROM THE SCHOOL OF LIFE: on a range of themes, including - Relationships, Self Knowledge, Sociability, Work, Calm and Leisure.
• QUIRKY AND FUN ILLUSTRATIONS: throughout by Avi Ofer.
• A BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED AND CAREFULLY CURATED OBJECT: that makes for an ideal gift for others or yourself.

Psychotherapy is one of the most valuable inventions of the last hundred years, with an exceptional power to raise our levels of emotional well-being, enhance our relationships, heal the wounds of the past, and help us mine our professional potential. But it is also profoundly misunderstood science.

Working with a therapist can make us less angry, improve our confidence, and, perhaps most importantly, make us more loving towards ourselves and others.

Through engaging historical analysis and relevant case studies, this book explains psychotherapy in depth: why we need it, how treatment works, and what the outcome of a therapeutic intervention looks like. The book argues that psychotherapy is the single greatest step any of us can take towards self-understanding and fulfillment.

This book attempts to explain psychotherapy: why it is needed by us all, how those needs are addressed by treatment and what the outcome of a therapeutic intervention could be. The book reflects a fundamental belief of The School of Life that psychotherapy is the single greatest step any of us can take towards self-understanding and fulfillment. A course of therapy stands to render us ever so slightly less angry, self-defeating, unconfident, lost and sad.

• PSYCHOTHERAPY EXPLAINED a demystifying guide to the purpose and meaning of psychotherapy.

• UNLOCK THE POWER OF THERAPY to improve self love, communication, trust, and honesty.

• EXPLORES POTENTIAL THERAPEUTIC OUTCOMES using case studies as examples.

• DEBUNKS COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS about the science of psychotherapy.

A book of psychological tests, questions, and exercises, and how they can help you get to know yourself better

We spend our lives inside ourselves and yet understanding our inner world remains one of our most complex challenges. This enlightening and practical book offers a collection of transformative psychological tests designed to illuminate the hidden dimensions of our psyches.

Through a curated selection of 50 psychological exercises, you’ll embark on an intimate journey of self-discovery. These tests invite you to look beneath the surface of your conscious thoughts, uncovering the subtle narratives that shape your emotions, relationships and sense of self.

Each test is an invitation to explore your unspoken fears, your deepest desires and the unconscious patterns that drive your behaviours, providing unprecedented insight into your inner workings.

The School of Life’s thought-provoking and practical guide to one of the greatest questions we will ever face – now in paperback

To wonder too openly or intensely about the meaning of life can seem a peculiar, ill-fated and faintly ridiculous pastime. It can seem like a topic on which ordinary mortals cannot make much progress. In truth, it is for all of us to wonder about, define and work towards a more meaningful existence.

This book considers a range of options for where the meaning of life is to be found, including love, family, friendship, work, self-knowledge and nature. We learn why certain things feel meaningful while others don’t, and consider how we might introduce more meaning into our activities.

What follows is a hugely thought-provoking as well as practical guide to one of the greatest questions we will ever face.

From The School of Life— a roadmap for the emotionally mature adult 

Most of us want to be more emotionally mature and better able to face up to life’s challenges with poise, confidence, kindness and good-natured intelligence. We want to be grown-ups! 

With gentleness and insight, How Emotionally Mature Are You?  helps us to zero in on the key markers of psychological adulthood. It prompts us to look at how we respond to rejection, frustration, anxiety, ambiguity and hope, by asking questions such as: How much do we like ourselves? Do we worry too much about the opinions of other people? What might be the best way to become a more interesting person? 

This questionnaire considers the childhood, the role of self-love and the perils of perfectionism – as well as the best ways to achieve self-belief and overcome impostor syndrome. In a series of accompanying essays, we are given material to reflect on – and shown how to reach the emotional age we aspire to be.

Pair with the Emotional Barometer to reach a clearer understanding of our inner emotional weather.

A 15th anniversary collection of The School of Life’s most popular and essential essays on self-knowledge, relationships, work and culture.

The School of Life is an organization with a mission at its heart: to help foster calm, self-understanding and greater emotional maturity. 

For the last 15 years, we have produced landmark essays on important life topics, now gathered together for the first time.

Among the essays collected here, conveniently, in one volume:

• On Confidence: a guide to throwing off inhibition in the name of a more free and creative life
• Self-Knowledge: a method for knowing ourselves better in order to make optimal choices in love and work
• Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person: a hopeful and wry survey of the trials and joys of marriage

This beautiful edition of The School of Life’s best advice is a perfect companion to carry around or keep on a bedside table— a concise compendium of some of the wisest things we’ll ever need to know.

What our readers have been saying about the individual essays

On Confidence

"Brief but insightful! Will be back for more School of Life reads. Works really well on Audible"

"Brilliant! Thought provoking. Kept concise enough to really focus on the subject and give you time to think about the subject in terms of yourself."

Self-Knowledge

"It's such a simple and small book but with a powerful message! I really needed it and I'm grateful I got to read this book and work on the exercises. The exercises are definitely a plus and they're very well thought-through!"

Just perfect. Must-read for everyone who considers at least dating, not to mention serious commitment. Beautifully exposed all the myths and concepts of love, sex and relationships. While this is very entertaining and funny, the topics are very serious and make me think and change my attitude... a lot."

Why You Will Marry The Wrong Person

"Excellent little book for perspective on a considerably important subject. If you plan on marrying, take a day and read this magnificent little title."

Essays from this series available as audiobooks:

Self-Knowledge

On Confidence

• A DARKLY COMIC BEDTIME STORY FOR ADULTS the perfect gift for parents at any stage.
• FULLY ILLUSTRATED SPREADS by Ben Javens.
• A WITTY ALTERNATIVE to the happy endings of children's books.
• REFRESHINGLY HONEST helps readers navigate the trials of adulthood with humor.

The second in a line of journals from The School of Life– a tool for checking in

This beautifully produced and high quality journal invites us to regularly check in on ourselves – what we want, where we want to change, where we need to go – in order to maximize our chances of leading a fulfilled and contented life.

With well-focused questions repeated throughout, interspersed with quotes on growth from The School of Life, this journal prompts us to clarify our goals, assess our options and plot a route to a flourishing future. By regularly answering the repeated questions, such as 'In five years, I would be pleased if...' , we can clearly track our achievements and assess where we still have room to grow.

This is a tool for a newfound feeling of lightness, creativity and purpose.

A journal that seeks to honour the act of therapeutic writing containing journalling prompts to find inspiration and encouragement

Writing is a simple and effective way to work through what we really want, what’s at stake– and where we might go next. It’s a great way to garner self-awareness and get creativity flowing.

This is a journal that honors the act of writing as a road to calm, joy and self-knowledge. Use it on its own or alongside our Journal Prompt Cards as a place to explore and capture what might otherwise float aimlessly in the mind; make this a repository of all that you feel, remember, think – and are.

A journal that seeks to honour the act of therapeutic writing containing journalling prompts to find inspiration and encouragement

Writing is a simple and effective way to work through what we really want, what’s at stake– and where we might go next. It’s a great way to garner self-awareness and get creativity flowing.

This is a journal that honors the act of writing as a road to calm, joy and self-knowledge. Use it on its own or alongside our Journal Prompt Cards as a place to explore and capture what might otherwise float aimlessly in the mind; make this a repository of all that you feel, remember, think – and are.

52 exercises to foster diplomacy, empathy and effective communication within teams

Let’s get this party started!

Is this truism true?

And relax!

Collaboration is a tool for helping people work together better: 52 exercises designed to build empathy, insight and trust between colleagues. Intended to transform the atmosphere in teams, it prompts people to participate in a range of tasks and thinking exercises that strengthen their ability to cooperate and lend them insight into how others’ minds work. In a playful and often entertaining way, this toolkit aims to achieve something critical: the creation of a team that can work seamlessly and imaginatively together.

A set of 60 cards to remind us of the many reasons we have to be thankful

We are experts at focusing on what is missing from our lives. Our dissatisfaction often serves us well; it keeps us from complacency and boredom. But we are also dragged down by an inability to stop, take stock and recognize the abundance around us. In our haste to secure the future, we omit to notice the good. This pack of cards is designed to help us pause in our striving and, for a few moments, remember some of what we have to be grateful for — a consoling, soothing balm to carry around or keep close at hand.

A linen-bound notebook designed to accommodate ideas, aspirations and worries in the therapeutic activity of your thoughts. 

We have so many vague feelings of hurt, envy, anxiety, and regret, but for the most part we never stop to make sense of them. It’s too uncomfortable and especially difficult because we are so often busy and frazzled, hyper-connected yet a bit lonely. To really understand what we feel and think, we must turn away from distractions, common sense, and other people’s opinions. We need to develop intimacy with ourselves. Writing is ultimately the task of discovering and developing what we think. There could hardly be a more important personal goal.

A linen-bound notebook designed to accommodate ideas, aspirations and worries in the therapeutic activity of your thoughts

We have so many vague feelings of hurt, envy, anxiety, and regret, but for the most part we never stop to make sense of them. It’s too uncomfortable—and hard to do, because we are so often busy and frazzled, hyper-connected, yes, but perhaps lonely beneath the surface.

To really understand what we feel and think, we must turn away from distractions, common sense, and other people’s opinions. We need to develop intimacy with ourselves. Writing is ultimately the task of discovering and developing what we think. There could hardly be a more important personal goal.

A set of 20 cards featuring fresh perspectives through which to look at life

We are constantly at risk of losing perspective around the challenges we face. We mistake what is manageable, or we despair too soon. We alienate others by over-reacting, or we don’t notice and appreciate what there is still to be grateful for.

These cards provide eloquent invitations to recover a wiser, calmer, redemptive perspective on our lives. Each card identifies a fresh perspective we might take on problems – perspectives colored by time, space, history, culture and travel among others – nudging us gently and compassionately towards a more liveable relationship with our difficulties.

Drawing on in-depth analysis, How to Find Love explains our instinct for romantic self-sabotage and provides a crucial set of ideas to help us make safer, more imaginative and more effective choices in love.

• A GUIDE TO MAKING BETTER DECISIONS IN LOVE: and how to choose the "right" partner.
• PRESENTS THE TOOLS WE NEED: to break unhealthy relationship habits.
• PART OF THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S GIFTABLE ESSAYS SERIES: other titles include Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person, Why We Hate Cheap Things, and Self-Knowledge.
• DRAWS FROM THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S CORE CURRICULUM

Confidence is a skill that anyone can learn.

Despite the confidence we build over time in our field of work, we tend to overlook the primordial need for a more free ranging variety of confidence - one that can serve us in the course of our everyday lives: speaking to strangers at parties, asking someone to marry us, asking someone on the train to turn down their music, changing the world. 

This is a guidebook to confidence, why we lack it, and how we can gain more if it in our lives. On Confidence walks us gently through key issues that hold us back, and gives us the tools we need to fulfil our potential. 

• LEARN THE SKILL OF CONFIDENCE and how to apply it to everyday life.
• AN IN-DEPTH EXPLORATION of confidence and how we can achieve it.
• A PRACTICAL AND INSPIRATIONAL GUIDE to overcoming imposter syndrome, self sabotage, and much more.
• PART OF THE SCHOOL OF LIFE'S ESSAY BOOK SERIES including: Self Knowledge, The Sorrows of Work, The Sorrows of Love, How To Find Love, How To Reform Capitalism, What Is Culture For?, What Is Psychotherapy?, Why We Hate Cheap Things, Why You Will Marry The Wrong Person.

Anyone we might marry could be wrong for us - even just a little bit. We know that perfection is not in the cards. And yet, errors of deep-seated incompatibility in married couples seem to occur regularly. 

This informative (and funny) book examines the reasons why - and then suggests a new approach to marriage. The time has come to bury the Romantic intuition-based view of marriage and learn to practice and rehearse marriage as one would ice-skating or violin playing, activities no more deserving of systematic periods of institution.

• BASED ON THE NEW YORK TIMES MOST-READ ARTICLE OF 2016
• A THOUGHT-PROVOKING ESSAY COLLECTION about relationships and marriage. 
• A PESSIMIST'S GUIDE TO MARRIAGE offering insight, practical advice, and consolation. 

An essential guide to modern etiquette—now in paperback 

Life is full of awkward social situations; we forget someone's name while making introductions, we're stuck on the elevator with our boss, we run into our ex on a first date. While these dilemmas might feel trivial, they tap into some of the deepest themes of our social existence: how to pursue our own agenda while honoring the happiness and needs of others? How to go beyond the surface level when relating to another person? 

Featuring twenty case studies from our modern world, this book puts good manners back at the center of our lives. Far from being old fashioned or stuffy, The School of Life argues, etiquette provides a framework through which to create a kinder and more considerate world. 

• THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ETIQUETTE IN THE 21ST CENTURY 
• NAVIGATING OUR MOST AWKWARD SOCIAL SITUATIONS this practical and relevant guide offers tips and scripts. 
• TWENTY CASE STUDIES AND ACTIONABLE ADVICE for dealing with common social dilemmas. 
• HOW TO WIN PEOPLE OVER, how to approach strangers at a party, and how to write an effective thank you note - the chapters in this book address common perplexing social situations head on. 
• BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY THROUGHOUT

Twenty case studies explaining how to gently deliver a range of life’s most awkward messages while causing minimal harm.

Life constantly requires us to give other people some hugely awkward messages: that we don’t love them anymore; that we do love them (though we’re not meant to); that they smell a bit; that they’re fired; that we’re furious with them (though we adore them) or that their music is too loud...

Often, out of embarrassment, we just stay quiet. Occasionally we explode. And typically, we stumble about, looking for the right words – dreading that we didn’t find them and thereby causing more hurt than we should.

This is a book to help us locate the best possible words to get across a range of life’s most difficult messages. With twenty case studies drawn from relationships, friendships, work, our families, and social situations, we are gently shown what we might – in an ideal world – find ourselves saying to make our intentions known while causing minimal harm. We are guided, among other topics, to how best to end a relationship, how to make it up with a child, and how gently to let down a friend who wants more.

We laugh, we recognize our troubles – and we’re introduced to a range of deeply empathetic ways to navigate some of our most acute social dilemmas.

• GIFT: beautifully packaged in premium gift format.
• A PRACTICAL GUIDE: helpful advice on navigating a range of awkward social situations, from the everyday to the unforeseen.
• PLAYFUL ILLUSTRATIONS: a fun, entertaining read.
• ENGAGING: case studies help demonstrate effective communication in family, work, and relationships.
• SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE: crucial tools for navigating social situations with ease.

40 Place Cards with 80 Questions for Sparking Meaningful and Revealing Conversations Around the Table 

“If you had to write a book, what would it be about?”

A meal with friends is only ever as good as the questions we ask one another. 

Too often, we fall back on polite but not so inspired staples: “What are you doing this weekend?” or “What do you do for work?”, and so on. But there are better kinds of questions – questions that work like magic to open up our hearts, draw out our memories and promote generosity, fun and interesting conversation.

This pack collects 80 of these sorts of questions to ensure a meal together can be at once meaningful, entertaining and touching. For casual dinners with friends, or potentially rife holiday meals with relatives.

Laid out on place cards, the questions gently and charmingly pull our fellow diners towards the sort of topics that matter most to our deeper selves – and help us get the most out of one another.

Drawing as a therapeutic practice - for any level - including 80 guided drawing exercises as an aid to self-understanding and fulfillment.

When we’re young, all of us draw.

Drawing as Therapy is a collection of playful, creative prompts and exercises that introduce us to the curative powers of drawing. Divided into eight chapters, they invite us to reflect on different aspects of our life and psyche – our personality, moods, memories and passions – by attempting to render them through art. Through art, you can discover hidden byways of our minds, find new perspectives on our difficulties, summon a state of calm, and begin a process of self-recovery and healing.

The exercises won’t teach you how to draw. Instead, they will teach you an entirely new way of thinking about drawing, where there is no such thing as failure or success, only self-discovery and, in the best sense, play.

• INSPIRATIONAL this inspirational guide prompts us to express ourselves creatively and use artistic expression as a form of emotional release.
• NO ONE IS WATCHING the point is not to draw well, but to draw with authenticity, no matter your level of artistic ability.
• 80 DRAWING EXERCISES surprising, innovative, like SARK but with a British soul...
• 8 UNIQUE THEMES Self, Mood, Memory, Play, Love, Calm, Perspective & Re-enchantment.
• DRAWING AS THERAPY draws from psychological theories by Adrian Hill, Edward Adamson and Donald Winnicott.
• GIFT beautifully produced, premium gift format.
• SOLVE PROBLEMS AS YOU DRAW with research-backed therapeutic prompts.

52 exercises to stimulate creativity, playfulness and innovative thinking

Whatever our job title, our work will always benefit from new ideas and fresh ways of thinking. We’re used to regarding inspiration as something that arrives more or less at random; it is in fact a skill that we can learn to develop in ourselves and call on whenever we need it.

Inspiration gives us a toolkit for generating new ideas. Here are 52 exercises designed to foster an inventive frame of mind. We don’t need to wait for inspiration to strike! With this set, we can kindle inspiration when we need it. Each exercise prompts us to work on a particular creative muscle and helps us to establish the psychological conditions for original work. Drawing insights from the worlds of art, music, psychotherapy and innovation, this is an invaluable (and playful) resource for creatives and professionals alike, helping our minds to become more reliable, lightning rods to stoke flashes of inspiration.

60 prompt cards designed to help you find compassion and empathy

We are all interested in being kind—at least, in theory. In practice, a lot gets in the way: tiredness, anger, bitterness. But a lack of kindness lies at the heart of so much of what goes wrong at work, in friendships, and in love. These Kindness Prompt Cards present us with a series of thoughts that nurture our sympathy, our powers of compassion, and our appetite for forgiveness. They return us to who we always want to be and deep down already are: kind people.