Living on Purpose
Five Deliberate Choices to Realize Fulfillment
Evincing a sense of respect for every person, Living on Purpose is a self-help book about recognizing and normalizing one’s insecurities.
Amy Eliza Wong’s motivational and compassionate self-help book Living on Purpose suggests means of authentic living.
Though Wong asserts that people are born whole and exactly as they should be, she notes that doubt, fear, and feelings of worthlessness begin at one’s first experience of rejection, after which avoiding, negating, or hiding self-doubt becomes habitual. As a counter for this, the book names five methods for leaving negative understandings about oneself behind in order to live with intention—listening to one’s inner desires and motivations, and quieting inner assertions that one does not deserve a good life.
The five methods are mental choices that include electing to “feel it out” and deciding to know “that it’s always working out for you.” They are fleshed out with insightful personal examples, sociological theories, research, and anecdotes from coaching clients’ experiences. Wong elucidates her own core decision, too; the result is a vulnerable text that reveals how the process works at each stage, with Wong showing how she healed from her core belief that she was a burden, which was rooted in an experience when she was three years old, using the methods shared in the text.
Each of the book’s conversational and relatable three parts includes exercises and tidbits for integrating the five choices into one’s everyday life. In addition to the exercises, there are checklists, bulleted points, questions, graphics, and call outs that engage the imagination. Each of the five choices is also condensed into short, playful maxims—as when the second choice is shortened to “stop shoulding on yourself”—that deepen understanding.
Though the book is engaging and supportive, with empowering suggestions that stand to help people alter their mindsets, it also limits itself by targeting affluent audiences with “amazing [lives] on paper”—including careers, houses, and spouses. Audiences who do not “have it all” may be less served by the book’s suggestions that negative thoughts and “shoulds” are the true barrier between them and a blissful life. Still, while the five choices won’t lift people out of harder situations, they are built on the foundational notion that everyone is worthy just the way that they are—a balm for those in the midst of struggles and hardships.
Evincing a sense of respect for every person, Living on Purpose is a self-help book about recognizing and normalizing one’s insecurities so that they can be moved on from in order to live a more fulfilling life.
Reviewed by
Jenna Jaureguy
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
