An Inspiring Guide to Becoming Your Best Self At Any Age

Your One Wild and Precious Life

An Inspiring Guide to Becoming Your Best Self in Midlife and Beyond

No 1 Bestseller and Irish Book Award Winner! 
 
&quot;A profound, important work, simultaneously wise, instructive and a love letter to humanity&quot; Irish Times 
 
A ground-breaking new framework for embracing middle age and beyond 
 
Middle-age is cross-roadsy - having arrived, you're looking back in wonder about how you got here, and also looking ahead, thinking: where to next? The realisation that neither time nor choices are limitless is both daunting and exciting - this is the moment to take stock and figure out how to make the best of every precious moment of your second act. 
 
Your One Wild and Precious Life is an eye-opening account of this vital and surprisingly liberating life-stage. Crucially, it sets out how you can transform your thinking to reclaim control over your life, connect with who you truly are and face the future with joy and a sense of purpose. This is both radical and reassuring - a book to fundamentally alter your relationship with time and to help you to understand that every age can be your best age. 
____________ 
 
'I recognised entire sections that seemed to have been written just for me ... I don't think I've ever taken so many notes' - Irish Times 
 
'A book I will keep by my bedside forever' Deirdre O'Kane, Sunday Times 
 
'Warm, wise and immensely readable ... peppered with insights and advice about how to become your best self' - Irish Mail on Sunday 
 
'Solid and practical advice about how to navigate those tricky, hurdle-strewn yeas that lie in between finishing the child-rearing and preparing oneself for dotage' - Sunday Independent

A profound, important work; simultaneously wise, instructive and a love letter to humanity . . . I recognised entire sections that seemed to have been written just for me . . . I don't think I've ever taken so many notes

A book I will keep by my bedside for ever

Warm, wise and immensely readable . . . peppered with insights and advice about how to become your best self

Solid and practical advice on how to navigate those tricky, hurdle-strewn years that lie between finishing the child-rearing and preparing oneself for dotage

Your One Wild and Precious Life . . . will transform your thinking

The rotund nature of the work makes it feel like a foundational text, accessible to anyone who seeks to know more about themselves and something any trainee psychologist would enjoy. It astutely examines how attachments to people or patterns can speed up, stunt or spark our growth, and, most importantly, what we can do about it. 
 
No matter where you locate yourself in this book there's an energy to the prose that makes it a fascinating read. 
 
But if every love story is a ghost story, as David Foster Wallace says, then Gaffney's new book resurrects your original love story and the ghost that it conjures. She provides instructions on how to vanquish the past and understand connection, so a new cycle of living is possible. 
 
This book is a powerful reminder that history does not have to dictate our future if we can, somehow, amid the chaos of life, listen now and again.

This book is a practical guide to making the most of our lives, within a revised framework, at every stage.

Gaffney invariably gets to the core of things and always seems to talk to one directly. If she has a recipe for facing the next stage in life, it's going to be one worth trying

Middle-age is cross-roadsy - having arrived, you're looking back in wonder about how you got here, and also looking ahead, thinking: where to next? The realisation that neither time nor choices are limitless is both daunting and exciting - this is the moment to take stock and figure out how to make the best of every precious moment of your second act. 
 
Your One Wild and Precious Life is an eye-opening account of this vital and surprisingly liberating life-stage. Crucially, it sets out how you can transform your thinking to reclaim control over your life, connect with who you truly are and face the future with joy and a sense of purpose. This is both radical and reassuring - a book to fundamentally alter your relationship with time and to help you to understand that every age can be your best age.

How to achieve a deeper sense of well-being and purpose in a crisis

Flourishing

'A realistic approach to positive thinking' Sunday Times 
 
Do you want to be better at pursuing goals, grasping opportunities and facing set-backs? Do you want to FLOURISH? 
 
Psychologist Maureen Gaffney believes that in an increasingly uncertain world it is not only possible for us to flourish but essential that we take steps to do so. 
 
In Flourishing she shows you how to: 
 
- Achieve a deeper sense of well-being, meaning and purpose 
- Use adversity as a positive turning point 
- Train your mind to pay attention 
- Master your motions and focus on your goals 
 
This gripping, stimulating and inspiring book will help you change your life for the better. 
 
Get ready to flourish!

A realistic approach to positive thinking

It is the science and professional experience at Gaffney's disposal that makes her book so relevant  ... presented in such a friendly and persuasive way that it's hard to resist

Shows us how we can approach life with a renewed sense of vigour and purpose

Maureen Gaffney

Maureen Gaffney's simple strategies for positive thinking can put the feel-good factor back into your life.

Notes on staying grounded in unsettled times

This book is about the most important lessons I have learned in my life . . .Dr Maureen Gaffney has long been admired for her ability to combine rigorous psychological insight with clarity and real-world understanding. Now, in About Life, she has distilled the key insights of her career into an urgent book for the times we are living through.In About Life, Dr Gaffney brings together research, a lifetime of observation and her own personal experience to explore the question that matters most in uncertain times: how do we stay resilient, purposeful and fully engaged with life when the world feels increasingly unstable?From relationships, stress and happiness to identity, purpose, ageing and human connection, she examines the habits of mind that help us navigate change, recover from setbacks and build and sustain lives of meaning and substance.Written with her characteristic intelligence, honesty and empathy, About Life is a wise and essential guide to living well in unsettled times.

Maureen Gaffney

Praise for About Life

Maureen Gaffney's simple strategies for positive thinking can put the feel-good factor back into your life.

Books by Maureen Gaffney

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter