I first read The Desire Map last January when I joined one of the London groups for Danielle Laporte’s world’s largest book club.

This ended up being one of the best decisions I made after moving to London, as it introduced me to an amazing group of women. A few of them quickly became my closest friends in the UK.

The book was a complete gamechanger for me as well. Learning the desire mapping process has transformed how I live my day-to-day life, set goals, and go after the things that I want.

Danielle flips the goal-setting process on its head by starting with how you want to feel and working backwards to figure out what steps you need to take to get there.

When you look at life this way, everything shifts. Achieving some of the big goals you thought were paramount to your happiness no longer make sense because you realize they’ll never help you feel how you want to feel.

And instead of pinning your happiness on some future accomplishment or event, you find ways to weave the feelings you want through all of your daily decisions, big and small.

The book helps you work through the process of honing in on what Danielle calls your “core desired feelings” – the feelings that motivate your decisions, whether you’re conscious of them or not.

We all want to feel good but sometimes we’re pretty mixed up when it comes to what will actually accomplish that. And feeling good means different things for different people.

My core desired feelings are magic, expansion, love, and adventure. I try to keep them in front of me all of the time: on a giant vision board in my room, carved into a candle on my altar, and scrawled on the front page of my Filofax. That way they’re always at the forefront of my mind, shaping my decisions and guiding me to prioritize feeling good rather than pesky “shoulds” that threaten to infringe on my happiness.

It’s the perfect book for January, when we’re all busy making plans and plotting out lives for the coming months, and I know I’ll come back to it year after year.

Here are what some of the other self-love book club babes thought about the book:

“For as long as I can remember I’ve been horrible at keeping goals. After reading The Desire Map I finally realize it’s because I’ve simply been setting goals the wrong way! Through Danielle LaPorte’s guidance I’ve learned to use my desires to create goals with soul. I no longer dread the work involved but rather I feel inspired to work towards my goals.”
- Cole

“As a Mickel Therapist, a treatment for energy disorders which emphasizes the importance of listening to your emotions and tuning into your intuition, The Desire Map’s way of goal setting fully resonated with me. I love her approach of touching base with our bodies & souls, putting our desired feelings at the very centre of every action and life decision. Personally, I really liked the bit about appreciating what’s already working – it noticeably shifted my focus towards more gratitude. Great choice of book for the start of the year!”
- Nikola

“I knew I needed The Desire Map in my life from the moment I first came across Danielle LaPorte. It just made sense to me. I call Danielle my ‘guru in blue jeans’, she’s both deliciously badass yet reassuringly down-to-earth, with the odd f-word thrown in for good measure. The Desire Map is goal setting for the spiritually aware, modern young woman and it’s made a huge difference in my life. Instead of chasing an endless list of things to do, that inevitably all end up feeling pretty meaningless once I get there, The Desire Map has encouraged me to let my heart take the wheel, and my feelings be my guide. Dive in to The Desire Map, for goodness’ sake.” 
– Lauren

Have you read The Desire Map? Be sure to leave a comment sharing your thoughts on the book. I’d love to hear what your core desired feelings and how you’ve been using them to shape your goals and decisions.

This month we’re reading Outrageous Openness by Tosha Silver. Thanks so much to Nikola for suggesting it. I’d never heard of Tosha before and I’m really looking forward to diving into this one.

Bear hugs and bunny kisses,

Reading has played such an important role in my own personal growth and transformation. When there was wisdom I was seeking, when I wasn’t sure where to turn, or what to do next, there was almost always a book to point me in the right direction.

Of course a book alone won’t change your life. We need to turn inwards and tune into what we already know. You can’t learn anything you aren’t ready to hear. But a powerful book can help us look at the world in new ways, offer guidance or encouragement when we’re feeling lost, and reinforce the new beliefs we’re forming.

Self-love is a commitment we make to our relationship with our self. A promise to put ourselves first. A pledge to completely accept who we are, right now, in this present moment. But it doesn’t have to be a solitary journey. By connecting with other people who are on this same adventure and as deeply invested in their own growth as I am, I am led to new insights. My life fills with more joy. And I move along this path of self-love with more ease.

For all of these reasons, I started the Self-Love Book Club. It began as a digital project connecting like-minded women online as we read a book each month, sharing our thoughts, reflecting on how what we’d read pertained to our own lives, and how we wanted to put these new lessons into action.

In August, after one year and 12 books, I put the club on hiatus while I tried to figure out what it’s future would look like. Over the few months while we’ve been dormant, I’ve had continued interest in the group and old and new members of the club have expressed their desire for me to bring it back.

So, that’s exactly what I’m doing. During the first week of January I’ll be announcing our first book of the new year.

But here’s the really exciting part:

I’m going to be co-hosting an in-person Self-Love Book Club in London with the lovely Nicola. We’ll meet once a month to discuss the book in person alongside the online discussion and monthly recap posts. I love the power of our digital community but I think it’s important to get offline and meet our tribes face to face. To laugh and connect and share cups of tea over deep conversations.

There will be limited places for the in-person book club, so if you’d like to join us, please drop me an email.

If you’re not based in London, never fear. You can always join us on Facebook. And I encourage you to consider becoming a book club leader yourself. For anyone interested, I’ll be sending over a PDF of tips for putting together a book club in your own town and each month I’ll send you over some reflection questions and pointers for facilitating the discussion with your group. Just send me an email to let me know where you’re based and tell me a bit about yourself. Then I’ll together a directory of all the participating clubs, so that you can find out whether there’s one near you.

I’m so excited to get back into the book club and meet some of you for the first time (!!!). In the meantime, let me know: will you be joining us online or in-person? What should we add to the reading list this year?

Hugs and kisses,

Images by Justin Ryan Vaughan.