Downside Up: Book Review & Lessons Learned

Hello, my dear Hivers! Here I am again for another blog content. How have you all been? I hope everyone is still doing great in whatever pursuits it may be. I'm just here to remind you all to keep the efforts strong—you’ll eventually get there! Anyway, the blog that I am going to share today is another book review. It's an interesting one and I know, you'll be getting powerful lessons out of it. Should we get started?

The book that I am referring to is entitled DOWNSIDE UP by Tracey Mitchell. I got this book back from a book sale—pandemic times. I was just so lost in those times and needed some distractions to keep my mind sane. So, I bought a book. Its message saved me when I was so messed up. I knew it was way back 4 years ago but I reread it again in the starting year of 2023 and the feeling it gives me remains the same. The wisdom and lessons this book had were all ingrained in my mind no matter how many self-help books I've read. So…are you all excited to know what this book is all about?

ALL ABOUT THE BOOK

The book centres on transforming rejection into golden opportunities. It will teach you a lesson that experiencing rejections is not a dead-end—it’s a redirection towards greater purpose. The chapter is also full of amazing stories that you can resonate from. So, if you are having a hard time accepting failures or rejections this book is exactly what you need!

Out of the eleven chapters, I've chosen six and highlights the lessons I've learned from it.

In this chapter, the authors highlight more about the importance of embracing rejection. I do agree with the author's perspective that rejection touches everyone and it's up to us how we are going to react from it. As human beings, when facing rejections we should learn to neglect pessimism and deal with it through a positive lens. Let's understand that it's God's way of protecting us from things and opportunities that are meant to destroy us. Also, it magnifies the message of security within one self with this quote In order for you to conquer the negative words from others, you must first conquer your own negative thoughts. When faced with rejection, expect that people will always have something to say and I hope you are strong enough to display the strong mindset too.

In this chapter, the author emphasize the message of imperfection. I super agree with the authors' positions that it's totally okay to admit that you are not perfect. In everything that we do, there will always be room for imperfections and it's completely okay. We're not a perfect partner, daughter, student, employee, friend... As much as I champion this idea, there are still people out there who are struggling to let go of their perfectionist attitude. Still, we can't discredit them as we don't know where they are coming from.
We are imperfect on our own and I just hope that everyone realized it.

In this chapter, the author gives importance of not being overly focused on rejections and making little changes on making yourself better. I do agree with the author's opinion about the impact of criticism we received from our loved ones compared to the criticism we received from strangers. You can't expect everyone to like you or appreciate everything you do but don't let their damaging words stop you from reaching your greatest potential.

In this chapter, the author focused on championing the idea of confidence. I agree with the author's point that you can only find real confidence if you learn to let go of your own fears. Let's be honest, you have a long way to go if you'll never let your fear overpowers you. I think it is also equally important to have a supportive environment that will help you increase your confidence to do things you are passionate about. If your environment doesn't foster love & support, better detoxify as early as possible.

In this chapter the author solidifies the thought of bouncing back, failures after failures and emerging as a mature version of yourself. I think we all are not exempt from all of these rejections, failures, hundreds of NOs but I hope we still stand still as someone who never gives up. I get it that it's tiring to prove again that you are capable but you owe it to the dreamer inside you to continuously try. The message from this chapter that hit me so hard was this While life may throw a dozen or more NOs at you every day, there are hundreds of ways you can maintain a YES attitude. After all, it boils down to attitude— life is just testing us. Please do remember that those setbacks are just temporary, what's most important is you've got more chances to better yourself.

In this chapter, the author helps me understand how peaceful it is when you finally made the decision to wave goodbye to your past. I will not say that I don't have regrets in the past —I would sound so hypocritical for that. I even wish how amazing it would be if life has its reset button and I'll be ever freer to live my life rightly. Unfortunately, life doesn't operate that way. As the book highlights, move forward, not backward. As heartfelt as it is, we need to realize that our past will only be a place of lessons learned but not the right place to live forever.

MY REVIEW AND RATING

For this book, I would rate it a solid 5 star. The message it contains truly resonates to me. All the stories of each chapter of people transforming their hurtful rejections into a golden opportunity to strive more, makes me wanna reread this book 100 times. So....if you're looking for a book that contains all of these messages, Downside Up is the right choice for you!

That's what I've got for today my dear Hivers! I hope you enjoyed reading the book review of mine through this blog. Until next time!