Hope is not a plan. This is.

Aggressive Optimism

365A 365-Day Playbook for Keeping Your Head While the World Loses Its Mind

Most self-help books get read once, then spend the rest of their lives propping open a door. This one wants a word with you every day.

Pre-order on Kindle Paperback & hardback coming soon

Aggressive Optimism by Stuart Dixon. Life will flatten you. Get up anyway. A 365-day playbook for keeping your head while the world loses its mind.

Toxic positivity says

“Everything is fine.”

Aggressive Optimism says

“Everything is a mess, but I am the solution.”

Nobody here will tell you to smile through a crisis or whisper affirmations at your toaster. Life will flatten you, and you’re still the best person to sort it out. This is optimism with its sleeves rolled up and its boots on.

What a day looks like

One story. One lesson. One thing to do today.

Every day follows the same shape: a quote to get you thinking, the story behind it, what it taught me, and a small activity to do that same day. Here’s how the year begins.

23,000 Clean Slates

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”Ralph Waldo Emerson

Context

Most of us only believe in clean slates on officially approved dates. The first of January, obviously. The first of the month, at a push. And Mondays, because nothing says “new me” like the most universally loathed day of the week.

Tuesday the fourteenth? Absolutely not. Far too random. Better to carry on eating crisps for breakfast until a more suitable date comes along, ideally one with a bank holiday attached…

Reflection

Yesterday is unrecoverable and today is the only day you can do anything about. There’s no extended warranty on this one, no refunds, and no chance of finding the receipt.

Activity

Ignite Your Day

Spend two minutes on yesterday’s baggage. Acknowledge it, then put it down.
Write one specific, achievable intention for today.
Set a reminder to check in with it once during the day, ideally before the crisps come out.

Day 1 is whichever day you open it Every 7th day: Pit Stop

Why this one’s different

Self-help that makes you laugh, then makes you act.

You actually do it.

Every day ends with a small activity for that same day. All you need is a pen, a notebook and the occasional burst of honesty, which, admittedly, is the hard bit.

It’s funny. On purpose.

Self-help that makes you laugh is self-help you come back to. Just be warned: every so often, when you least expect it, it’ll catch you right in the throat.

No guru required.

Every lesson in here was learned the hard way, usually on the third attempt, by an ordinary dad of three who has come through loss, surgery and some genuine hard times.

It works around you.

Start on any day of the year and pick up where you left off when life gets in the way. No streaks to break, and no app sulking at you for missing yesterday.

Find what you need

What kind of day is it?

The book includes a guide that sorts every chapter by what you might be going through. Pick one and you’ll see where it sends you.

About the author

Not a guru. Not a monk. Not living in a yurt.

Stuart Dixon is a dad of three and a project lead for creative and digital agencies. For thirty years he’s kept journals through the good times and the rough ones: notes written to keep himself going, never meant for anyone else.

Over the last three years, written in early mornings, late nights and the odd stolen lunch break, those notes became this book. None of what he’s been through makes him special. It just means he’s done the field research.

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