Slow Living: Cultivating a Life of Purpose in a Hustle-Driven World

by Stephanie O'Dea

In Slow Living, New York Times bestselling author Stephanie O’Dea takes her famous slow cooking tips from the crockpot to everyday life to help readers reject hustle culture and develop the practical skills to slow down.

In today’s world of social media and overconsumption, we are constantly being told that what we have isn’t good enough and that we should continue to hustle for something bigger, better, or more expensive. But what if the key to living a more satisfied life was to simply slow down and listen to your intuition?

Slow Cultivating a Life of Purpose in a Hustle-Driven World is a how-to guide on creating the life you’ve always dreamt about—one filled with purpose, abundance, and a sense of inner peace. Combining stories from her own life and childhood, along with real client testimonials and transformations from her work as a life coach, O’Dea gives readers actionable steps to envision their future and create long-term, sustainable success in their everyday lives.

In Slow Living, Stephanie O’Dea provides readers with the tools slow living and its many benefitsidentify their purpose in lifedream big and visualize their futurebuild a solid foundation for successstay consistent through the ups and downs of lifefind inner peace in a fast-paced world
Through simple, actionable changes, Slow Living will help readers create the life they desire—one that is fulfilling, satisfying, and lived with intention.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

Published September 24, 2024

About the author

STEPHANIE O’DEA is a New York Times best-selling author and award-winning blogger who has been featured on Rachael Ray and Good Morning America. Her websites garner over a million hits a month, and she currently has over 60,000 email subscribers.

Reviews

[Bloss ♡ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oof. This was a weird combo of self-help and memoir that didn’t work for me at all. It’s very surface level and if you’re at all familiar with mindfulness or slow living, there may not be much here for you.
Despite the author’s note at the beginning, this seems heavily geared to partnered, middle-aged woman that have kids and enjoy disposable income.

What worked for me:
👍 Ditching goals and the dangers of conflating goals with purpose
👍 A job is just a way to sustain your financial needs, life and identity is to be found elsewhere
👍 SMART goals are stupid

What I wasn’t so keen on:
👎 Writing style is almost condescendingly simplistic and cheerleadery, like the author is writing for children, not adults.
👎 So many platitudes and social media-esque quotes with no substance.
👎 Too much religion
👎 Censored curse words
👎 That’s not what Vision Quest means
👎 So much advice from Disney and millionaires 🤢
👎 Embarrassing acronyms: rule one of accessible writing is don’t bury stuff in acronyms. Doubly so when it’s acronyms you’re literally inventing.
👎 The advice to too surface-level and the author is too present for this to read convincingly like a self-help non fic.
👎 For the love of god, folks, don’t throw out everything in your home. Consider the planet and release things into the circular economy… then practice mindful purchasing so you don’t accumulate stuff
👎 There’s a lot of repetition and filler within these pages, I don’t get the impression this content naturally stretched to a book
👎 The financial section is oozing with privilege and makes a lot of harmful assumptions and generalizations
👎 I didn’t like how the whole book was presented as a formula that you need to follow… kinda like a get rich quick scheme for wellbeing.
👎 The introverted/extroverted table is just plain wrong? More yeses equate introversion yet 50% of them are extroverted biased in their wording?!
👎 The formulas, annoying acronyms, repetition, fake matey-ness, pyramids all made me feel like the author was trying to sell me something. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
👎 Where was the environmental stewardship in this book?!

Do I think this has some good points?
Sure.
Do I think this works as a book?
Not really.

🤷‍♀️ I can’t in good conscience recommend this. It’s all over the place… and not in a fun way. I never want to see an acronym again.

Thanks to the publisher for making this title available to review on NetGalley.

[Em · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital ARC to review.

I requested a copy of this book to read because I struggle in trying to get it all done: work, family, bills, health, cleaning, errands, cooking, errands, etc. Plus, the fun factor.

I wanted to love this book, but the more I read, the more I disliked it.

Her target audience seems to be a married woman with school-age children. The target reader most likely has no job, a part-time job, or perhaps a 40-hour or less job.

Those who like this book are probably people who haven't given much thought to how they spend their time or money. They aren't living intentionally.

The contents are divided into four parts with each part having three or five subsections:

Mindset: The Why
The Five Steps to Slow Living: The How
The Peace Pyramid: The Reward
Walking It Out: The Journey

Had I known the author considers herself a "life coach," I wouldn't have requested a copy. I find most of these "life coaches" to be ordinary people who think they have something special to say. Need life coaching? Go to a certified, licensed counselor with a real degree from a not-for-profit higher ed institution that is accredited. I do know of life coaches who have legitimate counseling degrees, and if you want a life coach, go to that person.

I was astounded by her statement: "But I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and still live here now. This means that some of my closest friends were (and still are) atheists." Wow. What a moronic statement to make.

Her acronyms include her own, others, and repurposed ones that we have heard before, such as FOMO. Also, her made up word, "decisioning." I became more and more annoyed with all her acronyms.

What I liked because these are similar to what I have found that work for me:
-her peace pyramid (time management, health, finances, organization, and relationships)
-her 10-minute chunks
-she does reference authors whose work I love, Marie Kondo, James Clear, and Brene Brown

What I disliked:
-too much law of attraction wording
-the acronyms
-the chaotic, superfluous writing
-this is geared toward a wife and mother of school-aged kids

I have read so many more things that cover this and so much better from Marie Kondo, Martha Stewart, James Clear, Brene Brown, BJ Fogg, the Fly Lady, Simon Sinek, Kimberly Wilson, etc.

[Kelli Santistevan · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Slow Living, New York Times bestselling author Stephanie O'Dea takes her famous slow cooking tips from the crockpot to everyday life to help readers reject hustle culture and develop the practical skills to slow down.

This book was available on Netgalley as a Read Now book. I didn’t really get a lot out of reading this. The only section of the book I found helpful was when it talked about clutter and decluttering because I have clutter in my bedroom and clutter in an extra bedroom that I’m using for storage and I’m currently trying to declutter my stuff. I’m kind of limited on what I can declutter in the extra bedroom because the clutter is not just mine. The clutter is also from other family members so I can’t declutter their stuff but I can declutter my own stuff that I have in that room.

[Lola]

I received a free copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

I was unable to read this one as the file I downloaded expired before I got to it. So for now shelving it as lost interest.

[Héloïse Boisvert · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5

Parce que c'était nul, sauf par moment...

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I probably would have scored this higher if it didn’t have the most inaccurate title in the universe. This is a self help book on adulting, time management, declutterring and money, but there is nothing slow about her advice. She says you should think of your 9-5 job as more like 5-9 because you should get up at 5 a.m. every day to do things for yourself like jogging, journaling, praying and tidying up before you start taking care of everyone else and leave for work. Then expect to be going until 9 p.m. but be sure to get 7-9 hours of sleep a night (that math doesn’t math).

This is endless advice about investing for your retirement, keeping your house clean, not comparing yourself to others, etc but it’s all in surface level quick, pithy advice that doesn’t speak to the real lives of many. It’s designed for married, middle class mothers of privilege. Period. She actually suggests saving up $1.5 million for retirement, plus what you are saving for your children’s college and an emergency fund. She says she and her husband paid off her $30k credit card debt in 2 years by doing things like driving old cars and not going out to eat. You have to be making a lot more than that to simply pay rent and eat. There’s no talk about single people, people with chronic illness, people who live near the poverty line, etc.

But most of all, this book has nothing to do with slow living. I live a slow life and love it. My life could not be farther from hers even though we are both middle aged, married white mothers. Just reading this book gave me anxiety. It sounds hellish to me to get up at 5 every morning to jog and clean. That is not how I slow down.

The author is a life coach from San Francisco and that shines through. If you want to stay in the hustle culture and you live a life of relative privilege, this might give you a few helpful tips. I’m not even sure about that though, as it’s mostly personal memoir and cheerleading, with lots of anagrams and Oprah quotes.

I read a temporary digital loan of this book for review.

[Jeni · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Simple Living, O'Dea focuses on the benefits of taking life at a slower pace and then gives suggestions for ways to set up a life that lets us get to that point. One of the strongest things about this book is that O'Dea addresses the issue by focusing on what changes you can make to the structure of your life in order to feel like you are Slow Living. In comparison to other books on the topic, it is much more actionable as opposed to focused fully on changing your seeing the world. She posits that there is some planning and organizing of our life structure that lays a ground work for life to run in a more simple fashion, allowing us to then appreciate a slower pace and some of the smaller things we are thankful for.

[Carol Standish-Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guide to Simple Living is easy to read and full of actionable suggestions. It helps us take stock of our lives, our choices and enables us to move to a slower pace of life, enabling us to concentrate on what matters most to each one of us. Humans were not designed and built for the constant grind of modern life, We push our selves at work, come home to work on a side hustle and have no time for ourselves or our families. Let’s stop believing that we can have it all, do. It all and still thrive. Slow living is what we all need more of. It will just look different to each one of us.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

A goal I have for my life. Great information. Solid tools and steps to take. Easy to read. This book will help you indeed slow down and also remember what things really matter in life. I like the idea of having a foundation in place with certain elements - time management, finances, health. Without these things, it truly is difficult to have the space for much else. I also love the acronyms that help remember the tools. I have been talking about this book all the way through reading it and will continue to recommend it.

[K-Rae · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephanie truly writes from the heart. I started listening to her podcast and eventually bought the book because I liked what I heard. Having the podcast to reference about the specifics of her ideas is honestly a game changer. Any day I'm struggling I turn on an episode about resilience or discipline and I can turn it around.

I hear what other people are saying about not seeing the slow in it but how can you ever feel at peace if the other parts of your life are in chaos? It's Self Help, she can't do it for you, no one can.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like this book. It’s concise, makes sense and gives you actionable pointers. I found that it was relevant to what I needed and was a good start to making life more fulfilled but at a more sensible pace.

[Tiffany · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the better shot help books I've read. I have a difficile time reading self help books but this one didn't make me want to dnf.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just okay, kinda basic.