Why I Wrote Steady

Steady: The Self-Care Guidebook and Journal is on pre-sale now. Copies ship from 16 November 2026.

The Guidebook in Steady brings together all the things I learned, tried and implemented over many years. In the book, I tell the story of the day when I finally realised I had to make changes, that I couldn’t go on the way I had been forever. I imagine that some of you reading this have found yourself in a similar position, perhaps many times over. The question always is: what can you do about it? If you’re like me, you are aware that it is not realistic or even possible to just walk away and leave it all behind (as much as you might feel like it!). So, on that fateful day, I knew I couldn’t just go to bed and wake up the next morning to a completely different life. Instead, I set about finding out how I could make the kind of changes that would make a difference; to how I felt, how I was coping, and how I was showing up in my own life.

It was only years later, looking back, that I realised that it was possible to have done everything much more simply had I had a resource to show me what had taken me so long to discover myself! That was when the idea of creating a journal came into my mind. I had no idea where to start, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. I actively focused on manifesting a pathway to lead me to fulfilling that dream (but that is a story for another time!).

What I keep seeing

I keep meeting a lot of people who know they're stretched. They can feel that something is going to give, and very often they know they can't carry on this way.

And there's a pattern I see, again and again: when we finally admit something is wrong, we reach for something drastic – like a new job or a punishing new routine. Or, of course, a big reset on the first of the month, or the first of the New Year. We go ahead and pile something new on top of a life that is already buckling and then wonder why we end up abandoning all our resolutions, or why our new life doesn't stick.

You can add things to your life, of course. But there has to be a structure stable enough to carry whatever you add on to it. When you're depleted, you don't have the energy, the bandwidth, nor, most of all, the clear head to make big changes well.

First, you need to get steady.

What Steady is for

Steady is a self-care guidebook and journal for exactly that moment: when you want things to change, but you're too worn out to know where to start and too stretched to add more weight without snapping.

It begins with stock-taking: an honest look at what's going on beneath the surface. What needs to go to make room, what's working and should stay, what might need to be added. Where a shift in how you see something, or how you respond to it, would lighten the load.

The changes it asks of you are small on purpose. They're micro-changes, designed to take weight off you, help you replenish, and protect your energy and your mental and emotional capacity, but small enough to manage on a day when you can barely drag yourself out of bed; yet when consistently done, they're enough to add up and make a real difference.

Self-care, taken seriously

When I first started on my journey to get myself back on track, I thought that self-care meant taking candle-lit baths and going for a monthly facial and manicure. But while those were lovely, they weren’t really the kind of self-care that brings about the type of change that was needed. It took me a long while to find out what real self-care is.

The self-care in Steady is grounded in the everyday maintenance that stops you running yourself into the ground: proper sleep; a meal eaten sitting down; reading instead of scrolling; noticing that your jaw has been clenched since before you woke up, and how to do something about it.

The guidebook is built around, what I call, the three jewels in your crown:

Your body. A body running on empty can't hold emotional steadiness, so this is where we begin: rest, sleep, movement, nourishment, and a body-mapping exercise you can do in under five minutes.

Your emotional world. Trying to do deep emotional repair while your nervous system is on high alert is like walking a tightrope without a safety net. Here you'll learn to notice when you've tipped out of balance, name what you're feeling, and rewrite the inner voice that guilts you out of putting yourself first for a change.

Your sense of meaning. You'll map where your energy is going, decide what you can release, and use a compass to find the direction your life is asking for right now, starting from small, ordinary moments rather than big questions about purpose.

The journal pages then give you somewhere to come back to, day after day. Each day you check in with how you really are, ask what your body is nudging you towards, and choose a quality to carry through the day in an exercise called Wear Your Crown.

Where Crown Intentions™ comes in

When I started taking my own needs seriously, I didn’t call them Crown Intentions™, but I visualised them as me putting a crown on my own head. Later, I called those choices Crown Intentions: the decision to stop placing myself beneath everything else, and to start treating myself as the authority on my own needs, and to take back my autonomy and sovereignty.

Steady is the first journal built on Crown Intentions. You'll see it on the spine, and it runs through every page. It's about choosing, intentionally, what you keep in your life, what you let go of, and what you make room for.

It's also the first in a series. Later journals will pick up where Steady leaves off, for when you're ready to start shaping the life you want. Steady comes first because everything after it depends on it.

Who it's for

Steady is for you if you're tired in a way a weekend doesn't fix, for if you're holding everything together and desperately wondering how much longer you can. It is also for you if you know something needs to change, but you can't find the energy to work out what.

For some people, getting steady will be enough on its own: you'll find yourself more stable, more in control, more able to cope. For others, it's these acts of clearing that shows them what actually needs to change next. Either way, you'll be making that decision from solid ground.

If you've been hoping to go to bed and wake up to a completely different life, or you keep telling yourself a big reset in the New Year will fix it, I'd love Steady to be where you start instead!

Anne x

Get your copy

Steady is available to pre-order now at contoura-collective.co.uk, and copies ship from 16 November.