Pond Notes.
Long thoughts. Short reads. The Waddle Forward blog.
A handful of essays each month on self-help that doesn’t pretend to have the answer. New posts every other Tuesday at 6am Brisbane time.
Start here.
Read in any order. Each post stands alone. Together they map the brand.
The Eldest Daughter Has A New Name And It Is Burnout
Eldest daughter syndrome is having a moment. Here is what the diagnosis is missing, and which book to start with if you recognised yourself in the second paragraph.
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What To Read When You Cannot Enforce A Boundary To Save Your Life
Five books on boundaries for people who have read every boundaries book and still cannot enforce one. The cost is not in the saying. It is in the holding.
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The Quiet Cost Of Being The Friend Everyone Calls
Helper burnout is not the helping. It is the asymmetry. What happens to the friend everyone calls, and what to do about it before you stop answering the phone.
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How To Do Less Without Feeling Like A Failure
Doing less is a craft. The guilt is the obstacle. Here is how to reduce the volume of your week without your nervous system filing a complaint.
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What “Waddle Forward” Actually Means And Why It Is Not “Move On”
The phrase is meant to be funny. It is also meant to be exact. Move on is the marketing copy. Waddle forward is the engineering specification.
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Tired Or Burnt Out? Which One Is It?
Tired and burnt out look the same from the outside. They are not the same. Here is the difference, and the rest plan that works for each.
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Ten Self-Help Books for People Who Are Tired of Self-Help Books
A recommendation list for people who have read the genre, owned the journal, done the breathwork, and somehow still google the same three questions at 11pm.
Disappointing Affirmations: The Genre Nobody Asked For
Anti-affirmation affirmations for humans barely holding it together. Each one starts the way an affirmation is supposed to, then tells you the truth.
Why “Hold Your Ducks” Is Better Advice Than “Hold Your Tongue”
Boundaries advice for people who have read the boundaries books and still cannot enforce a single one. The actual sentences. The duck count. The order in which to put things down.
What “The Strong One Is Tired” Is Actually About
Burnout for the dependable ones. The eldest siblings, eldest daughters, the friend everybody calls in a crisis. The book for the person who reads everybody else’s books for them.
The Permission Slip You Were Never Going to Get
A short essay on why you are still waiting for someone to tell you it’s allowed. Nobody is coming. Here’s the slip.
What To Read After “You Are A Badass”: A Reading List for the Disillusioned
You read it. It worked for a week. Then it didn’t. A reading list of six books that pick up where Badass leaves off, ranked from still-optimistic to honest-about-it.
An Emotional Support Duck Is Not a Metaphor
What the Waddle Forward duck is actually for. Why a duck on every page that matters is not a gimmick.
Why I Wrote a Book Called “Hold My Ducks”
The story of the title. Why it is a joke and also exactly the subject of the book. Three things in this book that are not in other boundaries books.
Self-Help That Doesn’t Pretend to Have the Answer
Why most self-help books are written from a finish line that doesn’t exist, and a short list of the ones that admit it.
The Award-Winning Year I Spent Writing From the Middle
What it means to win the 2025 Emotional Education Author of the Year for a series of books explicitly about not having it together.
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