Jessica Cassity's book offers an easy tip for each day of the year.

As a cynical New Yorker, we often don’t set much stock in “how-to” books that promise inspiration, but we plan to start 2012 with two: Jessica Cassity’s Better Each Day: 365 Tips for a Healthier, Happier You (Chronicle, 2011) and Monica Bhide’s In Conversation with Exceptional Women (BookBaby, 2011).

As the name implies, Better Each Day has enough advice to fill a year, but you don’t need to read them in order. The tips, which tackle everything from exercise to nutrition to relationships, are good for any day or season and are based on the latest research and studies, as well as advice from experts.

Beauty consultant Siobhan O’Connor, co-author of No More Dirty Looks: The Truth About Your Beauty Products and the Ultimate Guide to Safe and Clean Cosmetics (Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2010) tells us how to find out whether a beauty product is as green as it claims. Amanda Rose, Ph.D., associate professor in the University of Missouri department of psychological sciences, suggests how to stop overanalyzing events and dwelling on them to avoid anxiety.

Other tips include how to take control of your own happiness and easing back into exercise — something on many minds around this time of year. And since each day’s worth of reading is only a page, we feel confident that we’re already realistic about our daily reading! And since it’s a leap year, we can skip a day without any guilt. We plan to leave the book by the bedside and start each day with a healthful, easy lesson.

When we asked Cassity to share a tip to start the new year on a positive note, she suggested taking the time to go for a nature walk to improve mood and for a feeling of calm. “Even five minutes makes a difference,” she says.

Bhide’s book, available only as  a Kindle edition, has interviews with 56 strong, successful women, including Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi, Food Network star Daisy Martinez and best-selling novelist Allison Winn Scotch. The women vary in age, experience and perspective, so there’s a lot to learn. Each Q&A is short, though, so it’s easy to fit the reading into a busy day.

Bhide suggests making a dream board to begin the new year — a collage of positive images. And don’t censor yourself, thinking, “I’m too old to be a ballet dancer” or “I’ll never have time to take a cruise,” she says. “When you think about what’s realistic,” Bhide says, “you set up your own limitations. Put up things that make you genuinely happy.”

How do you find motivation to tackle your New Year’s resolutions?

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