Tag: book reviews

Sacred Contracts

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My mentor stayed clean for decades. I think he was motivated to live drug-free because he wanted more than anything to help people.

If you ask me figuring out your Sacred Contract–essentially your life purpose–can give you the motivation to stay healthy and care for yourself.

Caroline Myss believes our sacred contracts are life assignments given to us to carry out in this lifetime.

A client of hers is quoted in the book Sacred Contracts. Liza had dreamed she was in a small rowboat going in circles. She could see an ocean liner in the distance and wanted to be on that ship not stuck where she was. Liza had been paralyzed in an accident and had to makeover her career and her life.

To quote Liza: “The key is to learn to row the boat you were given.”

I recommend you buy these two Myss books. Any kind of self-improvement project that is healthy shouldn’t be frowned on. We should only be competing against how we were yesterday–not against what other people can do today.

I say: “No thank you” to critics who compare peers to people who don’t have MH issues. The size of another person’s ocean liner shouldn’t concern us.

In a coming blog entry I’m going to talk about The Myth of Competitive Employment.

My New Year’s Goal

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The science is clear: people can and do keep New Year’s resolutions.

How is this possible? They start and follow through on a 90-day action plan.

The action plan is executed in a step-by-step fashion. Each stage of the plan must be followed in a specific order: Psych Prep Plan Perspire and Persist.

Following the steps out of order or getting stuck in a certain step–a step mismatch–makes it harder to achieve your goal.

The bulk of the action plan occurs over two months where you’re actively engaged in the new behavior.

You can read the book Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions to see how it’s possible to yes keep a New Year’s resolution.

It’s available as an e-book so you can install it on your iPad or other device.

The author reminds the reader that drawing upon outside support is crucial in making your goal happen.

My goal is to eat more healthful food six days a week.

To this end I have signed up for a meal delivery service.

I’ve ordered chicken with diced sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts, turkey with mashed turnips and broccoli, a side of sweet potato wedges, a side of broccoli, and a side of Brussels sprouts. Plus an apple muffin and chocolate avocado balls and pancakes.

I will report back in here how the food tastes. You simply heat-and-eat the food so there’s no long arduous prep time to get the meals ready.

It’s the KettleBell Kitchen service and available in the New York City area.

I will report back this weekend on my experience.

My Second Nonfiction Book

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I’ve been remiss in publishing blog entries here because I’ve been editing and revising the book proposal for the second nonfiction book I want to publish.

It’s a one-of-its-kind career guide. I will be able to tell you more about this in October.

October is Disability Employment Awareness Month.

Coming up in October I will return to writing about career topics.

As of tonight I’ll be returning to writing blog entries here.

What I’d like to start out writing about this week is a true story.

It goes back to my time working as an administrative assistant in an insurance office.

That was my first-ever full-time job after I stopped collecting government benefits.

Stay tuned.

 

 

Changeology

Christina BruniLeave a comment

I’m in the middle of getting my second non-fiction book ready to publish soon. I hope to be able to publish this book within two years from now.

For now I would like to talk again about goal-setting.

It’s going to be spring soon and I think new season is the perfect time to make changes.

To this end I’d like to recommend a book–Changeology–about setting and achieving goals.

It’s a 5-Step process that has been scientifically documented in research as being effective in getting results.

The only drawback I find to the book is that it focuses only on changing negative behaviors like smoking and drinking and bad parenting.

You CAN use the book to create other behavior changes that are positive. You just won’t find your particular behavior talked about in the book. Yet you can still use this proven 5-Step process to execute change.

Using this system might indeed help a person stop smoking or drinking or overeating or whatever their unproductive habit is.

I will continue to talk about goal-setting in here in the coming blog entries.