This Year I Will...: How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True,Books,Free Shipping,0767920082,

	This Year I Will...: How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True by M. J. Ryan
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Product Details Binding Hardcover Dewey Decimal Number 158.1 EAN 9780767920087 ISBN 0767920082 Manufacturer Broadway Number Of Items 1 Number Of Pages 240 Publication Date December 26, 2006 Publisher Broadway Release Date December 26, 2006 Availability Usually ships in 24 hours Product Description Are you really ready to change? Take this quiz and find out. Every New Year’s Day, my list of resolutions is: Ambitious. I aim for everything from losing weight to saving more money for my retirement. Realistic. I just try to bump my good behavior up a notch--be a better friend, give more money to charity---without giving myself any strict deadlines or goals. Precise. I decide exactly how many men I will ask for a date, or how many new jobs I will apply for. Whenever I decide to change something, it’s usually because: My doctor has put the fear of God into me. I read a magazine article about why making this change is important. I start daydreaming about how great life will be after I make the change. True or False: When you want to make a big change in your life, timing is crucial. Failure is: Impossible. Inevitable. Not in my vocabulary. (The answers are on the inside back flap.) Learn the secret to making changes that stick Every so often people get inspired (again!) to lose weight, get organized, start saving, or stop worrying –but a few months later they give up, frustrated. It doesn’t have to be that way. In This Year I Wil . . .l, bestselling author M.J. Ryan offers breakthrough wisdom and coaching to help readers make this time the time that change becomes permanent. Why do people find it so hard to change? The secret is that everyone has their own formula for making changes that stick, but most people don’t know what theirs is. They think there is one way to lose five pounds, and another way to stay on top of their e-mail, but they don’t realize that for all changes, there is one system that works best for each individual. This Year I Will . . . helps you lock on to your unique formula for planning, implementing, and seeing a life change through, so you can use it again and again to tackle anything else you’d like to do. For anyone who has broken a New Year’s resolution, fallen off a diet, or given up on fulfilling a dream, the ingenious strategies, inspiring stories, and sheer motivational energy of This Year I Will . . . help you make a promise to yourself that you can actually keep. Answers to the jacket quiz: c, c, false, b. Take the whole quiz and learn your score at M.J. Ryan’s Web site, www.mj-ryan.com. Fast forward a few months (or a few weeks) into any given new year, and most peoples' resolutions have been either forgotten or abandoned. As one of the creators of the bestselling Random Acts of Kindness series, author and life coach Ryan outlines a concrete and practical strategy for following through on a resolution while dealing with all of life's other ups and downs: 'One of the tricks about change is that we have to figure out how to do it in the midst of everything else.' In encouraging, easy-to-read chapters, Ryan tackles the obstacles that keep readers from their goals and provides helpful tools and language to quell negative, self-defeating thoughts. Championing affirmation and cognitive therapy strategies, Ryan urges readers to switch from 'why' thinking to 'what could be possible' thinking, using 'right brain' skills to achieve success: 'The right brain is future oriented. It's where our aspirations, our dreams, our longings reside.' Ryan's handy self-help will prove welcome for anyone seeking gentle but solid help in achieving personal change. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Advance Praise for This Year I Will . . . 'If you're struggling and think that one more book can't possibly make a difference, think again. MJ Ryan has the rare gift of breaking things down into clear pieces that can be tackled.' —Laura Berman Fortgang, author of Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction 'This Year I Will . . . is the go-to book to learn how to start that self improvement journey---and maintain it for life!' —Pamela Peeke MD, MPH, FACP, author of Body for Life for Women Advance Praise for This Year I Will . . . 'If you're struggling and think that one more book can't possibly make a difference, think again. MJ Ryan has the rare gift of breaking things down into clear pieces that can be tackled.' —Laura Berman Fortgang, author of Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction 'This Year I Will . . . is the go-to book to learn how to start that self improvement journey---and maintain it for life!' —Pamela Peeke MD, MPH, FACP, author of Body for Life for Women Are you really ready to change? Take this quiz and find out. Every New Year’s Day, my list of resolutions is: Ambitious. I aim for everything from losing weight to saving more money for my retirement. Realistic. I just try to bump my good behavior up a notch--be a better friend, give more money to charity---without giving myself any strict deadlines or goals. Precise. I decide exactly how many men I will ask for a date, or how many new jobs I will apply for. Whenever I decide to change something, it’s usually because: My doctor has put the fear of God into me. I read a magazine article about why making this change is important. I start daydreaming about how great life will be after I make the change. True or False: When you want to make a big change in your life, timing is crucial. Failure is: Impossible. Inevitable. Not in my vocabulary. (The answers are on the inside back flap.) Learn the secret to making changes that stick Every so often people get inspired (again!) to lose weight, get organized, start saving, or stop worrying –but a few months later they give up, frustrated. It doesn’t have to be that way. In This Year I Wil . . .l, bestselling author M.J. Ryan offers breakthrough wisdom and coaching to help readers make this time the time that change becomes permanent. Why do people find it so hard to change? The secret is that everyone has their own formula for making changes that stick, but most people don’t know what theirs is. They think there is one way to lose five pounds, and another way to stay on top of their e-mail, but they don’t realize that for all changes, there is one system that works best for each individual. This Year I Will . . . helps you lock on to your unique formula for planning, implementing, and seeing a life change through, so you can use it again and again to tackle anything else you’d like to do. For anyone who has broken a New Year’s resolution, fallen off a diet, or given up on fulfilling a dream, the ingenious strategies, inspiring stories, and sheer motivational energy of This Year I Will . . . help you make a promise to yourself that you can actually keep. Answers to the jacket quiz: c, c, false, b. Take the whole quiz and learn your score at M.J. Ryan’s Web site, www.mj-ryan.com. M. J. RYAN is one of the creators of the Random Acts of Kindness series, which has sold more than one million copies, and the author of The Power of Patience, The Happiness Makeover, and many other titles. She founded Conari Press and is currently an executive coach and a popular speaker. She is a contributing editor at Good Housekeeping and a regular contributor to Health magazine. She lives in Walnut Creek, California. Sign up for M.J.’s “I Will” Power daily e-mails at www.mj-ryan.com. THE ADVENTURE OF LIVING YOUR DREAMS We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. —ARISTOTLE “This year, I'm going to stop worrying so much.” “I will get in shape, once and for all.” “I'll stop spending beyond my means.” “I'll get along better with my family.” “I'll start that business I've always dreamed about.” “I'll begin volunteering in my community.” “I'll finally learn Spanish.” How many of us have made a resolution similar to one of these? We all have something we want to change about ourselves or learn to do. Some of us want to lose weight, become more organized, or quit smoking. Others want to tackle the more existential longings: a sense of purpose, more work/life balance, the courage to leave an unfulfilling career and start over. Whether it's New Year’s Day, an important birthday, after a divorce, or just because we're fed up, at some point we vow to do that one thing we’ve always wanted—make that one leap we are afraid of or give up the thing that plagues us. But by the time the rosy blush of good intentions wears off, the resolution gets pushed aside. Not because we don’t still long to have what it is we really want; but because we just don’t know how to change. I believe that people can change. Not just superficially, or temporarily. I believe that we have the ability within us to truly rearrange our inner landscape and make changes happen within ourselves and our lives. This is the cornerstone of all the books I have written and all the work I do with my clients: the awareness that we can stop doing the things that hold us back or cause us suffering and create a life filled with meaning, peace, and ultimately, happiness. We can make a dream come true or bring something new into being. Big or small, grandiose or humble, we can have the things we want in life. But it’s not easy, as anyone who has tried to change a habit or do something new knows. Our brains create strong tendencies to do the same thing over and over. We say we're going to change, we may even do it for a little while, but soon we find ourselves back to our old habits. To bring new behavior into being takes work. Our brains have enormous “plasticity,” meaning they can create new cells and pathways. But it takes certain mental preparation, particular awarenesses and attitudes, and lots of practice to create a pathway to the new options (six to nine months, say many brain scientists—so much for those seven-day wonder programs). Change requires that we stretch not only mentally, but emotionally and spiritually. It takes energy, determination, and aspiration, the ability to intentionally bring into being something we want. It requires starting over when we blow it or get discouraged. We may be forced to question our assumptions about what we’re capable of, or confront our deepest fears. An acquaintance starting his own Internet business once told me, “My whole life I've been afraid of looking like a fool, afraid I've got a sign on my back reading ‘Idiot.’ But to get my business going, I’ll have to keep talking to people who say my idea will never work and believe enough in myself and my concept to keep moving forward.” When you go toward what you want in your life, you may find yourself in similarly challenging places. To top it all off, what works for one person doesn’t necessarily apply to another, so the advice you get from magazines, books, and the Internet may not be particularly useful for you. The good news, however, is that once you learn your particular success formula, once you’ve cultivated new inner and outer emotional, mental, and spiritual resources, you can apply those to anything you want to cultivate in yourself. Do you keep hoping that a magic fairy will appear to make your dreams come true? That if you just read enough issues of Shape those thunder thighs will disappear? You’re not alone. Most of us are not concrete enough about what we want, are unrealistic about what we can reasonably ask ourselves to learn, and don't know how to track our progress. Here’s what a new client of mine said he wanted to learn in three months: “to be less nitpicky and fearful; to be more optimistic, to be more responsible and empathetic; to be more creative; to be more productive; to live a healthier life and to take better care of myself.” “How about create world peace while you're at it?” I replied. “And what does 'more' mean anyway? Even if it were possible to focus on all of this in that time frame, how will you know if you are more of any of these things?” As this client so touchingly demonstrated, we expect too much of ourselves and we expect to change overnight. When that doesn’t happen, we resign ourselves to staying the same, convinced that we are hopeless, weak, or unmotivated—which makes us even more stuck. As another of my client, eager to lose weight, puts it, “Once I eat the first cookie, I figure I might as well go through the whole box.” Social scientists tell us that when we change a habit or follow a dream we go through five stages: precontemplation, when we don't even know we need or want to change; contemplation, when we say to ourselves, “someday I'll do that”; preparation, when we are getting ready to do it “soon”; action, as in “I’m starting right now”; and maintenance, which means we keep going until we get where we want and stay there. I’ve structured the book around these stages, beginning with preparing to change. I’m not here to convince you that you should overcome a bad habit or learn something new. I’m assuming you’ve already figured that out or else you wouldn’t be picking up this book. (Although at the beginning of Preparing to Change, I do offer a couple ways to choose which goal to focus on now.) This Year I Will … is meant to be a companion after you’ve made the leap to the contemplation stage and are looking for a hand to hold on to as you move forward. Perhaps you’ve attempted this resolution before and are worried about getting stuck again. Or maybe this is a change you have no idea how to bring into being. In either case, I want to help you increase the possibility of success. Depending on what survey you're paying attention to, approximately 45 percent of us make New Year’s resolutions, but only 8 percent succeed. Armed with the information and suggestions in this book, I know you can beat those odds. I've sifted through psychology, religion, philosophy, and brain science, as well as my experience with clients, to give you the very best advice on what actually works to get from point A to point B, no matter what your issue is. Rather than focusing on one resolution—stopping procrastination, controlling anger, finding a mate, losing weight, or getting out of debt, for instance—I will take you through the process of making whatever it is you want happen. For the past fifteen years, as a writer and a thinking partner to executives, as a mother and a daughter, a sister, a friend, a wife, I have been consumed with understanding how and why people change. I’ve wanted to learn for myself so that I can be as effective as possible with the people whom I work with every day. What did I do to grow new habits of mind and body in myself? Where and when do I screw up? Why do some folks I talk to make significant leaps while others stay stuck? My thinking about this was intensified recently when I read that 90 percent of heart patients don't stick to the lifestyle changes they need to make in order to live longer and healthier lives. Even faced with the dramatic choice to change or die, they can't do it. I don't believe they want to die. They just don't know how to make the choice for life. I’m also motivated by the flood of bad advice I've seen out there. As I write, I’m staring at the cover of a women’s magazine. It’s the November 28 issue and the headline blares: you, 43 lbs slimmer by Christmas! I’m sorry but you, no matter who you are, are not going to be 43 pounds slimmer in 28 days using their diet or anyone else's. Such irresponsible “advice” does a great deal of harm. Because it creates unrealistic expectations, it increases the probability we'll give up before we get where we want to go. What I’ve come to understand is that there are three things needed to make any change, mental, emotional, or physical: desire, intent, and persistence. Each and every one of the ideas in this book strengthens one of those three elements. You will learn how to identify what you really desire; make specific, measurable, achievable goals to focus your intention; avoid common pitfalls that sap your desire and intent; and persist in the face of inevitable setbacks. You’ll learn that the process is not about getting rid of bad habits—the pathway to your current behavior is there for life, baby—but building new, more positive ones. Even stopping a bad habit, like smoking, is really about creating a good new habit, nonsmoking. And you’ll discover that, because of the way our brains are structured, the most powerful thing you can do is to engage your emotional brain in a way that makes it easy, fun, new, and different. Some of what you’ll read will be familiar. It’s included here because it works. Other ideas, particularly the cutting–edge brain science, will hopefully give you new perspectives and practices to try. And you won’t find some usual advice, such as to reward yourself along the way. What’s important is to find out what helps you keep momentum. For some folks that turns out to be rewards, for others it’s something totally different. You will also encounter a bit of ... Customers who bought this item also bought The Life Organizer: A Woman's Guide to a Mindful Year It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff The Open Mind: Exploring the 6 Patterns of Natural Intelligence Eliminate Chaos: The 10-Step Process to Organize Your Home and Life Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat?: An Easy Plan for Losing Weight and Living More Customer Reviews for: This Year I Will...: How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True Rating - I great read and a fantastic gift. I'm someone who spent years stuck in a rut. I spent a lot of time wondering why I never got anything done but never did anything beyond wondering. I've spent the last few years turning my entire life around. I quit drinking, quit smoking, started working out, started taking my job seriously (which has garnered me two promotions in three years), and generally started taking charge of my life and I've found that I love getting up and getting to it every day. Something I never could have claimed before in my 30+ years. ... Read More Rating - this year I will This book is well written and easy to understand. The explanation of how the various parts of the brain and how to get your brain working for you was very good. An easy read that doesn't require a psychology degree to understand the material and how to use it. I have used some of the described exercises to help my clients envision their future the way they desire it to be. I recommend this book highly!!!! Rating - You can change your life This is really one of those you can change your life books that actually work. I loved the way it was written and I really felt like she cared about me. I would highly recommend for anyone who wants to make some changes in their life but is have a hard time doing so. Rating - This year I will I am a high achiever and always looking for an edge. This book was excellent, simple and easy to follow. The exercises were relevant and contributed to the learning and integration process. It had a profound affect on multiple areas of my life! Rating - This Year I Will...............How to Finally Change a Habit Not a bad book at all. The author has done a superb job in approaching the bad habit problems we humans have developed over our lifetime into another way of thinking about it. I think if you are like most people and have tried everything out there including reading various books on goal setting this one might be worth trying. It has helped me, I'm not completely there yet but I feel I am at least on the right path. see more reviews See all books by author M. J. Ryan

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