motivational

This website is about motivational games, and also contains resources about motivational learning , motivational speakers uk , and motivational sales .

Title : Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People for Change
Author : William R. Miller
Rating : 3 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Short-term benefits

Miller and Rollnick have systematised a number of motivational enhancement techniques which have been used, intuitively, by therapists for several decades. In doing so, they have performed a valuable service.

As a therapist working with addicted individuals in Cambridge, I have been using the Rollnick-Miller synthesis of MI for some years now - in conjunction with 'cycle of change' methodology. The following are my principal observations.

Through the use of these MI techniques, I have had some success in helping clients to move from the 'pre-contemplation' stage of the cycle of change to the stage of 'contemplation'. Sessions and strategies of Motivational Interviewing have also proved useful in expediting progress from contemplation, through preparation, to action.

I have found, however, that there are three main problems with Motivational Interviewing. Firstly, it has proved relatively ineffective unless repeatedly reinforced and combined with other therapeutic interventions. Secondly the benefits thus gained take a long period of time to become evident. Thirdly these benefits are often of short duration. In its application to addiction, MI does not seem to reduce significantly the incidence of relapse.

For these reasons, I now use MI only in the initial stages of therapy. Thereafter, in order to help clients to maintain recovery, I have reverted to the use of more prescriptive techniques - in particular, CBT and Twelve-Step Facilitation.

'Motivational Interviewing' is a very expensive book for the slender results that it yields. Borrow it from a public library, if you can. Then decide if you think it's worth buying.

Title : Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Brain
Author : Joseph Dispenza
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Amazing

This is a great read just for the fun of it, Dispenza's story of self healing a broken back is amazing but without any bull he shows the key elements of others who ahve done this too.
This book also goes into great detail on how the mind brain body work together from mainly a scientific viewpoint and how we can make changes to evlove our frontal lobes to quickly change bad patterns of behaviour replace them with good.
the advice is simple and achieveable by anyone who can read.
Its not a short book as its crammed with lots of information but if you just wish to get to the nitty gritty of making changes its possible to skip the understanding and just work on the bits you need

I hope he will write further books in the future

Title : Sticky Wisdom
Author : Dave Allan
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : In the end, all businesses survive on innovation...

After the "popping of the e-bubble" the last few years have been a tad hard for many businesses. Huge losses, unemployment (not so much in the UK) and a renewed focus on core activities have not made for the most innovative of environments. Now in 2004/05, with profits recovering, the next two challenges for business are innovation for growth and operational effectiveness for decreasing marginal costs and customer satisfaction.

"What if" is an innovation consultancy who offer a set of steps and practical ideas of how to enhance innovation in your business. This book is the follow up to "What If" (this is an improvement in layout, but you don't need both books). The innovation stages are great and it helped me to understand at a high level where my current team are strong and weak, but I think it is the practical nature of the ideas, tools and methods that is the strength of this book.

I really like the different ideas for enabling creative thinking - random connections, opposites, physical trials, focused "hothousing"...each will help you to advance from the normal set of brainstormed ideas that your workshops probably generate at the moment - how many of them couldn't anyone in your industry think of?

What if is a consultancy as well and it is possible that I might get to work with them sometime soon - I am really looking forward to trying out with the experts some of these techniques.

Mind expanding stuff when applied to your eveyday problems - might even help you enjoy your work more - now wouldn't that be a thing!

Title : Unleash the Warrior Within: Develop the Focus, Discipline, Confidence and Courage You Need to Achieve Unlimited Goals
Author : Richard Machowicz
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Some good ideas here, worth a read

It's not that easy to evaluate and review `self-help' books, as what I find useful is probably not at all useful to someone else. I guess it depends on what your perceived `problem' is, or more positively, what is `your area of desired improvement'.
I liked this book, I found it very helpful. This book deals with fears that are preventing you from becoming the person you wish or be or attaining a target that you are aiming for in your life.
The approach is very aggressive as you would expect from the title and front cover. Machowicz encourages you to `live life aggressively'. Machowicz draws on his experience as a Navy SEAL, and tells us about how he went through some very extreme situations that inevitably lead to fear and how he developed mechanisms to cope with and conquer that fear. It is a macho approach and in some places reads very much like the true to life novel by Andy McNab, `Bravo Two Zero'. However, I don't think that should put readers off, there is some very useful insights here. Take the CARVER matrix for example. This is a target evaluation method of military origin. Machowicz applies it to everyday life. If you enter `Waging Project Management Warfare' into a search engine you will find an article where an attendee of one of Machowicz classes applies the principle to software development!
There is definitely as much value in reading this as in relying solely on the works of desk bound psychologists.
I also liked the fact that it was written relatively recently, 2002. The context is relevant. I have read seminal works that were written nearer the turn of the last century, and although the content of these is beyond reproach they are very dated and increasingly hard to relate to the present and the type of problems encountered in today's world.
Some of the author's quotes come from such diverse works as Dune, by Frank Herbert. He refers to the training of Paul Atreides where he is taught that `fear is the mindkiller'. As a part-time Sci-Fi fan, I am encouraged to read a self-help book that values some of my favourite literature.
Throughout the book Machowicz refers to his self-defence style called Bukido. This comes across as a bit of a blatant sales pitch, but does nonetheless encourage the curious to enter `Bukido' into a search engine to see what it is all about. You might want to do that before you buy the book! Machowicz seems to be aggressively following his own advice, and is also now a TV star I believe hosting `Future Weapons' on the Discovery channel. Maybe that in itself should suggest that there is something of value in this book. However, reading the output of famous people telling us `how to become successful' does not always work. I'm thinking of the book by Noel Edmunds, `Positively Happy'. It is also very hard to determine if you should take the cynical, and possibly accurate viewpoint, that the author is more interested in selling his product, in this case his book and his training courses, than he is in the altruistic intent of making you a better person.
The author's intentions and motivations aside, I picked some ideas from this book that I liked and am actively making use of them. Although I have completed the book I still want to review some of the sections at a later date. So for me there was some useful ideas here and so I give it a four star rating.