motivational

This website is about motivational therapy, and also contains resources about motivational picture , motivational leadership , and motivational talks .

Title : Positive Thinking, Positive Action: Essential Steps to Achieve Your Potential (Personal Development)
Author : Douglas Miller
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Positive Thinking

In today's fast moving world it is very easy to become demotivated and thereby negative for those of us who are not natuaral optimists. The trouble with demotivation and negativity is that we bring it home from our workplace and this enhances the our downward spiral.

Doug Miller's book helps to reverse this processby teaching us the benefits of positivity. We all know people who appear postive and with such positivity goes success. Not necessarily always in their work but in their lives. The book draws upon the experiences of self motivated people whose lives have taken off because of their attitude and their postive approach to everything they do.

There are plenty of techniques with the 192 pages to help the most stubborn pessimist. An ideal present for a disaffected offspring going through an identity crisis.

Title : Lessons in Mastery: 5 Spoken Word Cds, 6 Hours
Author : Anthony Robbins
Rating : 4 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Lessons in Mastery

The concepts included in these audio CD's are similar to those explored in the book 'Awaken the Giant Within' A reasonable buy if you need motivation, or to explore different concepts in gaining overall satisfaction with life, job etc. An additional advantage is that this CD set takes less time to cover than reading the book.

Title : Self-esteem Affirmations: Motivational Affirmations for Building Confidence and Recognizing Self-worth
Author : Louise L. Hay
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : well done

The subliminals are quite good, what I would expect of such a learned author. I tried this CD to see what sort of affirmation to use when feeling less confidant than normal, which isn't very often. I just needed something to bolster me for when dealing with those in authority, and this sure did work, thanks.

Title : S.U.M.O. (Shut Up, Move On): The Straight-Talking Guide to Creating and Enjoying a Brilliant Life
Author : Paul McGee
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Outstand Book To Get You On the Right Track

I found Paul's book to be a wonderfully easy book to read. I needed to pause after each chapter so that I could dwell and soak up the insightful material. I bought another copy for my friend to have. It is a must have!!!

Title : Sink Reflections
Author : Marla Cilley
Rating : 3 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Great system - poor book

I came across Flylady last year, starting with the BabySteps, and found very quickly that I could keep my over-cluttered home clean and tidy by following these routines - this was a great help when my flat went on the market, as it would be ready for viewings with a simple 'swish and swipe' each morning!

I bought the book to help me move onto the next stage of Flylady - decluttering, zone cleaning and the control journal - but I was really disappointed. I found the book poorly laid out (the chapter on babysteps introduces a number of new steps, numbering them would have made the book easier to read and the routines easier to follow) and the tone of writing grated on me after a couple of chapters - too many references to God and how cleaning your home will demonstrate to yourself and your family how much you love yourself and them (I'm not a lazy frump with a filthy house, I'm just a busy full-time worker who can't keep on top of the housework and can't afford a cleaner). All of the recommendations in the book, and more, are already covered on the Flylady website.

The Flylady system does work, but I would recommend saving yourself a few pounds and using Flylady.net instead of buying the book. 5 stars for the system, 1 star for the book itself.

Title : Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Author : Robert Cialdini
Rating : 3 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Good, but not totally convincing or that useful

I bought this book for two reasons - one to make myself more alert to sales techniques, and two to see if there are any useful insights to glean that could be applied to other areas of life.

On both counts the book delivers. Having recently been pitched to at work by a media tracking agency and nearly taken the bait (didn't in the end) I immediately recognised the use of reciprocity and scarcity to try and harry me into signing up. That alone was worth buying the book for, and I will definitely use that insight in future.

In addition, the chapter on consistency is also very useful. I've been involved in trying (and failing) to get people behind certain campaigns in the past. As such the discussion about getting people to make small commitments to establish a self image which they then feel the need to act consistently with both rang true on a personal level, and seems like something worth trying out in future.

So why only three stars? For one I did not find elements of the book convincing. The section dealing with newspaper coverage of suicides is the bit that really troubles me. Some of the data seems both to be limited and have been interpreted quite loosely. I would need a lot more convincing that the stats are being interpreted reasonably, it looks far too rough and ready. Given that this book is really about behavioural biases surely it should be extra careful about interpretaion of data as this is something we humans tend to be very bad at, always looking for patterns that aren't there and so on. That then leads me to query the hypothesis built on top of the data and to be honest I find myself not buying it. That also makes me query whether other chapters suffer from similar flaws.

Secondly, the book isn't actually that useful once you get your head around the key techniques because, as a previous reviewer says, simply having the knowledge that you have biases doesn't make them go away. To be really useful the book should have spent as much time reinforcing ways to resist the influence of biases as it does explaining what they are.

That said it is very readable, and I got what I wanted from it, but it could have been better.

Title : It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be
Author : Paul Arden
Rating : 5 Stars out of 5.
Summary : Amusing book of vignettes...drawn from the world of advertising, but applicable to life in general...

Bought it on a whim from the Tate Modern bookstore. The cover looked good, the book was small, and happened to run across some practical, amusing and witty vignettes - drawn from the world of advertising, but applicable to life in general. For those who don't have the luxury of time to read much (i.e. working mummy/daddy/etc) - recommend it.