Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live

New York Times bestselling author and Life Designs, Inc. creator Martha Beck shares her step-by-step program that will guide you to fulfill your own potential and create a joyful life.\n\nIn this book, you'll start by learning how to read the internal compasses already built into your brain and body-and why you may have spent your life ignoring their signals. As you become reacquainted with your own deepest desires, you'll identify and repair any unconscious beliefs or unhealed emotional wounds that may be blocking your progress. \n\nThis will change your life, but don't worry-although every life is unique, major transformations have common elements, and Beck provides a map that will guide you through your own life changes. You'll learn how to navigate every stage, from the first flickering appearance of a new dream to the planning and implementation of your own ideal life.\n\nBased on Dr. Beck's work as a Harvard-trained sociologist, research associate at Harvard Business School, instructor at Thunderbird Business School, and especially on her experiences with her clients over the last six years, Finding Your Own North Star offers thoroughly tested case studies, questionnaires, and exercises to help you articulate your core desires and act on them to build a more satisfying life.\n\n"Explorers depend on the North Star when there are no other landmarks in sight. The same relationship exists between you and your right life, the ultimate realization of your potential for happiness. I believe that a knowledge of that perfect life sits inside you just as the North Star sits in its unaltering spot." - Martha Beck\n\nEditorial Reviews\n\nMartha Beck has a rare ability to see the world with wisdom and heart. She is a teacher in the truest sense of the word." -Harriet Lerner, author of The Dance of Anger and The Dance of Connection\n- From the Publisher\n\nThe premise is simple: Martha Beck believes that when we lose our intuitive bearings, the center falls apart. She argues persuasively that we must understand the unconscious forces that keep us from pursuing our dreams and that we must learn techniques to expel our anger and process our grief. The author's biography exemplifies her principles: Dr. Beck has started two businesses, earned three advanced degrees, and raised three kids.\n\n- \n\nBeck owns her own consulting firm, Life Design, Inc., where she redirects "lost" souls to their true paths in life. This, her third work after Breaking the Cycle of Compulsive Behavior and Expecting Adam, puts her company's philosophy into print. By combining thought-provoking exercises with play activities such as visualization, affirmations, and intuition, Beck here explores readers' inner thoughts on true happiness. She recommends that they set wildly improbable goals (WIGs) in order to find their personal North Star. This title differs from other self-help books by specifically defining a four-stage change cycle that happens to all humans many times during a lifetime. Stage 1, death and rebirth, defines a life-changing event; dreaming and scheming, the hero's saga, and the promised land follow. Other authors with similar messages are Judith Orloff, Anna Quindlen, Cheryl Richardson, and Bill O'Hanlon. Beck's humor, experience, and highly readable style make this a worthwhile purchase for public libraries. Lisa Wise, Broome Cty. P.L., Binghamton, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.\n\n- Library Journal