Download or read book Midlife New Life written by Eileen Caroscio and published by Greenleaf Book Group. This book was released on 2024-02-06 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are you anticipating midlife with excitement? Are you also wondering “What’s Next?” Midlife is a time for adventures and great, new opportunities, but it can also present uncertainty and challenges. Do you have questions about what lies ahead and about how to make the most of the good things to come and meet the difficult ones head on? You’re not alone. Eileen Caroscio, Sandy Demarest, and Paul Ward—three well-known thought leaders in the field of second half of life navigation and positive living—have answers in Midlife, New Life: Living Consciously in Midlife and Beyond. If we adopt a living consciously approach to the future, decisions about major life and work transitions can be made with confidence. The Midlife, New Life team brings their expertise, experiences, research findings, and wisdom to bear in this engaging, friendly, and comprehensive guide. They share life lessons and insights and provide practical tools and resources to help you plan and prepare for your journey. Their guidance will help you find meaning and purpose, stay engaged and healthy, support your cognitive functioning, enhance your support network, work for a living and for fulfillment, savor the world, and give back. This transformative book will— • encourage you to reflect on what tips and resources (not just financial ones) resonate with you and which ones you want to try • inspire, educate, and encourage you about what to expect and how to optimally approach midlife for a fulfilling life journey • provide strategies and purposeful practices to support life and work transitions • share wisdom from those who have walked the road ahead Midlife, New Life showcases what can happen when we talk to each other and have purposeful conversations that matter. Coming together, sharing conversation, sharing wisdom is part of this valuable book’s process. The authors of Midlife, New Life share their philosophy: “The power of conversation, curiosity, connection, and common goals of helping others navigate the second half of life brought us into collaborative relationship in writing a book and pulling all of our expertise together in a creative, fun project for the common good.” Chapters and Themes 1. Exploring Purposefully (finding meaning and purpose in how you live your life) 2. Living Well (how to support all your key well-being factors) 3. Appreciating Money 4. Working for a Living 5. Working for Fulfillment 6. Savoring the World 7. Living Life Creatively 8. Minding Relationships 9. Helping Humanity (giving back in diverse ways that match your interests and concerns) 10. Living with Technology (how you can use technology to help you live optimally) 11. Bouncing Forward (the art of building up your resilience for bumps in the road) Eileen Caroscio, CSC, RN, MSN Eileen is a multicertified coach and consultant, and a registered nurse. She is passionate about helping individuals achieve their goals and live their best lives. Referred to as the “midlife muse,” she engages people beyond their titles, jobs, and formalities to get to the core of what will enrich their midlives and make them more meaningful and magical. Sandy Demarest Sandy is an executive career, retirement, lifestyle, and leadership coach, trainer, and speaker. She leverages her experience to help organizations and mid–late-stage workers transition to new chapters. She specializes in training and coaching programs focusing on topics such as Engage as You Age, From Fulltime Career to Fulltime Life, and Create Your Next Meaningful Chapter. Sandy is the founder and owner of Demarest Directions, which provides coaching, training, and retreats. Paul Ward, Ph.D. Paul is an international conscious leadership and conscious living coach, author of The Inner Journey to Conscious Leadership, and host of conscious conversation circles. He is sometimes referred to as the “consciousness whisperer.” Paul is the principal owner of the coaching, consulting, and training company 2Young2Retire, LLC, offering impactful transitions coaching and facilitator certification training.

Download or read book Miracle at Midlife written by Roni Beth Tower and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-10-25 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2017 Gold Medal IPPY Award in Autobiography/Memoir They first meet in Paris in the spring of 1996. David is a divorced American attorney living on a converted barge moored on the banks of the Seine; Roni Beth is an empty-nested clinical and research psychologist working from her home in Connecticut. Now in their fifties, both have signed off on loving again—until they meet each other. Miracle at Midlife tells the inspiring story of Roni Beth and David’s intense and transformative transatlantic courtship. Along the way, David the loner, living amid the beauty, freedom, and pleasures of Paris, brings Roni Beth, a responsible and overextended professional haunted by earlier loss and trauma, back to her core as a woman, while she helps him reclaim connections that tie him to a larger world. They wrestle internal demons (mostly hers) and external threats (friends, family and different perspectives) as they share adventures in their respective worlds. Throughout their journey, stories of courage, joy and integrity bring hope and delight to those who wonder how romantic love appears and evolves; inspiration to people in mid-life who, knowingly or unknowingly, have completed a chapter in their lives and are ready to move on; and comfort to anyone who longs to wrestle and conquer the demons of fear, born of history or of the unknown, and win. Testimony that love is real.

Download or read book The Big Shift written by Marc Freedman and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2012-04-10 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marc Freedman, hailed by theNew York Timesas "the voice of aging baby boomers [seeking] meaningful and sustaining work later in life," makes an impassioned call to accept the decades opening up between midlife and anything approximating old age for what they really are -- an entirely new stage of life, which he dubs the encore years. In The Big Shift, Freedman bemoans the fact that the discussion about longer lives in America has been entirely about the staggering economic costs of a dramatically aging society when, in reality, most of the nation's 78 million boomers are not getting old -- at least not yet. The whole 60- to 80-year-old period is simply new territory, he writes, and the people in this period constitute a whole new phenomenon in the 21st century. The Big Shiftis animated by a simple premise: that the challenge of transitioning to and making the most of this new stage -- while deeply personal -- is much more than an individual problem; it's an urgent social imperative, one affecting all generations. By embracing this time as a unique period of life -- and providing guidance, training, education and support to the millions who are in it -- Freedman says that we can make a monument out of what so many think of as the leftover years. The result could be a windfall of talent that will carry us toward a new generation of solutions for growing problems in areas like education, the environment, and health care.

Download or read book Love and Trouble written by Claire Dederer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-05-09 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blazingly intelligent, wickedly funny, and piercingly honest, a memoir that captures the perils and pleasures of girlhood, womanhood, and life itself. “One of my favorite books of the last few years.” —Cheryl Strayed “Sentence for sentence, a more pleasure-yielding midlife memoir is hard to think of.” —The Atlantic At mid-life, Claire Dederer developed a sudden yearning for jailbreak. In this exuberant memoir, she reflects on two periods in her life uncannily similar in their emotional intensity: her present experience as a middle-aged mom in the grip of unruly and mysterious new hungers, and her recollections of herself as a teenager.

Download or read book Freud written by Peter M. Newton and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 1994-12-02 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using revelations gained from recently published correspondence, this provocative biography sheds new light on current debates about Sigmund Freud's theories. The book demonstrates how giving up the seduction theory--that all neurosis results from the molestation of small children by their fathers--swept Freud into a mid-life crisis out of which he eventually fought his way through to the discovery of psychoanalysis. Examining the newly released, highly personal letters between Freud and his boyhood friend, Eduard Silberstein, along with the letters of his 20s to his fiancée, Martha Bernays, and those to the confidant during his mid-life transition, Wilhelm Fliess, this volume provides valuable insight into Freud's development--both as a man and as a thinker. Peter M. Newton captures the drama of Freud's first love and heartbreak, the defiant and complicated ambitions of Freud's later adolescence, and the historic creative accomplishment and personal reward of his mid-life transition. Applying a theory of lives to this great, complex story, Newton charts the evolution of Freud's thought through a continuing sequence of developmental periods and tasks. He shows that contrary to accepted opinion, Freud dreamed of becoming not just a cloistered scientist, but a revolutionary healer as well. The author demonstrates that the two aspects of Freud's dream and of his identity--that of quiet scholar and revolutionary healer--warred for possession of Freud's soul throughout his entire life. Exploring the years of Freud's transition to middle age, the book also lays to rest Jeffrey Masson's widely trumpeted accusation that Freud gave up his seduction theory out of political expediency. From a close study of Freud's letters to Wilhelm Fliess, Newton shows that it was not a desire to placate the medical establishment, but the accumulating weight of Freud's own clinical experience, that dashed the seduction theory. He then examines in-depth the mid-life crisis Freud suffered as a result of giving up the seduction theory. Without the theory, Freud felt he had no way to realize either the scientific or the clinical aspect of his dream. Newton's developmental approach to adulthood centers his account on questions such as: How, at the age of 41, if the dream to which Freud had devoted the first 20 years of his adult life was shattered, could he guide the next 20? How could he salvage, from the wreckage of his youth, the elements of a life worth living as a middle-aged man? And if he was neither a first-rate scientist nor an expert doctor, who was he? A breakthrough study of developmental crisis and triumph, this volume will be welcomed by anyone who wishes to better understand one of the world's most important and influential thinkers. Freud: From Youthful Dream to Mid-Life Crisis also serves as a valuable text for undergraduate and graduate courses in human development, adult development, psychopathology, and personality, as well as courses on Freud and on developments in psychoanalytic institutes.

Download or read book Life Reimagined written by Richard J. Leider and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2013-10-01 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical guide to successfully navigating big life changes faced during middle age and later. Are you at a point in your life where you're asking, “What’s next?” You’ve finished one chapter and you have yet to write the next one. Many of us face these transitions at midlife, but they can happen at any point. It’s a time full of enormous potential, and it defines a whole new phase of life. It’s called Life Reimagined. Here is your map to guide you in this new life phase. You can use the powerful practices and insights to help you uncover your own special gifts, connect with people who can support you, and explore new directions. You’ll be inspired by meeting ordinary people who have reimagined their lives in extraordinary ways. You’ll also read the stories of pioneers of the Life Reimagined movement such as Jane Pauley, James Brown, and Emilio Estefan. They show us that this journey of discovery can help us find fulfillment in surprising new places. One of the profound truths that underlies this book is the liberating notion that each of us is “an experiment of one,” free to find our own path in this new phase of our lives. No old rules, no outdated societal norms, no boundaries of convention or expectation. Let Life Reimagined help you discover your new life possibilities! Winner of the 2014 Silver Nautilus Award

Download or read book Midlife Newlife written by Judith Wills and published by . This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 'baby boomers' have reached prime time - there are now more men and women in their 40s and 50s than ever before. This is a practical and empowering book for people in mid life aiming to help them feel fulfilled in their middle years with a strong emphasis on health, looks and well-being. Originally published: 2004.

Download or read book My Life in Middlemarch written by Rebecca Mead and published by Crown. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New Yorker writer revisits the seminal book of her youth--Middlemarch--and fashions a singular, involving story of how a passionate attachment to a great work of literature can shape our lives and help us to read our own histories. Rebecca Mead was a young woman in an English coastal town when she first read George Eliot's Middlemarch, regarded by many as the greatest English novel. After gaining admission to Oxford, and moving to the United States to become a journalist, through several love affairs, then marriage and family, Mead read and reread Middlemarch. The novel, which Virginia Woolf famously described as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people," offered Mead something that modern life and literature did not. In this wise and revealing work of biography, reporting, and memoir, Rebecca Mead leads us into the life that the book made for her, as well as the many lives the novel has led since it was written. Employing a structure that deftly mirrors that of the novel, My Life in Middlemarch takes the themes of Eliot's masterpiece--the complexity of love, the meaning of marriage, the foundations of morality, and the drama of aspiration and failure--and brings them into our world. Offering both a fascinating reading of Eliot's biography and an exploration of the way aspects of Mead's life uncannily echo that of Eliot herself, My Life in Middlemarch is for every ardent lover of literature who cares about why we read books, and how they read us.

Download or read book Midlife No Crisis written by Lisa Levine and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this useful and lovely guidebook to midlife for women, life and health coach Lisa Levine provides easy, actionable tools to help readers let go of what's holding them back and become the best version of themselves. Packed with humor, inspirational quotes, and practical advice, Midlife, No Crisis encourages readers to practice self-care, cultivate positive habits, and overcome fear so that they can start living an awesome life.

Download or read book Why We Can t Sleep written by Ada Calhoun and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed author explores the hidden crises of Gen X women in this “engaging hybrid of first-person confession, reportage [and] pop culture analysis” (The New Republic). Ada Calhoun was married with children and a good career—and yet she was miserable. She thought she had no right to complain until she realized how many other Generation X women felt the same way. What could be behind this troubling trend? To find out, Calhoun delved into housing costs, HR trends, credit card debt averages, and divorce data. At every turn, she saw that Gen X women were facing new problems as they entered middle age—problems that were being largely overlooked. Calhoun spoke with women across America who were part of the generation raised to “have it all.” She found that most were exhausted, terrified about money, under-employed, and overwhelmed. And instead of being heard, they were being told to lean in, take “me-time,” or make a chore chart to get their lives and homes in order. In Why We Can’t Sleep, Calhoun opens up the cultural and political contexts of Gen X’s predicament. She offers practical advice on how to ourselves out of the abyss—and keep the next generation of women from falling in. The result is reassuring, empowering, and essential reading for all middle-aged women, and anyone who hopes to understand them.

Download or read book Lost in the Middle written by Paul David Tripp and published by Shepherd Press. This book was released on 2004-10-01 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Pregnancy and Parenting after Thirty Five written by Michele C. Moore and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2006-04-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More and more women are having babies after the age of thirty-five and experiencing the joy of motherhood. But mothers-to-be in this age group sometimes face unique medical, emotional, and social challenges. Conception may be difficult and the risk of miscarriage during early pregnancy is higher, as is the potential for complications such as hypertension and diabetes. And having a child later in life can also be surprisingly disruptive to well-established domestic routines and carefully cultivated careers. Michele Moore and Caroline de Costa—two physicians who have been down this road themselves—offer reliable medical expertise and personal reassurance to women tackling these challenges. Pregnancy and Parenting after Thirty-Five covers a broad range of issues for mothers in mid life, from the possibility of Cesarean section to the awkwardness of being the oldest mom at PTA meetings to the joy of holding your infant in your arms. Incorporating the stories of real women who have gone through mid-life pregnancy, Moore and de Costa have created a valuable resource that will help other women do so realistically and with confidence. One of the few books devoted to prospective mothers over thirty-five, this one also includes information on surrogacy, adoption, and the first few months of being a new mother.

Download or read book A Little Life written by Hanya Yanagihara and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Download or read book Dare to Lead written by Brené Brown and published by Random House. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Brené Brown has taught us what it means to dare greatly, rise strong, and brave the wilderness. Now, based on new research conducted with leaders, change makers, and culture shifters, she’s showing us how to put those ideas into practice so we can step up and lead. Don’t miss the five-part HBO Max docuseries Brené Brown: Atlas of the Heart! NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BLOOMBERG Leadership is not about titles, status, and wielding power. A leader is anyone who takes responsibility for recognizing the potential in people and ideas, and has the courage to develop that potential. When we dare to lead, we don’t pretend to have the right answers; we stay curious and ask the right questions. We don’t see power as finite and hoard it; we know that power becomes infinite when we share it with others. We don’t avoid difficult conversations and situations; we lean into vulnerability when it’s necessary to do good work. But daring leadership in a culture defined by scarcity, fear, and uncertainty requires skill-building around traits that are deeply and uniquely human. The irony is that we’re choosing not to invest in developing the hearts and minds of leaders at the exact same time as we’re scrambling to figure out what we have to offer that machines and AI can’t do better and faster. What can we do better? Empathy, connection, and courage, to start. Four-time #1 New York Times bestselling author Brené Brown has spent the past two decades studying the emotions and experiences that give meaning to our lives, and the past seven years working with transformative leaders and teams spanning the globe. She found that leaders in organizations ranging from small entrepreneurial startups and family-owned businesses to nonprofits, civic organizations, and Fortune 50 companies all ask the same question: How do you cultivate braver, more daring leaders, and how do you embed the value of courage in your culture? In this new book, Brown uses research, stories, and examples to answer these questions in the no-BS style that millions of readers have come to expect and love. Brown writes, “One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of four skill sets that are 100 percent teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No. Because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here.” Whether you’ve read Daring Greatly and Rising Strong or you’re new to Brené Brown’s work, this book is for anyone who wants to step up and into brave leadership.

Download or read book Wake Up a Mid Life Challenge written by Roy C. Richards and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2006-11 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Renewal for Men and Women In Their Thirties, Forties, Fifties and Beyond Are you among the millions of North Americans over age thirty-five burdened down by unfulfilled dreams, diminished expectations, an irrational fear of tomorrow and a stressful, uninspiring daily routine? Is your life at mid-stream far less than you had intended it to be? Our book, A Mid-Life Challenge-Wake Up , was written to restore joy, reestablish positive expectations and return a spirit of adventure to your life Almost by accident, the author awakened in the year 2000 to a highly positive realization: persons in their middle years need not abandon dreams of a fulfilling career, mutually beneficial personal relationships and a prosperous lifestyle precisely on their own terms. Indeed for most, middle age is an ideal time to reassess the present, creatively plan for the future and take control over life's direction. Unlike the author, readers need not endure thirty long years of "sleepwalking through life" or rely upon a once-in-a-lifetime chance inspiration. Based upon personal experience and observation of successful renewal "graduates", the author lays out a comprehensive step-by-step blueprint to reinvigorate life at mid-stream. This book will inspire any middle-aged woman or man earnestly committed to restoring positive emotions and reentering life's mainstream beginning this very day. The author Roy Richards is a motivational speaker and consultant and co-founder of the Middle Age Renewal Training Institute (MART.) His stated mission is to revitalize the life experience for dispirited men and women over age thirty-five. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota with a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Chicago, the author spent seventeen years climbing the corporate ladder with four major U. S. corporations. For the past fifteen years, he has thrived as a small business owner and entrepreneur. The author and his wife Gloria reside in Clive, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines and are parents of two grown children, Kristen and Geoffrey. They share their home with an energetic English Springer Spaniel named Chips.

Download or read book New Life No Instructions written by Gail Caldwell and published by Random House. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times bestselling author of Let’s Take the Long Way Home now gives us a stunning, exquisitely written memoir about a dramatic turning point in her life, which unexpectedly opened up a world of understanding, possibility, and connection. New Life, No Instructions is about the surprising way life can begin again, at any age. Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more. “What do you do when the story changes in midlife? When a tale you have told yourself turns out to be a little untrue, just enough to throw the world off-kilter? It’s like leaving the train at the wrong stop: You are still you, but in a new place, there by accident or grace, and you will need your wits about you to proceed. “Any change that matters, or takes, begins as immeasurably small. Then it accumulates, moss on stone, and after a few thousand years of not interfering, you have a glen, or a waterfall, or a field of hope where sorrow used to be. “I suppose all of us consider our loved ones extraordinary; that is one of the elixirs of attachment. But over the months of pain and disrepair of that winter, I felt something that made the grimness tolerable: I felt blessed by the tribe I was part of. Here I was, supposedly solo, and the real truth was that I had a force field of connection surrounding me. “Most of all I told this story because I wanted to say something about hope and the absence of it, and how we keep going anyway. About second chances, and how they’re sometimes buried amid the dross, even when you’re poised for the downhill grade. The narrative can always turn out to be a different story from what you expected.” Praise for New Life, No Instructions “Brimming with insights and wisdom . . . As far as I’m concerned, Caldwell can write about whatever she pleases. . . . Unabashed dispatches from lifelong single women are a fairly recent phenomenon. Caldwell has so much more to teach us.”—Kate Bolick, The New York Times Book Review “Gail Caldwell offers the kind of wisdom and grace you’d wish a friend, sister, or mother might deliver. . . . Fans and new readers alike will find comfort in Caldwell’s voice.”—The Boston Globe “Quiet but powerful . . . an absorbing meditation on grief and rebirth in midlife.”—More “Eloquent and uplifting . . . [a story] to inspire you.”—Good Housekeeping “Graceful and reflective.”—USA Today “[Caldwell] confronts, with pluck and fortitude, the hurdles that life throws her way.”—Publishers Weekly “An uplifting journey . . . This book celebrates finding support where you least expect it.”—Woman’s Day “[A] beautifully written memoir.”—Parade “[A] thoughtful, wide-eyed view of the world . . . [Caldwell] ably explores the shifts of our hearts.”—Kirkus Reviews “Getting old, as they say, is not for sissies, and no one would call Pulitzer Prize–winner Caldwell a wimp. . . . There may not have been a road map for the life-changing trip [she] was about to take, but . . . Caldwell realized she had the power to endure.”—Booklist

Download or read book Create Your Ideal Life written by Mary Zahm and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2010-07-08 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some pursue happiness — Others create it! — Anonymous The chief purpose of Create Your Ideal Life is to empower you to proactively (intentionally and consciously) and continually create your ideal life in a joyful and balanced fashion by following the holistic (emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts) Life Creation Process described in it. Following the Life Creation Process will help you to gain the level of self-understanding required to optimize the quality of your life and achieve personal growth. As you read this book, you will be introduced to the key concepts of applied psychology of personal adjustment and growth. The term applied indicates that the material provided is practical and that you can readily use the concepts provided to create and control your self and your life. The words psychology of personal adjustment indicate that one focus of the book is upon “... the individual’s response to the physical, psychological, and social demands of the self, other people, and the environment” (Napoli, Kilbridge & Tebbs, 1996, p. 4). The words psychology of personal growth indicate that another focus is upon “... the process by which the individual changes his or her thoughts, feelings, or behaviors regarding the self, others, or the environment” (Napoli and others, 1996, p. 4). Additionally, you will learn effective strategies for exploring life choices and making decisions, managing life changes, changing self-defeating beliefs and habits, coping effectively with stress, and developing effective interpersonal relationships. You will also discover the important role that essential beliefs and core values play in the decision-making process and the problems that can arise out of value conflicts. I have provided true stories from my own life and from the lives of my family members, friends, and students to clarify and underscore key points. The stories are all true. However, some of the names were changed to protect each person’s privacy, except in cases where permission was granted to use the person’s real name. Throughout this book, I have used a cinematic (pertaining to the movie industry) analogy to explain the spiritual, psychological, physical, and social issues involved in personal adjustment and growth across the life span. I have used the cinematic analogy to both simplify and dramatize the key concepts in the holistic Life Creation Process in order to make them easier for you to understand, learn to use, and remember. In addition to the mnemonic (memory-enhancing) value of the cinematic analogy, I believe it makes the complex concepts involved in the holistic Life Creation Process easy to discuss with and teach other people. Most people are already familiar with the meaning of most of the movie industry terms used such as star, actor, screen image, script, cast, producer, director, and sequel, and they understand how all the key aspects of a movie can either contribute to its success or ruin the entire project. Therefore, using the cinematic terms makes it easier for people to comprehend how all the key aspects of their Ideal Future Life must be harmonious in order to achieve the desired results. As you complete the Life Creation Process Exercises, you will be directed to analyze the key aspects of your Present Life and create a script for your Ideal Future Life using techniques that are similar to those employed by successful movie stars, directors, producers, set designers, and script writers (e.g., DiTillio.;, 1995). You will also be guided to identify the Transitional Life goals that you will need to achieve in order to segue from living your Present Life to living your Ideal Future Life. The Ideal Future Life that you design at this present time is definitely not all there is or will ever be possible in your life. As you grow and change, you will update your vision of your ideal life. Learning the tools and techniques used in the Life Creation Process Exercises will empower you to continually recreate your Ideal Future Life through planned sequels in order to keep your life well balanced and overflowing with happiness and spiritual joy. The resources used for this book reflect my multidisciplinary approach to the Life Creation Process as well as my positive psychological orientation. I have included concepts from the traditional scholarly social-psychological literature, the popular self-help and self-improvement literature, and the media (plays, movies, tv, newspapers and magazines). The material includes both multidisciplinary academic resources and popular self-improvement resources that I have used, and found to be beneficial, during my own explorations in personal adjustment, growth, and Ideal Future Life creation. Most of the new material in this revised version of Create Your Ideal Life is from information that I have incorporated into my lectures, in-class exercises, and course assignments over the past 15 years.