Alter Your Life: Overbooked? Overworked? Overwhelmed?

by Kathleen Hall

Themes like "I just don't have time" and "I'm exhausted" rule our lives today. We are overbooked, overworked and overwhelmed. Just getting done what must be done fills our days. The notion of finding... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0974542725
• ISBN13: 9780974542720
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Oak Haven
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.6" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

An uplifting, motivational guide to lifestyle changes that can make each day richer

Stress management expert Dr. Kathleen Hall presents Alter Your Life: Overbooked? Overworked? Overwhelmed?, a no-nonsense self-help guide to finding more time in one's life and balancing responsibilities in a manner that reduces tension, cultivates energy, and primes one for the knock of opportunity. Chapters discuss simple changes and mindfulness that can be incorporated into any routine, from the morning shower, breakfast, and commute to daily exercise, shopping, learning to be a more attentive listener, and even turning routine chores such as washing the dishes into a fulfilling experience. The "Ask, Tell, Give" sections condense extended discussion points into simple sentences and precepts; for example, "Ask yourself 'Why do I, or why don't I have a pet?' 'How can I bring more quality to the time I spend with animals?' 'What can I learn from the animals in my life?' / Tell yourself 'Animals support and guide my journey through life.' / Give yourself 'A bird feeder by your favorite window' 'time each day to relax with your animal' 'sponsorship of a cause that supports animals'." An uplifting, motivational guide to lifestyle changes that can make each day richer.

There Is More...

So many of us are overwhelmed by the day-to-day demands of our careers, our families, sometimes even our friends. We often feel there is not enough time in our lives to do the things we need to do, let alone to do the things we want to do. And, most importantly, there never seems to be time just for ourselves. The book, Alter Your Life, discusses many aspect of your life. The book discusses daily tasks that we all do and points out ways we can live intentionally, i.e. by making choices by intention, not by default. What impressed me about the book is that it is not based only on theory. The author has implemented changes, and has altered her life to one of intentional life vs. life in the fast lane where she felt overwhelmed, overworked and overbooked! She discusses the three components that are the foundation for living an intentional life and they are simpler than you think. Her story is an inspiration for us all. While we may not choose to live the life she chose, you will find ideas and thoughts to alter you life in everyday tasks. Dr. Kathleen Hall's book is one which made me realize even the simplest of things I was doing every day were being done without intention. When you stop and answer some of the questions the author asks, it makes you realize that there is more. In fact, we do have the choice to change our lives so we do not have to feel so overwhelmed. I would highly recommend this book.

A Lot of Very Practical Suggestions...

There is little question, it seems to me, that most Americans living in this new century of ours are suffering from a condition one might refer to as the "stressed-out" syndrome. (And the really unfortunate thing is that this is true of young people as well, some of them barely into their teenage years.) Many of us are working harder, trying to raise families while advancing a career, competing obsessively in the marketplace for that promotion, striving to keep up with the Jones next door, hoping that the pay check will last until the end of the month, and, well, you get the point. Are we simply condemned to this malady by the realities of modern life, or is there a way of successfully meeting this challenge and conquering it? Dr. Kathleen Hall, the author of this book and one of our nation's leading authorities on stress management, thinks there is and she calls it "living an intentional life." This is a self-help book, to be sure. Many of you probably think as I do: most self-help books are so full of psycho-babble, unrealistic expectations, impractical advice, dogmatic prescriptions, and are so far out of touch with the actual world in which most of us live, that they seem to be written only to make some quick money for the author. I assure you this is not the case with Dr. Hall's book. Believe me, I look hard for incidences of psycho-babble in self-help books (it's one of my pet peeves) and I could not find a single case of it here. In sum, she has outlined a simple, easy-to-read, very practical and, above all, undogmatic, blueprint for living an intentional life. The "intentional" life, Dr. Hall says, has three simple ingredients: awareness, choice, and energy. These are not sequential; it is simply necessary to "become aware of these three key elements in your life and learn how to navigate them." She emphasizes that we ought to look at our daily experiences, listen to what our body and mind are telling us, and become more conscious of how we are living our lives and how we want to live them. If I could put this general prescription into my own words, I would say she is proposing living a "proactive" life as opposed to a "reactive" life, and most people do seem to mostly "react" to the situations they encounter in life rather than make a proactive choice. There is absolutely nothing complex about the prescriptions in this book regarding how to live an intentional life. Above all, they are very down-to-earth; very much a matter of applied "common sense." It is simply that so many people, if not the majority in today's hectic world, either "forget" to pay attention to these simple ideas or are stressed out and distracted by the events surrounding them. The author here is really recommending that we all need, now and then, to "stop and smell the roses," so to speak. But, of course, there is much more than that presented. She gets down to the "nitty-gritty," shall we say, and, chapter by chapter, discusses everything from making your mornin

Not Your Average Self-Help Book

Alter Your Life is not your regular self-help inspirational book. It is practical, engaging and powerfully life-changing. Unlike other self-help books that focus on the goals you'd like to create for your life, Dr. Hall provides a different angle of everyday activities, so you'd be able to alter your perspectives, which are the key of lifetime joy and happiness. Divided into 24 chapters, this book talks about ways to give meaning in the simplest and overlooked activities, such as walking, shopping, gardening, listening to music, taking a bath, watching the evening news and, even, washing dishes. The author's easy-to-read conversational tone is an added plus, as most people prefer not reading a preachy book. Written by a former Wall Street stockbroker who lived joylessly for years, the soul of this book shines throughout the pages, making the reading a breeze. The author has walked the walk and talked the talk, indeed. It is evident from the depth of one's innermost issues covered as she encourages the readers to choose the joy and the enlightened path in their hectic and, oftentimes, boring lives. Alter Your Life is, indeed, a self-help book of its own class. For once, an enlightened friend has spoken. Thanks, Dr. Hall.[] A review by Jennie S. Bev of BookReviewClub.com

self-help masterpiece

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." (Quote by Anonymous, page 55 Alter Your Life) The greatest threat to America and its inhabitants has been revealed and experts are naming it, "Stress." As a medical professional, I'd like to add complacency, and lack of knowledge regarding how to break the stress- cycle to the problems facing American's today. Turn a page in any health magazine, flip through your local TV stations and what you will find is: article after article, report after report, linking stress and the fast-paced American lifestyle to: cancer, obesity, heart disease and a myriad of other diseases. Overworked, overweight, undernourished, and suffocating under piles of work, over-using our natural and spiritual resources, we American's are in a heap of trouble. Fortunately, Dr. Kathleen Hall author of Alter Your Life has devised a sound, step-by-step, non-dogmatic approach to changing your life-and your own special corner of the planet-without having to: surrender all of your worldly goods, give up your job, or move to the mountains. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Hall will hook readers from the first page by appealing to their desire for a better life. Her plan, carefully woven together with the wisdom and appreciation of multiple spiritual traditions, provides a true blueprint for a better life. Learn how to wake up and embrace life without caffeine in chapter one. Follow simple steps to turn your commute in to your chance to commune with your Divine Self in chapter six. Rediscover the joy in life by reclaiming your leisure time on page 127. Alter Your Life is flawlessly written, well edited, and the information is presented in a format readers can actually apply to their lives. Blissfully devoid of double-speak, cryptic passages, and superior guru-ish talk, Dr. Hall's self-help masterpiece is not your mama's promise-you-the-world, but give- you -zilch- for-useful- information, type book. Anyone willing to live a better life, can easily pick up a copy and apply the simple techniques to achieve a better, more compassionate existence, without abandoning their faith, their family, or making any drastic, overnight life changes. Review by Kate St.Amour