Would it surprise you to learn that to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem, you need to get up and leave the room? A walk in the woods will help you finish your novel? Humming can make you a better tennis player? Or completely giving up is the way to succeed?

In The Breakout Principle, the bestselling author of The Relaxation Response delivers the ultimate self-help principle — simple instructions to activate a powerful biological trigger that converts conflict and confusion into clarity and extraordinary performance, a state athletes refer to as "the zone."

From the Back Cover

If you've ever found yourself staring at the blank page all day, or cleaning out the refrigerator for the fifth time in a week just to avoid seeing that taunting, blinking cursor, then you've experienced writer's block.

Outwitting Writer's Block will help any writer break through the dreaded block and become a more creative and better writer than before. Filled with exercises designed to jump-start creativity and encouraging tips from fellow writers and instructors, this book is like Drano for clogged creative pipes.

From Publishers Weekly

Falter-Burns strikes an encouraging but realistic tone in this down-to-earth self-help manual aimed at people struggling with doubts about pursuing their dream, whether it's writing a screenplay or creating kiln-fired glass jewelry. Instead of new-agey cheerleading, the author, who lived "the hand-to-mouth existence of a happy, impoverished artist" until her late 30s, offers instructive tools for dealing with the time, money and energy deficits that interfere with achieving big goals. She insists that people have more time than they think they do, and provides advice on structuring and protecting that time as well as ways to avoid wasting precious minutes that can otherwise be devoted to working towards the dream. Her list of "Thirty Guaranteed Time-savers," for example, includes tips like primping less, screening calls and holding breakfast instead of lunch meetings. She advises on how to create a workspace, choose the right "day gig" and avoid habits that suck energy (e.g. compulsive shopping, drinking and even perfectionism). In chapters entitled "When to Leap...and When Not to Leap," "How to Keep Your Job and Live Your Dream at the Same Time" and "How to Live with Financial Insecurity," Falter-Burns weighs the pros and cons of the slow, safe transition towards a dream versus a more impetuous plunge into the freelance life. Aspiring artists, writers and entrepreneurs will find basic and creative tips in this succinct motivational guide.

© 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In Write It Down, Make It Happen, Henriette Anne Klauser, Ph.D., explains how simply writing down your goals in life is the first step toward achieving them. Writing can even help you understand what you want. In this book, you will read stories about ordinary people who witnessed miracles large and small unfold in their lives after they performed the basic act of putting their dreams on paper. Klauser's down-to-earth tips and easy exercises are sure to get your creative juices flowing. Before you know it, you'll be writing your own ticket to success.

Amazon Reviewer: Gregory Banks (Atlanta area, Georgia USA)

An excellent book on the intricacies of language and how to creatively and effectively paint vivid mental pictures with mere words. McClanahan's writing is in-depth, but also entertaining. It'll hold your interest all the way through, and teach you a lot along the way.

First Sentence:

If you can speak, form letters on the page, know the rudiments of sentence structure, take a telephone message, or write a thank-you note, you have sufficient language skills to learn to write the natural way.

Angela's Review

"I've been reading Self Matters, Creating Your Life From The Inside Out, the book by Dr Phillip C. McGraw (yes, the same Dr Phil of Oprah fame).

It's an astonishing book. Not so much reading-wise, but for what it will tell you about yourself if you do the exercises it contains. The exercises are hard work, emotionally. They get you to deal with a whole lot of stuff you'd probably rather bury.

Especially vital are the "defining moments" of your life. You divide your life into age-segments, remember what happened to you in that period, and decide which was the defining moment of that period of your life — the moment which changed the way you look at your life.

This isn't so that you rehash the past and beat yourself up over the mistakes you made. It's so that you can understand the past and free yourself of it.

For example, my defining moment of ages one to five (I was four) was when we left Germany to come to Australia. As we drove away from our house, I climbed onto the back seat of the car and watched my Grandma and Grandpa waving goodbye. They got smaller and smaller in the distance, and that was the last time I saw
them. At 53, that memory still chokes me up and brings tears to my eyes. Definitely a defining moment, and I'd never looked at it that way.

So what will examining your past do for you? With luck, it will help you discover who you were before life dropped a whole lot of junk on you and you stopped being yourself as a form of self-protection.

I'm a long way from completing my work with this book. However, even though I've only worked with the material for a few hours, it's definitely had an effect. I heartily recommend it."

Angela's Review

If you're suffering from creative anxiety and inhibition, these stumbling blocks will affect how much and how often you create.

The blocks can even stop you creating. They can convince you that you have no talent, and that you should forget your creative dreams.

Eric Maisel's book can help you to understand what's happening. If you read the book, and do some of the exercises, you'll gradually gain confidence and eliminate the blocks from your life.