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GOING TO PLAN B: How You Can Cope, Regroup, and Start Your Life on a New Path
We've all experienced the surprise, shock, and disappointment of "non-events" - reasonable life expectations that go unfulfilled due to chance, circumstance, or simple quirks of fate. There's the relationship that never blossomed ... the promotion that didn't materialize ... the house, the baby, the dreams ... Plenty of books address how to deal with negative events but none has dealt with how to handle non-events. Until now.
In this inspiring, practical, and compassionate book, Nancy K. Schlossberg and Susan Porter Robinson explore the rarely-talked-about but commonly experienced phenomenon of what people face when nothing happened but everything changed. Using examples from hundreds of interviews, the authors describe how to identify a non-event and rise above it - to transform those old dreams into exciting new aspirations. Among the various scenarios examined are the desire for love and family - how to live with the lack of romantic love, the disappointment of infertility, estrangement from siblings and more; the expectation for professional success - how to recast your career goals to accommodate today's radically changed workplace; and the ideal of the perfect self - how to reconcile an unrealistic self-image and find inner peace.
In this inspiring, practical, and compassionate book, Nancy K. Schlossberg and Susan Porter Robinson explore the rarely-talked-about but commonly experienced phenomenon of what people face when nothing happened but everything changed. Using examples from hundreds of interviews, the authors describe how to identify a non-event and rise above it - to transform those old dreams into exciting new aspirations. Among the various scenarios examined are the desire for love and family - how to live with the lack of romantic love, the disappointment of infertility, estrangement from siblings and more; the expectation for professional success - how to recast your career goals to accommodate today's radically changed workplace; and the ideal of the perfect self - how to reconcile an unrealistic self-image and find inner peace.
240 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 1996
15 people want to read
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February 17, 2016
Subtitled "How You Can Cope, Regroup and Start Your Life on a New Path," this fascinating book deals with the "non-events"€ of life, those unrealized plans and shattered dreams that can haunt the individual, keeping them from taking action in new directions that can be just as fulfilling (if not more so) than the plans that went awry. Replete with research as well as scores of examples of individuals whose lives were impacted by job loss, unrealized careers, childlessness, broken marriages, etc., the authors take the reader on countless journeys with these individuals to understand the impact that "non-events"€ can have on our lives and what can be done to move to "Plan B."
The first part of this extraordinary book educates the reader to the essence of these non-events, their types and triggers, their impact and the coping mechanisms available to confront them - Acknowledging, Easing, Refocusing and Reshaping. Part Two focuses on the key areas where they tend to reside - Love and Family, Success, Self and Legacy. Finally the book closes with an extensive (and example-laden) treatment of the Dream-Reshaping Process - Acknowledging the Lost Dreams, Easing the Non-Event Stress, Shifting the Focus to Hope and Reshaping the Dream.
Almost all of us have been impacted by non-events in our lives. The authors have likely told a story that mirrors one in the reader's life (I know I saw myself in a number of the examples). They close this intensely personal and practical book with the following counsel:
"This move from heartache to hope is full of mystery, adventure and surprise. Nothing happening in your own world of dreams? Freely prepare for your own surprise ending.
First take heart.
Then take stock.
But above all, do take hope."
The first part of this extraordinary book educates the reader to the essence of these non-events, their types and triggers, their impact and the coping mechanisms available to confront them - Acknowledging, Easing, Refocusing and Reshaping. Part Two focuses on the key areas where they tend to reside - Love and Family, Success, Self and Legacy. Finally the book closes with an extensive (and example-laden) treatment of the Dream-Reshaping Process - Acknowledging the Lost Dreams, Easing the Non-Event Stress, Shifting the Focus to Hope and Reshaping the Dream.
Almost all of us have been impacted by non-events in our lives. The authors have likely told a story that mirrors one in the reader's life (I know I saw myself in a number of the examples). They close this intensely personal and practical book with the following counsel:
"This move from heartache to hope is full of mystery, adventure and surprise. Nothing happening in your own world of dreams? Freely prepare for your own surprise ending.
First take heart.
Then take stock.
But above all, do take hope."
Displaying 1 of 1 review