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Summary: Deep, Slow Reading, Great advice for creating your direction
Review: I found this book to be very slow reading. It was not hard to read, but rather it had many deep concepts that required thought and pondering. I underlined the book heavily and plan on handing it out to friends. His discussion of structure, and the overall concepts of following the path of least resistance, were excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Deep, Slow Reading, Great advice for creating your direction
Review: I found this book to be very slow reading. It was not hard to read, but rather it had many deep concepts that required thought and pondering. I underlined the book heavily and plan on handing it out to friends. His discussion of structure, and the overall concepts of following the path of least resistance, were excellent.
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Summary: Creative, original thinker writes dense prose.
Review: I liked the beginning (describing inadequacies of current ways of thinking about change) and the end (summary intentions), but the middle, his proscriptions for action were complicated. It made me want to read more books by Fritz, to see if he simplified his action proscriptions in subsequent books
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Summary: Excellent book on creating the life you want.
Review: I treasure this book. I first read this book when it came out 10 years ago. I have read it a total of 4 times now. It is a truly remarkable book because it relates the creative process to the physical laws of nature to which we are all subject. This is the path of least resistance, along which all energy including creative energy will flow. It takes a while to understand the writing. It is not a self help or quick fix book. It is not a book on descipline or willpower. It is a book that explains how to change the underlying structure of your life to create the life you want. It must be understood both intellectually and experientially as you practice examining your current situation at the same time you hold the vision you want to create. Robert Fritz does a wonderful job of using very simple examples to demonstrate the dynamics of the "least resistance" principle.
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Summary: Must read for anyone who wants to accomplish anything
Review: If you haven't read Robert Fritz' Path of Least Resistance, do so right away. I first read this book in 1987 when it had a profound impact on my life. I was lucky to meet the Fritzes around 1992, and that already deep impact was made more so. This book is about applying gap analysis to your life. Simply put (very simply): decide where you want to go, look at where you are, and really understand - at a deep level - the distance between them. Use that distance, or difference - what Fritz calls "structural tension" to propel - to motivate your life. When the gap between where you are and what you want closes, you lose the motive force; at that point you have to stretch again, reaching for new goals, new heights, new stars. Fritz offers you rich detailed steps for creating; establishing your vision, refining your goals, and how to take action. In my book this is highly recommended reading.
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Summary: Wordy
Review: Lots of good info, but tends to get lost talking about the same subject over and over, but well worth the read.
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Summary: Perhaps the most important book I've ever read.
Review: Many of us realize that our lives are driven by certain learned patterns of behavior and thinking. This little treasure helps us to identify those patterns that we fall into unconsciously on a daily basis. It brings them into consciousness, where we can alter them and transform our lives. These old patterns form deep groves into our minds (the path of least resistance), which we too easily fall back into--unless something comes along to form a new, powerful and more effective pattern. Examples and analogies abound here, from the creation of musical compositions to manifesting the ideal job for you. It is practical and yet touches something at a deeply spiritual and creative level. This book is not for the feeble-minded. Read it slowly and let your psyche absorb it with pleasure. If you have the resources to commit to reading and comprehending it, it will change your life. Are you concerned about the environment? Are you worried about something else going on in the world or in your life? Listen to me-- after you read this book you will view and be able to act upon ANY global or personal "problem" in a new and more powerful way! I'm not kidding. Our thoughts and words have so much power! Our patterns of thoughts and words can create a world we only dreamed about before. This book is magical. This book shows us how to be responsible for the state of our lives and the condition of the world around us. It teaches us how to own our personal power.
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Summary: Focus clearly on what you want to create
Review: The essence of the book is: decide for yourself what it is you want to CREATE in your life (work, family, lesure, etc.), objectively assess your current reality, and leverage the structural tension that comes from the discrepancy between your desired and current reality.
The Robert Fritz approach holds a lot of appeal: focus on what you want, or want to create, and frame it as a vision that ignores the extent to which it is actually possible to achieve the vision. In view of this, "I want to create a world in which everyone is well-fed" is a legitimate vision.
Another appealing aspect of thinking 'structurally' is that it urges us to think in what I would refer to as "constructive terms", without falling into the trap of being unduly optimistic, or blind to reality: for example, rather than adopting the vision of "I want to lose weight" or "I no longer want to smoke", Fritz invites us to say: "I want, and I choose, to have good health". In this way, the structures that hold us back are removed from our consciousness. Structures elicit behaviour, in this model. Oscillating structures are those that cause us to vacillate between conflicting goals (e.g. oscillating between the desire to lose weight and the desire|need to eat), and usually get nowhere. I see the Fritz approach as entailing the adoption of certain attitudes and practices. It is a matter of disciplining oneself to leverage one's innate desire to create, regardless of the way one earns a living. The book provides lots of examples of how artists create their work, but Fritz reminds us that the same principles can and should apply as well to, say, business managers and school teachers. I am very glad to have read this book. I believe that it has already begun to influence how i see my future and my choices. Fritz offers a constructive way to draw out, shape and frame one's aspirations for one's life. The principles as laid out in the book are surprisingly simple and logical once they've had a few days to sink in, and yet so many of us allow ourselves to oscillate and prevaricate amid 'no-win' structures of which we are not even conscious.
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Summary: This book changed the way I live.
Review: The Path of Least Resistance helped me truly understand the creative process, from idea to finished product. We experience these natural forces everyday and being aware makes the difference. As a musician and graphic artist, I found Robert's book to be most insightful in helping me create my work and my life.
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Summary: We are Made in the Image & Likeness, meaning we Create also
Review: The Path of Least Resistance is an awesome piece of work. It's a "manual" that belongs to the product of YOU the instant you learn how to read.
We do exist to create, you know. In one of his books, inspirational author Alan Cohen has a chapter named: Create or Die. If you think this is just a specifically focused book of techniques for artists on ways of being "creative", such as brainstorming and doesn't apply to your life as a bus driver, or a waitress, or a doctor, you're wrong. We ALL create, everything from good relationships, to successful meeting outcomes, to careers, and yes... music and paintings and inventions and sculptures and books. As a matter of fact, Fritz eschews the notion of brainstorming and you'll see why in this book. Basically, the first thought that'll crowd your mind as you complete the first chapter and then the second chatper, is that you have to read this repeatedly, because you want to soak these very profound, life-changing ideas into your psyche. It was hard for me to concentrate on the rest of the book during my first reading, because I was so excited about the implications of my expected change in thinking, and how I would tell others. What you'll learn is that being a reacter to problems doesn't result in peace of mind or success long-term. There are actual laws that he cites which explain the Structure of Tension which causes you to let go of all struggle and be powerfully pullled toward completion of ANYthing you want to accomplish. In this book, he tells when you think of a goal, that you need to separate what your brainwashed mind think what is impossible, from what you reallly want. You'll see that the stress of repeatedly lying to yourself throughout your life about what you want can slowly but surely impact your health even! If you set goals that are based on what your fears tell you that you are limited to, but not what you *really want*, this wears on you physically. Forget what your current environment or conditions tell you. THOSE DON'T MATTER! Just change to another "Structure" which leads to creation, not one that will swing you back and forth between struggles to fixing a problem, then...aaallllllmost getting there, but then the rubber band of the "Reactive" Structure pulls you back toward giving up on your faulty "fix-your-exterior" behaviors. Fritz mentions that he studied Metaphysics in his life, but wasn't much interested in them; however, this topic can't avoided, and you'll see how when you are in the correct Structure of Creating, and you simply make a decision to create something, that this sets powerful acts of force in your favor. Between sessions of actually working on your project, like walking the dog or taking a shower, your subsconscious goes to work and pulls from the collective conscious of Man EXACTLY what you need to create what you decided to create. He includes this in the examples, but not in the way I'm describing it. Don't worry, he doesn't write with the scatter-brained style of this review. You'll get it, and you'll be grateful for his simple four-step guide to Creating One more thing: Fritz discounts all self-help techniques such as affirmations or long term therapies. Personally, NLP along with EFT has been a godsend to my ability to function in interviews lately, and to eliminate strong negative emotions in some encounters and recommend Unlimited Power by A. Robbins and any book on EFT. But I see what he's talking about with respect to focusing more on just being the Creative Being that you were meant to be, rather making your life into a matter of long term therapy-seeking and inner-child healing.
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