Rating: 
Summary: Nothing new
Review: There is nothing new in this book and most of the exercises were shallow and not likely to have any great impact on lives - certainly could have made better use of my money.I also didn't like the over-emphasis on the need to have lots and lots of friends to support you through the exercises - a nice way to make some of us who don't have wads of friends or are more self sufficient feel totally inadequate.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Tool To improve your life
Review: This "book" is excellent if you look to it and use it as a self help "tool" or "mannual" and not as a book for spiritual guidance or merely an enjoyable read. It is simply written but very well written .Precise and to the point and this is why it is so effective.However, to improve your life using this book you must be willing to work with it over a long period of time and not to just read it over a couple of hours or a couple of days.It should be used slowly to affect change and you're supposed to work with one chapter at a time over a period of a year.I think this makes lots of sense as old habits die hard and good new habits take time to set in.For example: the first week you're supposed to write 25 things you are most proud of accomplishing over the past year.It took me about 4 days to find all 25 things , but at the end I really felt good about myself, before that I used to (negatively)think that my time flew without getting anything done.Many books will spend pages and pages telling you about the benefits of positive thinking,and how to achieve it. This book actually fostered positive thinking with one very simple exercise. This is the beauty of this book! Another example:The next week I found one goal that I felt I needed to focus on and then wrote three actions that I will take each week to achieve this goal.Prior to that I used to set so many goals to work on at the same time , with no clear plan of action as to exactly how to achieve these goals. Over the past few months this book made me feel good about myself, introduced me to the satisfaction of self-care , made me respect my priorities and now I have a schedule that reflect these priorities, it helped me find time slots for doing things that really matter to me like excersising and spending quality time with my family, and helped me create a much needed balance between my different roles in life.I finally achieved some goals I've been talking about wanting to achieve for years. Highly recommended.Two other highly recommended books for a better life are: The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey and the 10 dumbest mistakes smart people make and how to avoid them by Arther Freeman and Rose Dewolf.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Tool To improve your life
Review: This "book" is excellent if you look to it and use it as a self help "tool" or "mannual" and not as a book for spiritual guidance or merely an enjoyable read. It is simply written but very well written .Precise and to the point and this is why it is so effective.However, to improve your life using this book you must be willing to work with it over a long period of time and not to just read it over a couple of hours or a couple of days.It should be used slowly to affect change and you're supposed to work with one chapter at a time over a period of a year.I think this makes lots of sense as old habits die hard and good new habits take time to set in.For example: the first week you're supposed to write 25 things you are most proud of accomplishing over the past year.It took me about 4 days to find all 25 things , but at the end I really felt good about myself, before that I used to (negatively)think that my time flew without getting anything done.Many books will spend pages and pages telling you about the benefits of positive thinking,and how to achieve it. This book actually fostered positive thinking with one very simple exercise. This is the beauty of this book! Another example:The next week I found one goal that I felt I needed to focus on and then wrote three actions that I will take each week to achieve this goal.Prior to that I used to set so many goals to work on at the same time , with no clear plan of action as to exactly how to achieve these goals. Over the past few months this book made me feel good about myself, introduced me to the satisfaction of self-care , made me respect my priorities and now I have a schedule that reflect these priorities, it helped me find time slots for doing things that really matter to me like excersising and spending quality time with my family, and helped me create a much needed balance between my different roles in life.I finally achieved some goals I've been talking about wanting to achieve for years. Highly recommended.Two other highly recommended books for a better life are: The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey and the 10 dumbest mistakes smart people make and how to avoid them by Arther Freeman and Rose Dewolf.
Rating: 
Summary: Stress Relief for Those Overly Busy with Work and Family
Review: This book is designed for the work-obsessed, and will be most valuable to women who have both demanding jobs and busy home responsibilities. It is easy to turn the demands of others into a compulsion to work all the time. In that process, you can lose sight of yourself and the purposes you want to serve. The main weakness of this book is that it has you take on a great many new activities without letting most of them continue long enough to become good, new habits. Converted into a book from 52 weekly on-line newsletters, this book would have been greatly improved by editing it into a less demanding regimen with more repetition and fewer new things to do. Ms. Richardson is a personal coach, and normally meets with her clientele weekly to check on how they are doing and to give them new direction. She has attempted to match that model by encouraging you to find a friend or a group to provide support for you, and to prescribe (blindly) exercises for your weekly pursuit. Although this one-size-fits-all approach may work fine for some, for many it will not be optimal. I suggest a different approach. Treat this book as a resource guide instead. Start by reading the whole book. Make notes about which sections relate to problems that you are sure you have, and are having trouble dealing with. Then think about how solving these problems with help you have a better life. Next, reorder the sequences to get help for yourself in the areas where you need it first. When doing this, continue with a set of exercises until they become new and improving habits before taking on the next thing. Otherwise, I think you will find your busy schedule simply filled up with new self-oriented activities. If you are not careful, this will just create a different kind of stress, being busier and having spent more money. Most people will find that they need to repeat something 45 to 60 times before it becomes a firmly entrenched habit. Since many of these exercises are to be pursued once a day, I suspect that you will be able to add a new exercise (unless you have a lot of spare time) only about every 6-9 weeks rather than once a week. So if you found all of these exercises helpful, it would take several years to make the adjustment. I see that as good, rather than as slow progress. If you made 4 or 5 major changes in important areas for you in the next year, that would be an exceptionally good year for personal progress. Once you are ready to begin, I commend the first two weeks to you. The first one suggests that you begin by "acknowledging yourself for what you've already acomplished and . . . who you've become over the last year." This perspective is a good one for thinking about where you need to focus and how much progress you need. The second one calls for goal setting. Writing down your goals is the best advice in this book. If you review those goals regularly, you will undoubtedly make a lot of progress. Research on personal progress continuously validates that method to progress. The rest of the book is mostly a set of techniques to break you out of old habits and routines, so that you consciously choose how you focus and spend your time. Having taken a lot of self-improvement courses, I agree with her advice to both keep a journal in many of these areas and to regularly check in with your buddy or self-help group. That provides perspective, structure, as well as motivation to continue. Early in the process, be sure to do one or more of the exercises that is designed to help you reduce your commitments. Otherwise, you will become even more overwhelmed. You have to start doing less of something unimportant before you can do more of something important. This book seems to encourage a lot of self-indulgence . . . massages, new goodies for the house or office, and relaxation. However, that may not be what's missing for you. You may need more excitement and company. So part of the answer may be to go skiing more often, and to have that experience be more companionable by doing it with family and those you love. After you have done the exercises that make the most sense to you, I suggest that you try a few that don't. Sometimes it's hard to understand a message about something you haven't experienced before. For example, I don't like to tidy up, and this book encourages that a lot. I plan to do some straightening up to see if that does add something for me psychologically that I am missing. The exercises and resource materials referred to in the book are stronger than the 52 essays. For that reason, I suggest that you focus on the exercises and resource materials. In the areas where you decide to focus, read at least some of one book on the resource list. The essay material here is pretty sketchy and will not be enough to shift your focus otherwise. After you have finished with the program you have designed, I suggest that you repeat the process I have outlined here. Having had more experience as your own personal coach, you'll be in a better position to design and implement the next program you pursue. If you are no longer overly busy and stressed, consider what besides time and repose are missing from your life and rebalance to create more in those most missing areas. Be deliberate in designing your life to fit what makes you most satisfied with yourself! Then, you can be yourself . . . naturally.
Rating:
Summary: Already changed my life, not even half-way into it!!!!!!
Review: This is an AWESOME book! I'm in a group that meets about our progress, and it's really teaching me to put ME ahead of work and other aspects of life. Cheryl Richardson is a life-saver, and will surely change many people's lives (maybe YOURS) if they'll only go through this book. The chapters are only 3 pages long with an action for the week. I'm currently trying to learn not to live off adrenaline by driving the speed limit (actually) and taking deep breaths. I discovered that putting off writing my second true crime book was "holding me back" and "taking my energy away" because I felt so guilty. So I started working on it every morning and finished it! My goal this year is to feel good and worthwhile without my job being my self-esteem thermometer. And the 25 great accomplishments over the past year are astonishing!! To write and to remember. Just awesome, this book. HIGHLY recommend to ANYONE, male or female! Go Cheryl!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: A Must Book for your Library!!
Review: This is an incredibly written book, with great links at the end of each chapter. They not only take you to other websites that are of relevance to the chapter that was just covered, but they also direct you to more books related to the specific area. I think this book is incredible and I would highly recommend it to everyone!
Rating: 
Summary: SIMPLE AND PRACTICAL ADVICE
Review: To the book's credit, the book is arranged into 52 easy to read sections and the writing style is straight forward and offers basic, practical advice. The book is like your renovating your home. You start from the ground level up, clean out all the clutter from the past, restore the foundation and work your way up "to the attic." You will understand the importance of ridding yourself of negative thoughts, and the value of time management and connecting with others. The downside of the book is that much of the material is also found in a good number of other self-help books. That is not to say there is anything wrong with the material, it is simply not new material. The wording and writing style may be a little different, but the message is the same. In addition, the book is really quite short and each chapter could definitely be expanded upon. I believe we never know enough about self-improvement; most of us have not reached the stage of perfection yet and anything and everything we learn is a plus. The idea of having "52 easy lessons" also allows you to digest what you have read slowly, very slowly actually, so that you fully absorb the content. It is interesting reading and offers good advice, but definitely nothing that will set the world on fire!
Rating:
Summary: For illiterate only
Review: Unfortunately, Oprah and her impossible to shift so called experts seem to address a non educated, non intelligent audience, exclusively. Say you have a light bulb moment just one time in your life, it should be the realization that Oprah shiny personality can't make up for the obvious and sad lack of depth of the books she chooses to promote on her show. This book however goes beyond shallowness. Nevertheless it deserves one star for finding 52 titles for a year long of supposed life changing revelations (one for every week). There is a page devoted to resources at the end of each chapter , hopefully one of them will bring you somewhere. If you are 18 years old or more and consider yourself an adult, command Oprah for having such a loyalty to her friend and go elswhere to get useful informations
Rating:
Summary: Thank You Cheryl Richardson!!
Review: What a beautiful gift to myself when I purchased this book! The jacket informs us we now have 52 practical ways to improve our life...What an understatement this has proven to be for one suggestion from the author seems to ignite more ideas from ourselves! I HIGHLY recommend this treasure to anyone who wants more of themselves, more of a desire to honour the original version of themselves before life happened. I love this book and will purchase copies for my grown children so that they may never lose themselves with living but live for and with themselves more wonderfully and with more excitement that they have experienced since young childhood days.
Rating:
Summary: Starting Over
Review: What I like about this is book is that Cheryl Richardson gives an outline to create the life we want. Of course, if your looking for someone to do the dirty work for you this might not be the book for you. But, if you are willing to be responsible for your life, this book can provide some effective tools you will need to create a great life. I also highly recommend "Open Your Mind, Open Your Life" by Taro Gold. Excellent.
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