Customer Reviews

Get Out Of Your Own Way

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This isn't a joke, it is true. This book changed my life. I was an insecure, confused, lonely individual who never felt sustained happiness and worked in a job that wasn't where I wanted to be. Now I feel good about living, my future, everything, going full throttle in the pursuit of my dreams. The secret to how you feel about yourself is locked away in your childhood. If you really want to change your life, you have to have the courage to face the pain and confusion you endured as a child. If you are willing to re-live that, you've opened the door. The next step is to change the familiar negative behavior and atitudes you've kept in your life as defense mechanisms. You will struggle for a while to change, but if you want it bad enough you will succeed. Hey if I can do it, so can you. It has been 2 years since I read this book, and I can't even believe I was the same person as I was before I read it. As a side benefit, you will be able to see right through the people in your life, and even the people you've just met. If you are a single person like myself, you will never waste your time dating losers ever again unless you want to. So if you are unhappy with any aspect of your life, have the courage to change it. Buy this book. Whatever they are charging for this book, it is worth 10 times that at least.

This book explains why we do what we do...why we react the way we do. EVERYTHING we experience today can be explained by our upbringing as children! The chapter on childhood is by far THE most gut-wrenching, yet enlightening. You gain valuable insight towards parents & siblings! This book helps you find inner peace!

I've been buying from Amazon for years and this is the first review I've ever written - this book is that good! Granted, it won't be the answer for everyone, but if you've tried other self-help books and even counseling and nothing seems to click - give this book a try. It has completely transformed my life and awakened me from a very long and depressing sleep.

"Get Out of Your Own Way" is an insightful book that will help you overcome those self-defeating attitudes, believe me - at times, we all have an inner voice trying to give us an excuse not to go for it. Throughout the book is a step-by-step approach to self-initiated and self-directed personal change. This book "maps out" ways for readers to look at themselves objectively and identify the defeating attitudes that are keeping them locked into problem habits, relationships, and situations.

In the opening the author talks about the definition and frequent causes of Self-Doubt." Moving on Dr. Rusk talks about several types of Mind Traps:

The Feeling Traps

The "Bad Feelings Are Wrong" Trap
The "Feelings Are Foolish" Trap

The Fear of Change Traps

The "Biased Against Myself" Traps
The "People Don't Change" Traps

The Fear of Failure and Responsibility Traps

The Fear of Failure and Success Traps
The Blame Trap
The "My Happiness Is Your Responsibility" Traps

The Fear of Rejection Traps

The Rejection Trap
The Jealousy Trap
The Shy and Lonely Trap

The Prove Your Worth Traps

The Great American Success Trap
The Perfectionism Trap
The Conceit Trap
The "I'm Right and You're Wrong" Trap
The "Your Happiness Is My Responsibility" Trap

In essence, there is something for everyone of us in this book on how to escape from our inner-mind traps. Now I can't promise that reading Dr. Rusk's book will change your life, no book can do that. To change your life you need to open your mind, listen to your positive and negative inner voices, and take action.

-----------------
Michael Davis - Editor, Byvation

I found this book in a remainder bin in Adelaide, Australia, and picked it up on a whim. Suffice to say it was well worth it. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that virtually every page reverberated with me. I can't guarantee it will change my life (yet) but at least if I fail I'll have no excuses, I'll know precisely why.

I was not happy with this book. I will say that I found valuable information within the pages but the way the book was written was so pigeonholed and scattered, it seems I should have read the end before the beginning as to save myself the bother of reading it again after flagging every page for the author's whim to backtrack or re-reference. Reading the book from beginning to end, I felt it was too specific and seemed to have little faith that the reader could make their own conclusions as to what success is which is a collision to the very points the author portrays. I suggest that the author learn to "Get Out Of His Own Way" when writing his next book. In essence, I just did not see the passion or simplicity one finds when an author is locked into a meaningful written journey. To quote Mark Twain: "I would have made this letter shorter but I did not have the time." Fortunately for me, I am reading several books of this type and most are helpful to me and I have taken the admittedly great ideas that are hidden and used them for my benefit. Usually when reading this type of style I find that the author is trying to make too many points instead of staying with specifics. An example would be an essay on the Declaration of Independence that hints more to voting republican than retaining its original theme or outline.

"We have met the enemy... and he is us" (Pogo). I am finding that this book "Get Out Of Your Own Way" by Tom Rusk is good place to begin to understand that enemy within.

When I first pick up a book, I often look at the copyright date. This book, "Get Out Of Your Own Way" by Tom Rusk was first published in 1996, and now in 2007, it is in its eight printing. "This book must never go out of print."

In the last few weeks, certain events and memories caused my eyes to open to certain realities. In fact, during this time, I confronted one of those people who I felt took advantage of me leaving me emotionally wounded. However, this confrontational approach that I took left me feeling like hell.

In order to lessen my pain, I will also need to discontinue communications with my parents, siblings, certain friends and some neighbors. I will also need to learn to ignore some of the actions and words of strangers as well. In addition to discontinuing certain relationships, I will make attempts to write about my experiences, as Tom Rusk suggests.

I found that attempts at getting even could be dangerous to the other person and to my own health. Letting my emotions rule and letting them loose on society and friends is often not a good idea. I am glad that I did not go to jail to find out these lessons as so many men and women have done.

I do not believe that I am totally to blame. Our society has done a poor job at teaching us how to deal with conflict and losses: not the schools, churches and not even government. It is a shame we have to learn so many lessons on our own, which is often lengthy, painful and far too often harmful to ourselves and sometimes to others.

I have been in and out of counselors, psychologists and psychiatrists offices since November 1991. I also went to churches and numerous "meetings" and found little instructions to handle my emotions, although I did find others on the same journey. No one sat me down and told me how to deal with my feelings. They often listened and told me, let your feelings be your guide or follow your gut or the generic, "Let Go and Let God." Few have explained to me what to do with my feelings.

In the eighth edition of this book, "Get Out Of Your Own Way" by Tom Rusk, in chapter eight on page 83, Tom Rusk wrote that "Feelings are irrational, amorphous, and confusing." Irrational means without reason or judgment. Amorphous means formless, without physical content and confusing means disorderly and chaotic.

Tom Rusk also wrote that our "feelings can affect how you act even when you aren't aware of them." The one thing that he wrote that has motivated me to stick with this book is "how you handle your feelings largely determines the quality of your life."

He adds that we handle our feelings in three major ways.

1) You can deny, ignore and suppress them.

2) You can react unthinkingly to feelings -- for example, by withdrawing when hurt (flight) or attacking when angry (fight).

3) You can learn to monitor your feelings, compassionately examining them in order to understand what they reflect about the condition of your spirit. You can use this information to help make decisions.

I have often practiced the first two very often, not being aware or properly and clearly instructed on this third concept, "You can learn to monitor your feelings, compassionately examining them in order to understand what they reflect about the condition of your spirit. You can use this information to help make decisions."

On page 86, he offers three additional 'principles' in handling feelings.

* Feelings contain important information, but they should not trusted implicitly or blindly.

* Conversely, feelings are never ridiculous or wrong and ... should not be ignored.

* Feelings speak in a nonverbal code that requires deciphering to be understood."

In closing, I ask, "how can we grow up in such a prosperous nation, surrounded by thousands of schools and thousands of churches and yet very few take the time to teach us about our feelings?"

The intellectuals, of which I am one, often made attempts to suppress and ignore our feelings through teaching and lecturing, which often amounts to a lot of mental masturbation. Other times, we even mustered enough courage and spoke out and and a few times even demonstrated outwardly our frustrations. The fact is that we accomplished very little except piss some people off.

On the hand, incidents like we had at Virginia Tech and my home state of Ohio with shootings in Ohio, the media repeatedly asks, "how does this happen?" Then after two weeks of news coverage, we go back to business as usual, while families cry for years and kids live in more fear.

It is ironic and ridiculous that we as a nation, can make money, build massive corporations and some even make unheard of fortunes, yet we cannot handle these feelings inside of ourselves.

According to Gavin de Becker in his book, "The Gift of Fear," it is friends, neighbors, classmates, co-workers and family members that commit eighty percent of murders. Therefore, since strangers are responsible for twenty percent of the killings in the United States, we must learn to look closer to home for our problems.

The first place to look is within. Although Pogo wrote, "We have met the enemy... and he is us" (Pogo), we don't have to stay stuck; we can escape. We can begin by looking at Tom Rusk's book and begin "Getting out of our own way!"

I read the reviews by the other reviewers before I bought this book and they convinced me to buy it. However, I was extremely disappointed in this book and found it of no help at all. If you're looking for self-help book that will actually help you, keep looking.