Customer Reviews

My Choice - My Life: Realizing Your Ability to Create Balance in Life

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Greenfeld's "My Choice - My Life" is one of the latest and greatest contributions to the area of wellness and mind-body medicine. The book delivers practical strategies to empower individuals to start taking a more active role in managing stress and creating balance in their lives. Greenfeld's acumen for delivering pragmatic information in a witty, energetic, and inspiring manner makes his stress-management strategies accessible to a wide variety of readers across the entire lifespan. Through reading this book, you will learn how to better manage your time, unlock the secrets to more successful relationships, develop a better understanding of yourself, and increase your understanding of the power you have to positively change your life. If you are having difficulty with stress and/or finding balance in your life, this book is a MUST HAVE!

Mindfulness Meditation and Stress Reduction for Beginners: The Garden of NOW

My Choice - My Life: Realizing Your Ability to Create Balance in Life doesn't tell you what you need to do in life. It isn't there to make decisions you are incapable of making on your own. Instead it offers some pretty clear advice/guidelines on how YOU can go about making these choices. The author does this by providing the reader with practical, well thought out ideas on how YOU can take control of the choices YOU make.

I didn't put it down from the moment I first purchased it. As a student who previously found it difficult to manage all my daily tasks, many of the tips offered by Greenfeld have been beneficial in helping me CHOOSE how to plan my time. It is one of those books that I could pick up in a year, and still gain some new insight from.

I would highly recommend this book.

Greenfeld gets it. I have gone to the book store and picked up countless books that purport to tell us how to manage our professional life while maintaining a healthy lifestyle, how to get over a break up while remaining true to yourself, how to balance your familial obligations while not putting yourself second. My Choice My Life trumps all the others in that it advises us to follow small and easy patterns to lead a full and well balanced life. The suggestions are common sense, they're practical, and often times you'll find yourself nodding your head while reading thinking "Ah,ha! Of course!" I especially like the use of Greenfeld's quotes throughout the book which articulate the chapter to follow, and for the absent minded reader the quick bullet point summary at the end of each chapter is extremely useful. Don't want to forget what you just read? Have a random but important thought at the finale of a chapter? Greenfeld provides blank pages to make notes. How interesting to look back in 10 years from now to see what you wrote. This book is a MUST READ for men and women of all ages. I can't wait to see what Greenfeld pen's for us next...

This book is certainly a must-read for people of all ages. It genuinely puts many aspects of life into perspective and that has become all the more important with our seemingly endless need for instant gratification. The analogies Greenfeld uses are apt and allow a certain visualization that help in understanding his points and methods.

I think the most important aspect of this book is its practicality. It can be applied to most everyday life and doesn't require money or toys or anything with monetary value. Instead, he emphasizes the ability of people to effectively change much of their lives by establishing their own inner will to change and by looking at things from a different (and in my opinion--more healthy)perspective.

Simply, this book is more than worth your time.

I would like to echo the other wonderful reviews for My Choice - My Life: Realizing Your Ability to Create Balance in Life. I found it to be extremely well-written, and more importantly, full of useful information. I think that the overarching focus on our ability to choose is a concept that many of us easily forget. The author is able to convey the message that if we are to live a life of purpose and vitality, we have to make the choices to do so, while at the same time acknowledging that it is not always easy. This book provides the bridge between wishing for the life we want and actually doing things to create the life we want.

I went through a period in my life when I opened self-help books just looking for an answer. Whatever my current challenge might have been, I just wanted a professional to give me the exact steps to fix it. Somehow, the guaranteed solutions never seemed to provide a perfect remedy to my unique circumstances. How could one single approach ever work for the millions of different personalities that exist in this world? I have since come to appreciate the books that, instead of asserting the only possible answer, provide guidance to the readers as they take control of their own progress and improvement. Jay Greenfeld provides just such a book with his new release My Choice - My Life: Realizing Your Ability to Create Balance in Life. In his first offering as an author, readers will learn concrete steps of action involving all areas of life and the questions to ask when determining appropriate choices.

While any reader can benefit from the self-reflection that is prompted by Greenfeld in his book, his writing and situational examples apply primarily to a teenage and twenty-something crowd. He addresses issues such as choosing healthy relationships, dealing with the pressure of drugs and alcohol use, and handling the stress that comes with a major change in one's life situation, such as preparing for college or being organized at that first real job. I worked for many years as first a high school teacher and then as a college advisor. While reading My Choice - My Life, I kept thinking about what an important resource this would have been for my students. I can easily see this book finding its place on the syllabus for a health course or perhaps even given to students to read as part of an orientation program. By valuing the personal responses each reader may have to the text and not talking down to his readers like an unreachable authority figure, Greenfeld can be very effective at capturing the attention of an age group that is often difficult to reach.

Greenfeld opens the book with a detailed analogy in which he compares life to a game of Monopoly. Each side of the board is one of the four critical aspects of every person's life - physical, mental and emotional, social, and academic or professional. We all must decide on the aspect that deserves our time and focus at any particular moment. What about those Chance cards which always make us nervous? These are the uncertainties that get thrown into every person's life once in a while. Greenfeld also shares his developed symbolism for many other aspects of the popular board game, with the result being a great visual that sticks with the reader as chapters unfold to discuss each piece of the analogy in detail.

Greenfeld uses important reference tools in each section of the book that involve the reader. Each chapter ends with a bulleted list of "Quick Points" which highlight the key pieces of information. If a reader feels drawn to work on an area discussed in a particular chapter, these summary notes can be a good list to copy and keep somewhere nearby. The author also draws in his readers by questioning them about what they are learning. He leaves a notes page to write down thoughts and intended actions. I always appreciate such an inclusion in this genre of books, as I believe that readers must take the material while fresh and apply it to their personal situations. Also, whenever Greenfeld shares a to-do list concerning a particular area in life, he asks the readers to add to the ideas. With all of these pieces, Greenfeld stimulates his readers to brainstorm and take ownership for their own goals.

With the new book My Choice - My Life: Realizing Your Ability to Create Balance in Life, author Jay Greenfeld has created a wonderful reference tool for anyone who is feeling overwhelmed by the many directions and choices we are given in life. Greenfeld does not pretend that all of us fit into the same cookie-cutter mold when it comes to our handling of stress and daily responsibilities. Therefore, he provides general hints and suggestions that can apply to every reader and then encourages us to adapt the ideas to our own situations. With its primary focus on younger generations, I believe that Mr. Greenfeld has taken his great experience as a lecturer and published a work that will be tremendously helpful to those who are encountering some of life's major changes for the first time. Any young adult, or parent of someone in this age group, will benefit from reading and then discussing the lessons that Greenfeld has to offer.

I am an 85- year old healthy grandmother and loved this book!!! I think it is an excellent book for any age. The book is not only for young people, it is also for older people too. I cannot tell you how much more I have learned from reading this book and I am trying to apply some of the things I'm learned everyday.

While reading it I cried, laughed, and danced around the house. It was so easy to read and understand. I read it twice and learned even more the second time. Therefore, I wish & hope whoever buys this book will learn a lot from it. I know we as parents did a lot, but after reading it I realized there is that much more we did not do but still can. There are so many thoughts and ideas that can be so helpful to grandparents, parents, friends, and children that anyone could benefit from this book.

I like the way the author has insight and suggestions on how to balance healthy living (e.g. physical, emotional, social, and academic & professional). It is amazing how much I learned about each aspect of balance. You must read this book if you are thinking about looking for any type of balance in you life. It was just so interesting. It was reassuring to see how many of the things I already do, but that much more exciting for me to see how much I can still learn. Therefore, I keep reading it over & over again, until I'll get the core of it.

I especially loved the chapter that the author talks about how important it is to not forget your grandparents when you grow up. For example, he suggests that you phone your grandparents routinely, especially when you are out of town to tell them about things in your life. I know I get a thrill when my granddaughter and grandson call me and keep me up to date. He really shows the reader the difference between the family you have and the friends you choose.

I also loved that at the end of each chapter he summarizes the content with quick points and gives you space to write out your thoughts, such a good idea. It helped remind me of what was important in my mind when I read each chapter and how the content applied to me.

I hope others can gain as much from this book as I did, regardless of their age. You'll wake up one day and say what a good book to read!! It sure helped me a lot. You'll want to read it over & over again just like I do. I go to bed and keep thinking of the content from the book all night, that's how much I loved it and how useful it is to me.

THANK YOU for such a wonderful book and I hope you'll write another soon!!!

Greenfeld has clearly poured his heart and soul into the words of this book. This is seriously practical advice for the young seeker as he or she encounters all of the various trials and tribulations of life from relationships with family to the way we look at our physical and mental health. I look forward to seeing big things from this author in the years to come.

In this inspiring book, Jay Greenfeld challenges the reader to take control their own life. He provides effective and concrete guidelines to achieve balance in all facets of life. This book is appropriate for both male and female readers from just out of high school to young professionals starting their career. He takes into account various backgrounds, beliefs and sexual orientations.. At the end of each chapter blank space is left to write thoughts and feelings about what was leaned and what goals you want to accomplish, with the goal of review in the future. He shows that what you think may be impossible to accomplish in your life is possible with the proper preparation. This book is truly inspirational and life altering.

Greenfeld writes in an easy to follow style that inspires and captivates the reader. He offers extensive suggestions for leading a self empowered life and motivates the reader to take control. I loved the sections at the end of each chapter where you can add your own thoughts and contemplate some of the key points. I would highly recommend this book as it has something to offer to everyone.