Making the Big Move: How to Transform Relocation into a Creative Life Transition (Paperback)

by Cathy Goodwin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
For most people, moving is a source of grief and stress. For Cathy Goodwin, moving is a source of growth and fun. Goodwin has moved every two years of her adult life and lived all over North America, from Alaska to Atlanta. In Making the Big Move, Goodwin helps readers explore what moving means to them, make the emotional transition necessary, and deal with special situations such as moving as a family and moving abroad.

From the Author
This book has been helpful to people who are making life transitions.

I have created a website for people who are moving through the world and through their lives: movinglady.com.

When I give talks about relocation, someone always greets me with, "So you're the moving lady!" So I named by site movinglady.com.

Get some more tips and subscribe to my newsletter. And I'm always happy to hear from my readers. The book has been used not only for relocation, but also for career and other life transitions. I hope it will be helpful to you.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 226 pages
• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications (June 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572241357
• ISBN-13: 978-1572241350
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #539,241 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

77 of 82 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't Leave Home Without It, December 30, 1999

By	Paul Peszko (Whole Life Times, Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

Thinking about a life change? I mean a really big one, in a word, relocation. Then "MAKING THE BIG MOVE" by Cathy Goodwin is the book for you. Don't leave home without it. Subtitled "How to Transform Relocation into a Creative Life Transition," this guide takes you step-by-step through the inner processes of relocation that impact your life. If you are looking for practical advice on how to pack or find suitable housing in a new area, look elsewhere. No, it is not another feng shui tome either.

Goodwin, a marketing professor, who has lived in over a dozen cities across North America, gets to the heart of the whole matter - those underlying fears that turn a life transition into a moving hell. Goodwin's goal is to help us take advantage of relocation as an opportunity for personal growth. She does this by breaking the move into four distinct phases: separation, transformation, integration and maintenance. Those who have not yet decided whether to make a move will find Part 1 extremely useful. There are exercises to help you sort out your feelings and deal with your sense of loss as well as several identity crises: your self-identity, your social identity, and your paper or transaction identity.

In Part 2, Goodwin delves into the various phases listed above and presents more practical exercises to help you deal with each one such as a "Plan for Fear" and a "Plan for Being a Newcomer." In the Oracle exercise, you get a chance to test your psychic predictions like "I'll have more cultural knowledge but my tennis game will be shot" or "I'll drink less, eat more, and take more walks on the beach."

In Part 3, Goodwin provides information and exercises that focus on specific problems facing many movers. These chapters cover moving a family, moving along, moving out of the country, the corporate move and helping others move. While not exhausting, the exercises presented are rather time-consuming, but so if fear and stress. As Goodwin rightly points out: "Stress can distort your perceptions. A fearful, anxious person will make poor decisions, leading to more problems...Time spent worrying is time spent depleting energy that you are desperately going to need during a turbulent transition." That's certainly good advice, and Goodwin follows it up with a wealth of useful exercises and suggestion to reduce the fear and stress of moving. So, if you are planning a big move, remember: don't leave home with out "MAKING THE BIG MOVE."

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eases the nerves of people moving cross-country, June 2, 1999

By A Customer

I normally avoid self-help books, but this easy-to-read book is easing my anxiety from a cross-country move. I appreciate tips that I never before heard or considered -- such as how to put together an "emotional first aid kit" (including favorite photos) to help cure homesickness, or starting a new daily ritual (like getting coffee at a coffee shop) to make me feel at home in this foreign place. This book is straight-forward, peppered with anecdotes and research... and makes sense. It has been a good investment in happiness.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dead Weight, May 30, 2004

By A Customer

The book fails to offer constructive advice about how to overcome the problems it mentions. Yes, moving can be lonely and depressing. But I expected ideas, not just soft psychotherapy.

Ideas like:

Subscribe to the new place's newspaper for a couple of months before you go;

Volunteer in the new place for Hospice, a soup kitchen, a women's shelter, a hospital, Habitat for Humanity;

Get involved in political activity, your child's school, Neighborhood Watch, a religious group;

Learn about activities in your interests before you go (classes, clubs, etc.)

Subscribe to an email list about the new place before you go.

It's possible that a few of these ideas may be somewhere in the book - in all honesty, the "pity party" tone annoyed me so much I didn't do more than skim some of it. And there's no index, a serious flaw if it does contain any real information. But in all honesty, it doesn't seem to.

I've moved a fair amount - South, Midwest and West. I can think of one move, when I was very young and immature, when this book would have been helpful. Since then, I'd say it would be just dead weight in a moving box.