Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life, No Matter What! (Hardcover)

by Martha Beck PhD (Author)
Key Phrases: dream analysis, inner lizard, conative style, North Star, Dark Arts, The Secret (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

In the tradition of her bestseller, Finding Your Own North Star, Oprah Magazine columnist Martha Beck reconnects readers with their best destinies. Described as one of the best-known life coaches in America in media such as Psychology Today, NPR, and USA Today, Martha Beck has demonstrated a rare gift for helping people whose lives have gone off course find their way back to authentic, rewarding lives. Now, in Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life, No Matter What!, Martha Beck describes the step-by-step process she uses with her private clients to help them navigate the terrain of their best lives. Bringing together cutting-edge research in psychiatry, neurology, and related fields in an accessible, substantive, original way, Dr. Beck offers powerful new methods for solving the problems that beset ordinary people. Using her trademark wisdom, empathy, and engaging style, she connects readers with fresh, never-before published strategies that have proven most effective and efficient for the hundreds of people she has coached. For readers who have found their North Stars, this book will be an invaluable tool to stay the course and overcome obstacles.  For those who still feel adrift, it will provide a way to find true North and follow the path of best destiny. Dr. Beck identifies three stages along the path to recapturing a satisfying life:-“the stargazer” helps readers understand why it’s so easy to lose themselves and offers strategies for sighting their North Star-“the mapmaker” uses this newly clarified perspective to evaluate one’s situation and plot a course for upcoming years-“the pathfinder” discusses the adventures that may be encountered as one travels along this new life course Whether it’s seeking better relationships, more focused career direction, the achievement of specific fitness goals, or a more harmonious lifestyle, Steering by Starlight’s colorful anecdotes, case studies, and exercises will point the way. 

About the Author

MARTHA BECK, PHD, is a life coach and monthly columnist for O: The Oprah Magazine. She has taught career development at the American Graduate School of International Management and was research assistant to Dr. John Kotter at Harvard Business School. The author of the bestsellers Finding Your Own North Star and the memoir Expecting Adam, and The Four-Day Win, she lives in Phoenix, Arizona.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Rodale Books; 1st edition (March 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594866139
• ISBN-13: 978-1594866135
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,531 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Transformational Journey, April 27, 2008

By	O. Brown "Ms. O. Khannah-Brown" (Twopeas, WA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

*****
This latest book from Martha Beck was more of a journey for me than just a book to read. The author advises you in the very beginning that for you to really have this book change your life, you have to do the exercises. So I did, and I was glad. They really helped me to be able to apply the concepts and ideas in a way that benefited me personally and not just theoretically.

The purpose of the book is to change your life so that you get your "right life", not by thinking or feeling your way TO it, but by "dissolving" the thoughts and feelings that are OBSTACLES to it. The difference may seem just semantic, but it isn't---it's profound! I was a life coach for several years in the past, and I can say that Martha Beck's concepts here are right on, effective, and truly transformational when really applied.

The author's writing style is hilarious and makes the journey fun. For me reading this book and working my way through it seemed like a series of chiropractic adjustments to my life, helping me to indeed figure out where I was missing my "right life" and what is standing in its way. Working through the book helped me to develop useful skills that I can use each day to stay on course and to make life more meaningful, just because I know I'm going in the direction that's right for me.

It's an awful lot to get just from a book; I think this work truly earned all five stars. Highly recommended.
*****

41 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Going farther on her own path, March 20, 2008

By	Anna Paradox (www.annaparadox.com) - See all my reviews

I was so impressed with Martha Beck's book Finding Your Own North Star that I trained with her and became a life coach. Now Steering by Starlight takes her concepts of following your own best destiny even farther. She offers new and deeper tools for discovering and following your heart's true desires.

Martha Beck is too much of an explorer to simply repeat what she has done before. Steering by Starlight ventures into startling territory, where dreams come true and apparent coincidences pile up beyond the bounds of probability. I admit, these areas both scare and excite me. My rational mind wants to stop at the edge of what it can explain. Yet why should I think that what I can explain is all there is? Martha makes the way easier by talking about her own scientific responses and documenting what has happened to her and people she knows personally. The possibilities feel like new doors opening.

The book is very well written, and full of humor. I laughed out loud about twice a chapter. Read it for the stories, for the tools for self-transformation, for the pleasure of good words.

Read it, just maybe, for the invitation to a life more amazing than you have imagined.

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Empower Your Life, June 27, 2008

By	Nancy Gulden - See all my reviews

Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life, No Matter What! by Martha Beck is an empowering,wonderful book. Beck is a Harvard educated life coach.

She writes: "My goal in writing this book is to help you find your deepest sense of purpose--to give you back to yourself, since you are the ultimate arbiter of your own fate."

Throughout the book, there are lots of stories about her clients that illuminate her theories. Many might seem fantastic and over-the-top to the uninitiated, but as someone who has experience with many of Beck's work, I can assure you they are real.

Beck writes about our three selves--essential, social and stargazer. The stargazer is the higher or true self; it is the self imbibed with the knowledge of true destiny and purpose in life.

The book is filled with exercises to uncover our destiny and purpose. She discusses three stages:

*Dissolving: when you remove the blinders that prevent us from seeing our destiny
* Dreaming: When we begin to align ourselves with our fate, we will experience magic, coincidences and more
* Daring: Learning the work to make our destiny happen

Beck mentions The Secret and how the essential message is "everything you think about happens." She struggled with that and came up with this: "thoughts that come from the core of peace are magic, versus thoughts from our shallow outer limits of our psyches have little power." I love that!

She writes: "Living space is a powerful metaphor for your life. Whether you know it or not, you can't change your life without changing your home, and vice versa." I loved this, as it was a bit of coincidence/magic for me--I recently read Harmonious Environment: Beautify, Detoxify and Energize Your Life, Your Home and Your Planet and the book has allowed me to change my house/change my life!

This is a clear and concise guide to learning how to access your higher self, live proactively and reach your goals.