The Complete Idiot's Guide to Reinventing Yourself

by Jeff Davidson

Book Overview

The hardest part of changing your life is figuring out how to get started. The Complete Idiots Guide to Reinventing Yourself helps you figure out where you are and how to get what you want. It will show you how to assess your work, home, and family life, and then how to set goals and make them happen.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0028640055
• ISBN13: 9780028640051
• Release Date: February 2001
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam
• Length: 322 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.4" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Letter from the author

You are holding in your hands a blueprint for changing your life from where it is now, to where you want to be. Everything that you have experienced in your life up until this point is just that-an experience. You are free to move on from who you were, what you have done, and where you have been, if you will simply recognize that such potential exists. For some people, the concept of reinventing one's self is a little scary. On the other hand, some people, particularly those in the performing arts seem to "reinvent themselves," at least from an image standpoint, every couple of years. The type of reinvention discussed in this book goes beyond the superficial. We are not talking about simply reinventing your image to others, unless of course that is all you are interested in doing. We're talking about the ability to fundamentally change how you view your surroundings, what activities you engage in, how others regard you, where you choose to devote your time, or even what you choose to believe in! Reinventing yourself is exciting. After all, how many people from past eras ever had such an opportunity? With increasing life spans and an increasingly diverse multi-cultural society, you are potentially exposed to more viewpoints, more ways of seeing the world, more past times, and more modes of thought than your counterparts of generations ago. You are privy to more information via the Internet, public libraries, bookstores, and the popular media than people of past eras could have even imagined. More stunning, your ability to gather such information, synthesize it, and apply it to where you want to go, what you want to be, how you want to act, how you want to live, would deeply astound those who came before you. In this book we explore many aspects of reinventing yourself. Reinvention includes the ability to get started on the new you, how to get your mind in gear for change, reinventing your physical self, reinventing your career, your relationships, and other aspects of your life. If you have had a notion that now is the time to make fundamental changes in your life, this book will aptly aid you. You might even take a turn in a direction that you haven't even previously contemplated. As with all of the wonderful books in the Complete Idiot's Guide series, each chapter will be delivered to you in bite size portions, which means you will be able to read through it rather easily. Because there is no one path to re-invention, I avoid offering a "formula" and instead focus on offering you a world of ideas. Much of the material will be humorous, and there will be figures, lists, and icons to get you through the material. By the time you finish, you will have some very clear notions of marvelous ways to reinvent yourself. It has been said that the a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Your journey begins with a single step, turning to page one of this book! Yours Truly, Jeff Davidson

You Really Can Reinvent Yourself

Reinvention ... what a concept! This book maintains that reinvention is a chance to renew yourself and that the longer you live, the more opportunities you have for reinventing your life. How true. There are several great sections in this book including Getting Your Mind in Gear, Reinventing Your Body, Reinventing Your Career, Reinventing Your Relationships and Reinventing Other Aspects of Your Life. The cover says, you begin reinventing yourself when you purchase the book, and in this case, it is not a false claim. If you are ready to make a change, this book willhelp.

A Needed Change !

Rarely have I encountered a book that is so methodically, comprehensively and yet amicable covers the topic of reinventing yourself. Like the author says, most of us are going to live a whole lot longer than we think, and are going to be findng ourselves in different occupations, maybe in different regions of the country or even different countries, living different kinds of life styles. This book gives great insights as to what kinds of chalenges might be on the horizon for you. I think that this would also be a good book to give to friends who are currently trying to find their way.

Very Helpful

This book was wonderful!! Jeff Davidson suggests endless strategies for reinvention that are very practical. This book covers everything from reinventing your career to relationships to reinventing appearance. I highly recomend this book to anyone wanting to make a small change or a huge change.

Great Advice

"I've been considering changing jobs for a while now. When I stumbled across this book in the book store, I though to myself, "Why not?" When I got into it, I realized that this was just what I was looking for. There are lots of good ideas here on reinventing many different aspects of your life. The author takes the approach that their is no one set formula for anybody . For some people a reinvention could happen with a snap of the fingers. With others it might take place years. For most of us it is probably something between several weeks and several months. At any rate there is enough here to keep me reading for long stretches There are also lots of ideas for reinventing myself in new areas like improving my vocabulary, making new kinds of friends, maybe taking an evening course or two.