Shake Your Psyche For A Change
Right now author Bill Chandler is feeling better than ever. Traveling the Northwest promoting his self-help book, “25 Things You Can Do To Feel Even Better Right Now,” has allowed him to share his ideas for enjoying life more.
The book offers 25 short chapters of homespun observation on the incidents that make up people’s lives and common-sense advice to make those moments more fun.
Out of bed and into the shower, dress, breakfast, out the door - every morning exactly, mindlessly the same. The description given in the book will sound familiar to many. The unconscious daily routine may be efficient, but it’s no fun and more importantly doesn’t allow for creative growth.
Shake up your psyche by doing something different, urges Chandler in the second chapter of the book. Changes as simple as a new haircut, wearing your watch on the other wrist or driving home from work a new way can lift you from a rut and open up possibilities.
The basic idea for Chandler’s self-published book came out of his habit of keeping a journal. “Everything everyone I observed did was part of an attempt to feel better,” Chandler explained in an interview before a book signing last month at Spokane’s downtown B. Dalton Bookseller.
With a bachelor of science in psychology and work experience as a counselor gave Chandler the background to further understand the difficulty many people have in attaining happiness. Even when people have a clear idea of what will improve their daily lives, they often lack a plan to bring about the change, he said.
Theory-based self-help books which offer no practical guide for implementation are pointless, Chandler said, so he tried to create a book that would give people a practical boost in the form of information they could understand and use.
Throughout, he endorses simple and even ordinary tasks to feel better. Help others. Laugh out loud. Take five deep breaths. Compliment someone sincerely or ask for help. People can make these simple changes immediately, and they rapidly become natural habits, Chandler explained.
Call people by name. Learn something new each day. Small commitments such as these can be managed fairly easily by anyone. “Go easy on yourself,” Chandler said, noting that many people set overly ambitious goals that they soon give up on as too difficult.
Focusing on ordinary tasks that take very little special effort, Chandler said, helps people realize that happiness is a continuous process and every moment is an opportunity to grow.
“The present is all we have,” he said. “We can’t wait for another time to feel better.”