#BookReivew: Oola for Women by Dave Braun and Troy Amdahl

Review by MK French

I will admit right off the bat that I'm not usually the kind of person that will go for self-help books because my free time is so limited that I'd rather read something fun. When the request for this book came through, it happened to come at a time when work had gotten markedly more stressful with a change of computer system along with less ancillary staff, my youngest deciding that tantrums were fun, and my older two children deciding that yelling was much better than screaming. Feeling a little frazzled, I figured that I could give this book a try. The world is certainly unbalanced, and I'd never heard of the Oola system before. Why not?

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

May 2017; HCI; 978-0757319846
ebook, audio, print (264 pages); self-help

The authors describe Oola as a state of balance, and created the term from "Ooh la la." The balance is between fitness, finances, family, field (as in career), faith, friends, and fun. Interspersed between stories women had written and contributed to the authors are their definitions of these seven areas and what it should look like in balance.

At first, that sounds simple, in the sense that you sit there and think "But I knew that!" I found myself breaking out the post it tags to mark up pages so I can go back and read them again, and took out a notebook to tally up where my life is at in those seven fields. The tally is rather subjective, but I think that's the point of it all: YOU decide what's lacking in these areas of your life, not someone you've never met writing a self-help book. Once you have that in place, then you can decide what your overall goal should be, and what your next step is going to be.

There's no quick fix, and the authors don't ever imply that there is one. The point of this book is that yes, the world is nuts and there is too much to do in so little time. If you sit down and map out the areas of your life that make it worthwhile, you can start to put problems into perspective and figure out ways to solve them.

It's very straightforward and easy to grasp the point, and the third section is all step by step advice on how to break down the larger problems into something smaller and more achievable. For most people, that's probably the hardest part to figure out, and this book gives great guidance for that.

Buy Oola for Women at Amazon

Born and raised in New York City, M.K. French started writing stories when very young, dreaming of different worlds and places to visit. She always had an interest in folklore, fairy tales, and the macabre, which has definitely influenced her work. She currently lives in the Midwest with her husband, three young children, and golden retriever.

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