Get off your "But" Review

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This review of Get off your “But” by Sean Stephenson was written by CPF reader Karen.

Make the best of your life

This book teaches the reader to make the best of their experiences. Sean Stephenson works through on paper six practical lessons on self-improvement. The tone of the book is friendly but direct. It’s an offer of a more satisfied life based on how you choose to react to yourself, to others and your attitude to the future. This book is equally suited to people who have problems that they want to tackle and people who have already come to some realisation of this way of life.

I can’t count the number of times I’ve told a friend “I’d like to BUT…” Long before the friend has even suggested the offer I have chosen to respond by saying that my physical, mental, spiritual or time limitations mean that I can’t accept. I tell them that I’m too tall, too fat, too ugly, or just too damaged to have the things I want in life.

RING, RING, WAKE UP CALL!

The book made me realise that this excuse bank is such a waste of time. It is a formula of fear that leads us away from great opportunities by saying that it is safer to have never tried. In the end it’s a bit like stealing something from yourself.

I’d recommend this book to all of my close friends because it could help them to overcome financial, social and mental barriers in their lives. The book made me realise what I’m grateful for, what I’m searching for and how the decisions I make now will affect my destiny. This book isn’t just another ‘inspirational book,’ it is a book that motivates you to change because the key messages are personal and real to your own situation.

I read the book with a sense of urgency. I wanted to know as much as possible as quickly as possible. Although I made notes applying the techniques to my life as I went along… I know that I want to start again at the beginning and take it all in thoroughly. I enjoyed the funny sections of the book and found it sad in places because the case studies given were of people who triumphed in outrageously hard circumstances. I don’t want to give too much away in this review but I will say that the author is remarkably open about the difficulties that he has overcome in life.

Final thoughts

Overall, I liked this book because I could understand how the author came to his conclusions and because a lot of the advice was relevant to Christian Life. For example the book advocates values such as friendliness, sincerity, positivity, confidence, mercy, compassion, authority and also battles hard against negativity, self-doubt and fear. The exercises in the book help you to understand how you feel about your life and how you can improve it but if you’re not interested in changing then this book won’t work for you.

I hope you will read Get off your “But” and experience the same deep sense of encouragement and fulfilment that I have received from it.