Customer Reviews

Path of Least Resistance: Learning to Become the Creative Force in Your Own Life

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Written 2 decades ago, the latest edition has been extensively revised (70%). The title sounds like a chapter from a textbook of engineering or physics as do some of the chapters, but the book really gives billiant new concepts behind manifesting our desired realities. The author-musician, who seems highly opinionated against the "new age", understandably never uses the term "manifesting". At times, the reading gets a little tedious, as this not merely a description of the steps in a "process" but rather an excellent attempt to elucidate the very original concepts that the author is trying to expound. Even so, this treatise on the principles of the creative "FORCE" is highly readable and leaves the reader feeling that he has gained understanding and insight into an area that appears seeminly elusive...

A great book highlighting some of the common errors of thought in traditional problem solving, and expressing the need to rethink how we approach this area (i.e. from a structural point of view rather than the simpler, more common pain relief point of view). Part psychology, part process re-engineering, this is a fairly quick read with a solid presentation of an important idea.

fritz really has no value for mainsteam psycho therapy but his alternative "structure" of changing your life isn't very well presented. he get's bogged down in his structure schematics and after a while I lost interest. I don't think I got much out of this book.

I found this book in the laundry room of my apartment building where people sometimes leave old books and magazines for others... and I'm wondering why they threw it out with all the other business books they dumped there!

It is very interesting to read, though like many such books is a bit long-winded. It confirmed to me that my approach as a scientist and scholar is the correct one, the one most likely to lead to good science. A professor at my previous university in Australia kept pushing the view that we needed to solve "clients" problems (my field is environmental studies/science). This was at the top research university in the country. This guy was just an extreme example of the tendency both in that country and Britain (less so in the US). I knew he was wrong, that that wasn't a way to do good science. Fritz's book confirms that solving problems is rarely satisfactory in the long-term, and instead we should focus on what we want to create. If you are doing that in a field that has relevance to important social issues, solutions to people's problems will emerge as a by-product. Also that artists and great scientists do art or science primarily for the love of the thing that they create. Other motives are secondary. I know that when you are truly creative one project develops out of the previous one which is another key point he makes. His description of the artistic creative process also seems very accurate for the typical scientific project.

So in summary this is a really great book that gets it right!

The essence of the book is: decide for yourself what it is you want to CREATE in your life (work, family, lesure, etc.), objectively assess your current reality, and leverage the structural tension that comes from the discrepancy between your desired and current reality.
The Robert Fritz approach holds a lot of appeal: focus on what you want, or want to create, and frame it as a vision that ignores the extent to which it is actually possible to achieve the vision. In view of this, "I want to create a world in which everyone is well-fed" is a legitimate vision.
Another appealing aspect of thinking 'structurally' is that it urges us to think in what I would refer to as "constructive terms", without falling into the trap of being unduly optimistic, or blind to reality: for example, rather than adopting the vision of "I want to lose weight" or "I no longer want to smoke", Fritz invites us to say: "I want, and I choose, to have good health". In this way, the structures that hold us back are removed from our consciousness.

Structures elicit behaviour, in this model. Oscillating structures are those that cause us to vacillate between conflicting goals (e.g. oscillating between the desire to lose weight and the desire|need to eat), and usually get nowhere.

I see the Fritz approach as entailing the adoption of certain attitudes and practices. It is a matter of disciplining oneself to leverage one's innate desire to create, regardless of the way one earns a living. The book provides lots of examples of how artists create their work, but Fritz reminds us that the same principles can and should apply as well to, say, business managers and school teachers.

I am very glad to have read this book. I believe that it has already begun to influence how i see my future and my choices. Fritz offers a constructive way to draw out, shape and frame one's aspirations for one's life. The principles as laid out in the book are surprisingly simple and logical once they've had a few days to sink in, and yet so many of us allow ourselves to oscillate and prevaricate amid 'no-win' structures of which we are not even conscious.

The Path of Least Resistance is an awesome piece of work. It's a "manual" that belongs to the product of YOU the instant you learn how to read.
We do exist to create, you know. In one of his books, inspirational author Alan Cohen has a chapter named: Create or Die.

If you think this is just a specifically focused book of techniques for artists on ways of being "creative", such as brainstorming and doesn't apply to your life as a bus driver, or a waitress, or a doctor, you're wrong. We ALL create, everything from good relationships, to successful meeting outcomes, to careers, and yes... music and paintings and inventions and sculptures and books. As a matter of fact, Fritz eschews the notion of brainstorming and you'll see why in this book.

Basically, the first thought that'll crowd your mind as you complete the first chapter and then the second chatper, is that you have to read this repeatedly, because you want to soak these very profound, life-changing ideas into your psyche. It was hard for me to concentrate on the rest of the book during my first reading, because I was so excited about the implications of my expected change in thinking, and how I would tell others. What you'll learn is that being a reacter to problems doesn't result in peace of mind or success long-term. There are actual laws that he cites which explain the Structure of Tension which causes you to let go of all struggle and be powerfully pullled toward completion of ANYthing you want to accomplish.

In this book, he tells when you think of a goal, that you need to separate what your brainwashed mind think what is impossible, from what you reallly want. You'll see that the stress of repeatedly lying to yourself throughout your life about what you want can slowly but surely impact your health even! If you set goals that are based on what your fears tell you that you are limited to, but not what you *really want*, this wears on you physically.

Forget what your current environment or conditions tell you. THOSE DON'T MATTER! Just change to another "Structure" which leads to creation, not one that will swing you back and forth between struggles to fixing a problem, then...aaallllllmost getting there, but then the rubber band of the "Reactive" Structure pulls you back toward giving up on your faulty "fix-your-exterior" behaviors.

Fritz mentions that he studied Metaphysics in his life, but wasn't much interested in them; however, this topic can't avoided, and you'll see how when you are in the correct Structure of Creating, and you simply make a decision to create something, that this sets powerful acts of force in your favor. Between sessions of actually working on your project, like walking the dog or taking a shower, your subsconscious goes to work and pulls from the collective conscious of Man EXACTLY what you need to create what you decided to create. He includes this in the examples, but not in the way I'm describing it. Don't worry, he doesn't write with the scatter-brained style of this review. You'll get it, and you'll be grateful for his simple four-step guide to Creating

One more thing: Fritz discounts all self-help techniques such as affirmations or long term therapies. Personally, NLP along with EFT has been a godsend to my ability to function in interviews lately, and to eliminate strong negative emotions in some encounters and recommend Unlimited Power by A. Robbins and any book on EFT. But I see what he's talking about with respect to focusing more on just being the Creative Being that you were meant to be, rather making your life into a matter of long term therapy-seeking and inner-child healing.

If you haven't read Robert Fritz' Path of Least Resistance, do so right away.

I first read this book in 1987 when it had a profound impact on my life. I was lucky to meet the Fritzes around 1992, and that already deep impact was made more so. This book is about applying gap analysis to your life. Simply put (very simply): decide where you want to go, look at where you are, and really understand - at a deep level - the distance between them. Use that distance, or difference - what Fritz calls "structural tension" to propel - to motivate your life. When the gap between where you are and what you want closes, you lose the motive force; at that point you have to stretch again, reaching for new goals, new heights, new stars.

Fritz offers you rich detailed steps for creating; establishing your vision, refining your goals, and how to take action. In my book this is highly recommended reading.

For me Robert Fritz has added important insights to the science of universal processes and laws. Now all researchers have to do is do their job to take this further, just as Einstein's laws were conceived in his mind and were pure theory at first, while it took some time before they were really prooven.

In my own life I have been creating like he is describing, but he has made thing so much more clear for me. To read and use this book is pure joy.

I found this book to be very slow reading. It was not hard to read, but rather it had many deep concepts that required thought and pondering. I underlined the book heavily and plan on handing it out to friends.

His discussion of structure, and the overall concepts of following the path of least resistance, were excellent.

Too many authors are second hand imitators, who simply mimic what has gone before ... this is why we have a gush of positive thinking books, which is what I expected this book to be ... "boy! was I wrong."

What I loved about this book was it's originality, plus the fact that it has nothing to do with positive thinking. In fact it goes as far as debunking most positive thinking approaches as self-delusional... Fritz demonstrates what all creators have in common and how we can all become creators and forward essence movers.

This book is non-technical and very easy to understand, I got so excited about it's concepts that I was urged to assimilate them immediately.

I actually grasped what Fritz was getting after finishing the first chapter ... and it was a profound moment like a hundred light bulbs had been switched on in my head.

This book is more than good it is groundbreaking ... if I was asked to put it on a list of all the self-improvement books I have ever read (and I have read many) I would have no hesitation at putting it in the number one position.