Going the distance: 7 steps to personal change

Rick Hansen has used the insight he gained from his Man in Motion World Tour, an around-the-world wheelchair marathon totaling over 40,000km and raising $24 million for spinal cord injury research, rehabilitation, and prevention, for a self-help book on coping with personal change.

Co-authored with psychologist Joan Laub, Going the Distance offers a unique blend of the personal experiences of someone who has suffered monumental change and someone who has actually done research on change itself.

Arguing that people fear change because they lack the tools and skills to manage it, the authors explain the important principles which actually allow people to manage the changes they face in their daily lives. And, unlike other self-help literature, Going the Distance demonstrates how emotions like fear; depression, anger or guilt can actually be used to inspire positive action.

Hansen and Laub have put together a step-by-step process of managing change that can be easily applied to anyone's life. Simple exercises and tests will help readers assess their own progress. Rick Hansen's personal experiences, in particular his adjustment to life in a wheelchair and his inspiring 24,000-mile odyssey, provides many of the illustrations.