From Dreamer to Achiever—
Trust Your Life Charts a Course for Fulfillment at Any Age

Noelle Sterne’s new book helps dreamers become achievers by recognizing their inherent, spiritually-grounded creative power as molders of their own experiences.

UNITY VILLAGE, MO. – Veteran author and dissertation coach Noelle Sterne has written a new book for anyone who has ever felt deprived of their dreams. In Trust Your Life, published by Unity Books, Sterne guides readers to act on their most cherished ambitions—regardless of age, circumstances, state of their waistlines or any self-judged “wrong turns” in life.

Sterne shows readers how to go beyond yearning for their dreams—to achieve them. She knows the subject well. The book is based on her own efforts to succeed at her dream of increased writing and her profession of coaching adults who return to universities for graduate degrees.

“For many clients,” she says, “the doctorate was an old dream; they did not start until their 40s and 50s, after spouses, children, parents, jobs, were all in place, or they had done their duty. They were sure they were too old, couldn’t learn, had little experience in scholarship, and felt embarrassed to be interacting with other students half their age. As I coached them and edited their dissertations, I found myself counseling them as well.”

Sterne, who earned the Ph.D. in literature from Columbia University, taught at the college level for several years and then began a dissertation typing business. This developed into dissertation coaching. “I quit a prestigious job to go into typing so I would have more time to write, then moved to consulting and finally writing.” Along the way, she battled the same doubts and fears as her clients.

“I judged myself as having a ‘B+’ life and struggled with deserving my writing dream. I had condemned myself for choices that seemed to lurch in the opposite direction. Then I saw that my so-called ‘wrong turns’—from professor to typist to editor and coach—turned out to be exactly what I needed to realize my dream. That realization ultimately led to this book. The title ‘Trust Your Life’ reflects the connection between trusting one’s decisions, wherever they’ve led and however they’ve been labeled, and not judging them as misguided, wrong or blatantly stupid.”

The Book’s Organization and Methods

In Trust Your Life, Sterne, a native New Yorker, uses brisk humor, straight talk and lively vignettes about her own experiences and those of others. Throughout the twelve chapters, Sterne speaks to readers informally and with humor, as coach, confidante, and fellow confessor—and not too much nagging.

Methods include examples and anecdotes from my life and others’ and wise words of many authors from ancient to contemporary. Within each chapter, in different sections, you’ll find exercises, lists, affirmations, and prayers for your information, instruction, and inspiration.

Spiritually based, the book contains plentiful practical nuggets, developed through Sterne’s metaphysical studies, prayer, introspection and work with clients. She credits many spiritual masters and disciplines with the principles in Trust Your Life.

They include Old and New Testament writers, Jesus, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, Louise Hay and Unity ministers, as well as Law of Attraction teachers Abraham-Hicks and the spiritual self-study program A Course in Miracles. Readers will find apt quotations, anecdotes, affirmations, provocative questions and exercises for self-discovery, forgiveness, faith-strengthening and visioning.

Defining Messages

Trust Your Life shows you how to overcome your guilt and step beyond your self-imposed “shoulds” and deep dissatisfactions to reach your treasured, often buried, secret dreams. In trusting your life, you come to realize the following three principles:

• There are no mistakes.

  The great jazz musician Miles Davis said, “Do not fear mistakes. There are none.”

  In Trust, Sterne shows you that your self-judged “wrong” turns were nothing less than perfect. Even if it does not feel like it, your life experiences prepared you perfectly for where you are now.

• You can reframe your past.

  When you accept there are no mistakes, instead of branding your past experiences as negative or wasted, you can view them as inevitable steps toward the future you want to create.

  In Trust, Sterne guides you to awareness of these steps so you can forgive yourself for mislabeled mistakes and take active steps toward building your dreams.

• The outer reflects the inner.

  Your experiences result from your thoughts and feelings. You can name, visualize, expect, and experience your God-planted greatest desires.

  In Trust, Sterne helps you name, visualize, deserve, expect, and act on your God-planted greatest desires.

Another Key Message

Dreams have no retirement age. Trust Your Life is full of examples of persons who continued or began great things later in life, from choreographer Martha Graham to photographer Gordon Parks to Gray Panthers activist Maggie Kuhn. What these achievers and others—famous and not so famous—have in common is the conviction to follow their passions and ignore debilitating personal histories or stereotypes of expected behavior.

Sterne tells of an older client: “Many people have spent decades holding beliefs about themselves or some event, person or issue in the past. One of my clients, a man in his sixties, was a top administrator in an art museum. He had always dreamed of becoming a painter. On retiring, he dismissed his years in the museum a ‘waste.’ By applying the principle of reframing, he instead saw his professional time as a ‘long detour.’ He now appreciated how his knowledge of art and development of critical judgment during his years at the museum contributed to his painting. And now, he is painting.”

Through such powerful examples, spiritual guidance, and life-affirming thoughts, Trust Your Life helps readers reframe their self-condemnations, acknowledge their inherent creative capabilities, learn to rely on their always trustworthy Source, and uncover, set in motion, and joyfully realize their long-cherished Dreams.

Major Readers

• Baby Boomers and empty-nesters, a growing population, with increased time, hunger for spiritual insights, desire to stay active and engaged, recognition that material possessions do not satisfy, entering second and third careers, reinventing themselves.

• Seniors, more living longer and more actively, disdaining decay, desiring to leave legacies of meaningfulness.

• Others of any age, circumstance, and background who are searching for greater spirituality and meaning in their lives. They desire application of spiritual principles to their daily activities, substantive answers, and fulfillment beyond our national credo of consumerism and touted goal of retirement.

• Dissatisfied with where they are now, they feel they have more to express and give in many ways. Sometimes they have identified what they deeply desire to do and other times they haven’t. Wherever they find themselves, they cannot deny the hunger.

About the Author

Noelle Sterne holds a doctorate in literature from Columbia University and has published more than 300 pieces blending motivational, spiritual, and practical aspects of writing and life in mainstream and writers’ print and online publications. For over 28 years, she has conducted an editorial, coaching, and consulting practice with adults, professionals, and experts in various fields, who return to higher education for graduate degrees. To address their obstacles and support them in creating victories to reach their dream of the doctoral degree, Sterne developed many of the spiritually-based, practical and inspirational techniques in Trust Your Life.

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