When Beth Lisick realized that her only new year's resolution was to improve upon a dance she performed at a party after a few drinks, she knew it was time to set some more meaningful goals. Always a skeptic of self-help books, she decided to set her cynicism aside and see if the advice preached by these gurus could actually make a difference in her life. "I wanted to be healthier," she says, "Have my home totally organized and free from clutter, be more patient as a parent -- I thought it would be nice to figure out some kind of plan."

Each month, Beth chose an area of her life to improve: one month she worked on health and fitness; parenting got special attention another, and getting her finances in order consumed all of one particularly successful month. "I had a great month following the advice of Suze Orman," Beth says. "I got on my phone and in two minutes my credit card APR was reduced to zero percent. It was just a two-minute phone call but it was something I hadn't done before."

Rachael asks if Beth, who chronicled her experience in Helping Me Help Myself, is still keeping up with any of the programs she followed. "The one thing that I really liked," she tells Rach, "was The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which is about career and thinking about what your goals are in life. I've always been one of those go-with-the-flow people, but I started thinking more in terms of, maybe I do have a life purpose. I like to write and I perform and I'm a parent, so it did give my life a little more focus and I totally didn't expect it to."

While Beth gained some positive insight from her experiment, she was also surprised by some of the effects it had. "The hardest thing for me was that for the entire year, I was thinking about myself so much," she says. "I'm usually thinking about my kid and my husband and keeping things together in the house, so it felt really self-absorbed." Rachael points out, "I think everybody can connect to that. If you're a selfless person (as many moms certainly are), it's hard for you to just put focus on yourself." Rachael believes that focusing on yourself can be a positive goal from some of the good self-help books. Beth confirms that many of the books agree. "They say that working on yourself is actually helping others," she tells Rach, "because if you're working on your parenting style then that's going to help with your kid. If you're happier about how your house is or how your relationship is going then you're going to be a happier person."

Beth shares that there was one thing she really wanted to improve upon but didn't get to in her 12 months -- learning how to cook! She heads to the California Culinary Academy to sharpen up some of her skills, and then visits Rachael's kitchen for a lesson in making the perfect pork chop.