How to Find the Work You Love

I am a pre-law advisor and general career counselor advisor at a state university. This is the only career guidance book I recommend to all my students and advisees. Other books all basically try to match up interests and skills. This book basically asks you to discover what you feel most passionate about, and would give your life the most meaning. AMEN! I tell my students I would rather just be performing "okay" in a career that makes me happy and fulfilled, than be outstanding or even the best in a career that makes me unhappy and unfulfilled. What is more important: money and material wealth, or happiness and fulfillment? It depends which way you define "success," and Boldt defines it (correctly in my view!) as the latter. I've seen two many friends and students go into careers for the wrong reason and be miserable. Read this book, and give it to anyone you know who is searching for a career. You just might have helped to steer them down the road to career fulfilment and happiness, rather than career emptiness and depression.

Unfortunately, there's really only one way to know if you're going to like something or not and that's to try it. What's one person's treasure is another person's "waste".This isn't a book along the lines of "What Color Is Your Parachute". It's not a "step by step" guide per se, though it has some excersizes to help you explore what has meaning for you.For me, this was a book of validation. I wish more than anything, that I could just resign myself to "any old job" and be satisfied - life would be so much easier that way... but when you spend 1/3 of your life at work and part of the other 2/3's perparing for work (commuting, preparing meals, trying to psyche yourself up to make it through another day) I think it's really important to find more meaning in what you do for a living than "payday".If you spend a lot of time dreaming of the day you can finally retire and you feel like you're wasting your life doing work that has absolutely no meaning for you (or worse, goes against your grain) and if the money isn't enough to compensate for what you spend so much of your day doing and you feel strongly that "there's got to be more to work than this" this book will validate your feelings beautifully and give you inspiration. But if you're a "realist" ("work's not supposed to be fun - that's why they call it work") you may be disappointed.It's ironic to me that people complained about the quotes - because I like them - but then I like quotes:"Blessed is he who has found his work. Let him ask no other blessing" (Thomas Carlyle); "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist" (Emerson); "The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat" (Lily Tomlin); "If you are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life...your reward will be that you will eat but you will not live" (George Bernard Shaw); "My employer uses twenty six years of my life for every year I get to keep. And what do I get in return...for my life?" (Michael Ventura).If these quotes resonate with you, I think chances are good the book will resonate with you. If you think they're nonsense then you might not want to read this one. You might prefer something like Po Bronson's "What Should I Do With My Life?" - which I personally found depressing - but I think it might appeal to the "realists" (note: it's title is deceiving. It's not a book about how to figure out what to do with your life - rather, it's an abbreviated chronicle of other people's lives who've struggled with this question - many of whom continue the struggle).

At 154 pages, this book is a short and an easy read. You can tell that the author is also a lecturer because the book seems like it makes a few basic points that could have been projected on a screen using PowerPoint slides. This book is not an intellectual analysis of data, but more like an inspirational pep talk.You are practically presented with an outline in each chapter, complete with bolded headings and sub-headings. This book is also filled with poignant quotes from notable people spanning the ages of history. This approach is appropriate and effective for this subject matter.The thesis of the book is simply find what taps into your creative passion in life and you will find the work you love. The book actually does give you a methodolgy to follow to uncover what at first seems to be an amorphous task. The "Focusing Questions" the author presents throughout the second half of the book is an opportunity for the reader to reflect and think about how this can make sense for him or her.The title of the book may be a little misleading. "Finding the work you love" is not referring to actually getting the job. The title is referring to finding within yourself what it is that you would love to do for your life's work.The audience for this book could be anyone from the high school or college graduate to the senior citizen. Anyone who is not sure what contribution they want to make for the rest of their lives might benefit from a bit of focused insight and reflection. Even if you are sure about what your life's work is, the book could still be valuable as a reinforcement that you are on the right path for you.

I have read dozens upon dozens of vocational guidance books over the last ten years (the latter ones out of curiosity, after having surveyed so much!) By this, I can say that "How to Find the Work You Love" is one of THE best vocational guidance books on the market today. You will not find one great magical answer with this book. However, such an ultimate Eureka experience is not the result of reading ANY career guide. But let's face it: there is a lot of nonsense out there. "How to Find the Work You Love" is a breath of grounded fresh air amidst the hocus-pocus career fantasias hitting the shelves over the last ten years. This book is inspirational to me; and also practical, well-organized and developed, and even somewhat CONCISE on top of it! IMHO, the best summary of sound exercises, commentaries, questions and advice are in this little book. One of the VERY few career guides I seriously recommend.

I found this book to be a great help and a wonderful inspiration. It packs a powerful punch for such a small book. There are many useful quotes and nuggets of advice from the greats in history who decided to pursue what they love rather than stay in a 9-5 job that they hated. In our crazy, I want it now, fast paced, materialistic society where money seems to be the bottom line, many of us have forgotten that we all will be dead some day. What a waste of time it is to stay in a job you hate. The author of this book doesn't assume that finding work you love is going to be easy. I can't say that I had a revelation after reading this book (which I first read about a year ago and read again last week) It's not as if you immediately go and find the work you love after reading this book. What is valuable though, is the wonderful insight it gives you on the possibilities. This may be difficult for many who have been weaned on getting everything quickly. I advise you read it, then make up your own mind.