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382 of 390 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best of its class, October 9, 2001
There are shelves and shelves of books on "making your dreams come true," but remarkably few that deal with identifying WHAT your dream is. My own background is similar to Beck's: I bought into my parents' dream that I would have an academic career, went all the way through a Ph.D., found a teaching job -- and discovered that I felt like a fish out of water. I was lucky enough to turn my skills into another career, but it's never engaged my heart, and if I could afford to abandon it I'd do so tomorrow without a single pang of regret. What to do with the rest of my life? I've been grappling with that question for several years now, and, after working through Beck's exercises, I feel for the first time that I'm approaching an answer. The second part of the book deals with the change process and making your newly found dream into reality. Other writers have dealt with this (notably Barbara Sher), but I found Beck's approach more compelling for two reasons: (1) She doesn't gloss over the difficulties of creating a new life for yourself -- while she points out (as do many other authors) that the mere act of goal-setting can be very powerful, she also emphasizes that achieving those goals will be a long, difficult job. (2) She sees life changes as cyclic. Some books seem to imply that, once you've created a new life for yourself, you'll be settled for the rest of your days. That's just not true, and I felt that she did a good job of preparing readers for the inevitable NEXT series of changes in their lives. (Recommended supplementary reading: William Bridges' books on transitions.) All in all, I feel this is the best book of its type that I've read, and I recommend it highly to anyone who's grappling with these same issues in their own life.
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231 of 241 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The single best transition book you can read, November 6, 2002
This review is from: Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live (Paperback)
As a career/life coach who works with clients in midlife transition, I recommend this book to just about every client. This is the ONE book to buy -- and I mean buy, not borrow! -- if you are undergoing a life transition. Actually, despite the title, Martha Beck is a career counselor and the book focuses on career change. However, as Beck points out, relationships and personal questions can influence career change. Wisely she encourages readers to seek help from qualified therapists if personal issues cloud their careers -- but she is not afraid to tackle the tough emotional questions.
And her analysis of emotions would do credit to any personality or social psychologist. Fear, for instance, may not be fear at all. Perhaps the best parts of the book are the chapter on intuition (a gem) and the five chapters that address the four stages of career change. Beck's view of intuition is sensible -- not New Age woo-woo but a way to gain deeper insight into our own motives. And describing the stages of transition, Beck gives us realistic indicators (those in phase 2 typically change their appearance!) as well as warnings about what to expect. It's easy to miss the message between the lines, but Beck does hint that the path of change will not be an easy one. Unlike many authors, she dispenses with false cheer and hints of pain and sacrifice along the way. Change isn't magical. It can happen -- but you have to be realistic about yourself and your objectives. That's a message I try to share with all my clients -- and I've sold so many copies of this book by word of mouth, I've been tempted to claim a share of the royalties. Don't miss it.
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152 of 157 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, amazing, heaven-sent!, July 24, 2001
Okay, maybe I've gone a bit overboard. But only a very little. I had previously read "Expecting Adam," which I thought was good although it brought my own grad-student days in Boston way too close too home :( This book, however, is more than "self-help." It's a blueprint for learning how to make your own choices, accept responsibility for making things better, and a PhD course in the "life lessons" that are so obvious, we've forgotten them. As in "If it brings you joy, do it. No, seriously, if it brings you joy, do it." Martha (I can't call her Mrs. Beck, because after my husband and I formed a "study group" to work through the exercises in this book together, she's become the fairy godmother I never had!) might have gotten a PhD in sociology, but thank God her North Star steered her towards writing. This book is better than years of powerful Freudian therapy (which heaven knows I've had, as well as Adlerian.) It's difficult to speak in specifics, since the book covers issues from psychosomatic illness, decision-making, visualization, and so forth, but the plan she lays out is simple: Figure out what you love. Do it--and she'll tell what land mines you may encounter along the way, the various false starts, opposition from within/without, and offers concrete strategies (and I mean REALLY concrete--this is definitely an interactive book, so get ready to start writing, thinking, and loving your life.) Martha, please keep writing! Here's a big electronic hug ....
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