Helpful insights on dealing with a personal crisis

books:


	• Getting Unstuck: How Dead Ends Become New Paths Timothy Butler Harvard Business School Press, 2007 - 204 pages average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Well researched and simplified

Knowledge is simplification of information. The book is very well written. It distills years of work into a persuasive style for readers. Go through the "deep-dive" and feel refreshed. Strikes a chord deep down - all those examples.

Unstuck but not yet moving forward

Butler's book has one of the best cover images I've see i awhile. A fish leaps into the air, leaving behind other fish swimming peacefully in their glass bowl. At first he seems bent on self-destruction, till we realize another bowl is waiting to receive him. It's mostly hidden at the edge of the page and it's emptier.

The image is appropriate bcause Butler's book ultimately is about finding vision and image. He keeps referring to the Hundred Careers exercise: choose your top 12 from a list of 100. Then (and this is the important part) uncover common themes.

Usually I get nervous when career counselors urge clients to work with specific choices, because most people carry inaccurate stereotypes of careers with them. Accountants can be extraverted and sales people can be shy. But I sense that Butler works with each person's unique perceptions of the careers, although he doesn't say so directly.

Another reviewer suggests that a reader might need a guide to work through the process. I'm more concerned about translating insight into action. If you're an artist trapped in a banking career, how do you carry out the exploration you need? How do you find your new life? OK, a creative decides to become a freelance artist, but things get a little more complicated in real life. Every freelancer I know (including me) has to deal with creating systems to get the work done, marketing, staying motivated, and dealing with dumb things like more ink for the printer and why hasn't the bank transferred over your account forms.

Of course, vision can be compelling. A strong vision can motivate career changers to find solutions, sometimes almost effortlessly.

I can't help comparing this book to Herminia Ibarra's book, Working Identity, also published by Harvard Universiety Press. Ibarra emphasizes the zig zag pattern of actions most people take to find their next careers. Most people I know operate that way. They just take one step at a time till they realize that somehow they've landed where they're supposed to be.

Ibarra also targets midlife career changers -- people who have achieved some success and accomplishment. This book seems directed to younger people who have less at stake. For example, a 35-year-old woman who leaves a high-powered financial career to become a high school teacher, reducing her income from $106K to $34K. Some people make those kinds of moves and never look back. Others realize they miss the lifestyle of the larger salary. Still others get bogged down by conditions of working, like paperwork.

I can't help wondering how this woman will feel when she's in her fifties and sixties. And I hope she likes teaching, because it's going to be hard to make a shift back to the corporate world from just about anything else.

Definitely Getting Unstuck holds value for people at the early stages of their career searches. I would recommend it to anyone who's looking for a new way to think about career change. But I've seen people who need to get unstuck not just from their jobs but from their analysis. Exploring possibilities is fun. Translating them to realities - and living with the aftermath - gets a whole lot more complicated.

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Fantastic read and immensely insightful

This is probably the 50th self help book I've read and it is by far the best one yet. Parts of it remind me of the book "Feel the Fear and do it anyway", another highly recommended book for anyone feeling stuck. I have felt stuck, particularly in my career, for well over 4 years now. However, this book gives me a lot of hope, something I've been missing for a while.

The book makes several great points about not over analyzing everything, the danger of your ego/superego and how they holds you back, and fear. One of the most important points the book makes is that right before we are about to take a step forward, the superego comes in and criticizes what we are trying to accomplish, thus holding us back.

Lastly, the book helps you tap into and figure out what your passion in life is (career). So if you're feeling stuck in your career or life in general, I highly recommend this book. It beats all the career books I've read, as it delves deeper into your personality and what is holding you back to help you get to the bottom of it. There is a section on personal values and how often times we work for a company that isn't in alignment with our core values, which causes major problems.

Overall, very insightful and helpful for anyone in career crisis.

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Nudges You To Take Action

The book's title drew me like a magnet. It was so precise. And I said, "yes, I am stuck and need help in getting unstuck". After starting and succeeding, or not so, at many ventures in life, I have lately been feeling stuck.

Don't want to do the same things again that I have been doing for over thirty years. Is it mid-life crisis? I don't know. What else can I do? I can only do what I know... But is it relevant anymore? Have I become a has been? Self doubt, self pity, and helplessness have begun to creep in.

This book has been very helpful. It provides a systematic approach to analyzing the problem and an opportunity to get to know yourself. Some answers may be disturbing. You may find out that what you have been doing all your life so far is perhaps not what you ever wanted to do. You may not even have begun to do what you really wanted to do in life, are good at, and have a passion for. Perhaps, it is not the end of the road, but just the beginning.

I wish that I had read this book 10 or may be 20 years ago. That would have changed my life. I still have to find courage and discipline to change. But this book certainly provides the nudge that I have needed.

Author does have a tendency of self accolades in places, which really are not needed, as the work speaks for itself. But, nonetheless, the book is a great and very helpful work.

Anil Aggarwal
anil@datagenius.com

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Helpful insights on dealing with a personal crisis

often fall into psychological ruts that can lead to feelings of fatigue, worthlessness and even guilt. During such periods, falling asleep at night and getting out of bed in the morning both become difficult. Making decisions gets to be almost impossible. If this state persists intensely over a long period, clinicians call it depression. When these feelings are short-lived and intermittent, psychologist and career change expert Timothy Butler calls it an "impasse." Though uncomfortable, an impasse is good because it can act as a much-needed catalyst for a meaningful metamorphosis. Unfortunately, many people do not know how to get "unstuck" from an impasse. That is where Butler's savvy book comes into play. He provides insightful, hands-on advice telling people who feel stuck how to move along and make necessary, valuable changes. For his exercises to work, the reader must spend time on them and be open to letting them take effect. We applaud Butler's life change program and his intelligent psychological guide. Learn how to overthrow that impasse, and go forward new and fresh.

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reviews: page 1, 2

You will experience psychological impasse many times in your life. During these times, you have the sensation that you?re stuck or paralyzed. You?re convinced that something must change, whether in your work or personal life. Though this feeling is normal, you need to move beyond it. Failure to ?get unstuck? can put your career and personal life?as well as the healthy functioning of your team or organization?at risk.

In Getting Unstuck, business psychologist and researcher Timothy Butler offers strategies for moving beyond a career or personal-life impasse?by recognizing the state of impasse, awakening your imagination, recognizing patterns of meaning in your life, and taking action for change.

Drawing on a wealth of stories about individuals who have successfully transitioned out of impasses, Getting Unstuck provides a practical, authoritative road map for moving past your immediate impasse?and defining a meaningful path forward.

Dr. Timothy Butler is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Career Development Programs at Harvard Business School. He teaches career coaching and consults to organizations worldwide on career development issues.

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