What the Heck Am I Going to Do with My Life?

by Margaret Feinberg

One of the top struggles listed by twentysomethings is the fight to find a purpose and a calling. They find themselves studying a major or working in a job they do not really enjoy, and soon... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1414305575
• ISBN13: 9781414305578
• Release Date: February 2006
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
• Length: 214 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Get it together!

Easy to read and practical in application, "What the heck am I going to do with my life?" is a guide book to assessing where you have been and where you would like to go. The positive energy and light hearted encouragement is coupled with lots of questions and resources to help you consider your needs, skills, strengths, motivations and many other factors that influence life and career decisions. Most essential of all is honing in on your passion. Margaret provides a guided tour to help you discover the answers to the big questions in your life. Sheryl Dawson Total Career Success Author Job Search: The Total System (3rd Ed)

If you are ready to really think about your life and where you are going, try this book on for size

This gentle, introspective, and thought-provoking book doesn't shirk the hard questions or seek to wrap things up neatly for you, as many career guides try to with their tests and checklists. Instead, Feinberg trusts that if you are willing to take the time and energy to ask yourself the hardest questions and face your life, that you can make a real success of it. This is a Christian-based book, so the author does quote a few bible verses and talk about how God might lead you in certain directions. It might not be the best choice for a non-Christian, but at the same time the religion isn't heavy-handed or off-putting, so if you think that her approach might be for you, don't let the religious aspect turn you off to it. The strength of this book is in the thought-provoking questions she asks. Each chapter is divided into sections for each step in your journey of figuring out where you want to go in your life and career, and each section has a lot of material about things we should ask ourselves, pitfalls to consider, and new ways of thinking about it all. There are also some wonderful personal stories of people who have found themselves at a crossroads and have made either a mistake to learn from or a good choice to try to emulate. I already have a career that I find satisfying and joyful, but I often wonder "What if?", since I have so many passions that could be taken in a money-making direction. This book helped me consider a lot of the benefits to following a few of my dreams, while providing the necessary reality checks. This would be an excellent book for a bible study group or a group of under-30's to read together. Not only does each chapter have a lot to discuss, but the end of the book has some very personally affecting discussion questions that could be effectively used in a one-on-one or group setting.

Real & Really Needed

I think this book should be required reading for all high school and college seniors. I also believe it would be a good idea to keep it in your reading rotation so that you came across it again every 2 to 3 years. Why is this book so needed? Well, I think the answer to that can be found first and foremost in what this book is not. It's not filled with tests that are supposed to help you figure out your gifting. It's not filled with pie-in-the-sky talk of finding the job that's going to make your whole life great. It's not trying to provide generic answers to tough questions. It doesn't make any promises to make you rich. What this book does and does well is to provoke thought about who you are and what impact you can make on the world around you. It's realistic! Margaret has taken great pains to point out the myths that abound about finding the perfect job that never causes stress and makes you a ton of money. She points out that often our passion and calling result in a career choice that meets our financial and emotional needs, but sometimes our career may simply be a means to meet our physical needs thus enabling us to pursue our passion and calling. I especially like the questions and surveys throughout the book that are intended to cause reflection. I believe many who read this book will discover things about themselves that will validate their current career choices or cause them to rethink them. As someone who made a major career change in the past 4 years and who still has many decisions left to make, I whole-heartedly recommend What the heck am I going to do with my life?. Whether you're still in school or just not satisfied with where you are this book is well worth your time. I fully intend on using it as a small group study in our 20somethings ministry and hope that other ministry leaders will do the same.

what to do

Margaret Feinberg's book what the heck am I going to do with my life?, is a perfect book for those who are at the crossroads of their lives. She gives practical ways to aid you in finding direction for your life. Margaret is like the big sister that most of us wish we had. She gives calm reassurance to let us all know that it's okay to not know what we want to do when we grow up. Sometimes before you find your calling, you have to search it out. Margaret also helps us identify our passions in life. By asking thought-provoking yet personal questions, it's easy to find answers to what really makes us tick. By focusing on what we really love as opposed to what our parents or classmates think, pushes us to sometimes stand alone in front of the mirror. It's good to know that even after many years of job hopping and career changing, we can still have an impact on the world we live in. Margaret makes it clear that it's never too late. This book is great for those who need a little push or just need someone to hold their hand as they consider, for the first time or re-consider for the 1,000,000th time, what this life is all about. I highly recommend it.

A self-examining book anyone can relate to

Margaret Feinberg grew up asking herself the question her latest book poses, What the heck am I going to do with my life? At four she wanted to be Wonder Woman; at five a doctor. By the time she was 18 she'd made plans to be a gymnast, biathlete, ballerina, pianist, lawyer, teacher, computer programmer, an astronaut, and an ambassador to a third-world country. But when it came time to declare a major in college, she had no clue what she wanted to do. She finally settled on studying religion, but that only delayed the question to graduation. Even though she's now settled into a career as a writer, Feinberg finds that she's still asking the same question. And she's not alone. She interviewed more than 100 people nationwide and found that everyone she spoke with wrestled with what to do with his or her life. "Figuring out what to do with your life isn't easy because even landing a job or finally earning a few years of work experience to put on the resume, the questions about what you want to do don't disappear," she writes. "They just keep resurfacing. Singles, newlyweds, oldyweds, empty nesters, retirees --- anyone at any age or stage in life --- can wrestle with these questions and struggles to find answers. No one is immune." Feinberg thinks What the heck am I going to do with my life? is one of the greatest questions we ever ask ourselves. "Not just because it is the question that won't go away, but because it forces us to examine ourselves in a new light --- who we are today and who we are called to be tomorrow. The question challenges us to look at the core of who we are as individuals, discover our talents and gifts, and come to terms with our weaknesses. When we dare to ask, we step into a realm where anything --- including growth, transformation and change --- is possible." To help facilitate such transformation, Feinberg's book serves as part mentor, part cheerleader and part pastor, urging readers to consider everything from their own childhood dreams to the role family members play in shaping aspirations to how one's talents glorify God. WHAT THE HECK AM I GOING TO DO WITH MY LIFE? has a workbook-like quality, but it also provides substantive guidance, most notably when dispelling the pervasive myth that "you can be anything you want to be." "I'd love to tell you that anything is possible, but the truth is you were created with specific strengths and weaknesses. That was not a mistake. Too many people foolishly spend time thinking, If only I could. But that time is wasted," she writes. "Don't despise your lack of talent or your inability to do something. I can wish all day that I could sing like Josh Groban, but is it not going to happen. By coming to terms with what you can't do, you can discover what you were meant to do." To that end, Feinberg includes discussion questions, quizzes and resources to help readers hone in on their unique abilities and passions. And while what one is going to do with his or her life is certainly a q