Product reviews for Finding Square Holes

With the possible exception of concert pianists, stand-up comedians and Premier League footballers, work, for most of us, is a tedious, barely tolerable slog. Resigned to the daily grind of everyday life, we just about survive the working week by looking forward to the weekend; only to do it all over again when Monday rolls by.

But think again, argues Anita Houghton in her incisive and remarkably enjoyable self-help guide - Finding Square Holes: Discover Who You Really Are and Find the Perfect Career . Work, she says, -˜is to be enjoyed not endured'. And in just over 230 pages, Houghton lays a convincing case.

Unlike other self-help gurus, her frame of reference is personal rather than theoretical. The motivation to write this book, she confesses in her introduction, was to share her own difficulties in the workplace and to discuss her solutions to the -˜odd problems' that she endured in seeking the perfect career.

Drawing extensively from her medical background, Houghton provides a compassionate, almost diagnostic approach to careers advice. Through a series of case-studies, exercises and far-reaching philosophical arguments, her simple yet effective approach is based on first principles: Know yourself review your career make adjustments. In other words, -˜discover what shape you are, and then create a career around that shape' (hence the title Finding Square Holes).

But hang on a minute! How does one actually go about discovering one's self? With her sincere and pragmatic approach, Houghton is not one for meaningless sound bites and clichéd  rhetoric. She gets to the heart of the matter with an easy-to-read narrative style that seems to walk the line between self-help guide and informal GP consultation.

Chapter titles are posed as personal questions - what sort of person are you? What's important to you? What's important about you? Then, within each chapter, there are a number of exercises (yes, you will need pencil and paper to carry out the exercises) that aim to steer you, the reader, into a realisation of your own values, preferences and philosophies.

Finding Square Holes of course reflects our approach to careers advice here at Position Ignition where particular emphasis is placed on finding patterns in previous roles and interests and using this knowledge to find the right career options for you.

Like our experts at Position Ignition, Houghton takes care to guide you through exploring these options and getting past what she calls -˜limiting beliefs', the inner voice that says -˜No you can't'.

And whilst Finding Square Holes suffers to some extent from repetition, Anita Houghton has pulled off a rare feat that few self-help gurus are able to achieve. She has written a book that asks many questions, gives few answers, and yet is full of wisdom.