The book is written in an easy, breezy style that I feel would appeal to teenagers. It uses current slang and references to popular well-known figures, but these may quickly become passe, and shorten the shelf life of this book. Find Your Fit is designed to help young people look at their lives in a systematic way. It covers five key areas of life: career interests, spiritual gifts, personality type, values and passions
It begins with Holland’s six job clusters: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. These are the basis of the Strong Interest Inventory. Using checkoff lists, you are invited to determine your areas of interest.
Up to this point the book could be used in any setting, however, in the remaining chapters it becomes very denominational (Presbyterian) in its theology with quite a bit of church teaching thrown in. When used in a church setting, it also becomes a vehicle for affirming the doctrines of the church. This is well done but may not be to everyone’s liking.
Next the book looks at the spiritual gifts each person has. While these are not yet fully actualized in the teenage years, it helps young people begin to see how these gifts are developing in their lives.
The section on personality uses the eight preferences developed by Isabel Myers. It gives an example of the biblical figure Paul and what his type might be. It acknowledges the concept of type dynamics and in the two page descriptions of each type identifies the dominant and the auxiliary functions. Each description also includes: what you are known for, where you learn best, where you prefer to work, how you lead people, and hints for getting along in life.
There is a chapter on values and a set of tear-out cards with individual values written on each one that make it easier to sort the values into three levels of importance. Your relationship with God and your values are discussed.
The final area of investigation focusses on your passions. There are four possible types: ‘dreamers,’ ‘do one thing well and do it everywhere,’ ‘whatcha up to people,’ and ‘drop it in my lap.’ There are several inventories to help you determine your passion type.
The book closes with two chapters on helping you put it all together. One outlines a set of five truths based on the life of Jesus. The final chapter discusses why God doesn’t just hand us a set of neat blueprints and tell us what we are supposed to do.
The book has a rather narrow denominational focus. If its theology matches the theology of your religious faith community, I feel the book is a worthwhile program to use in your church or could be given directly to a young person. It is very Christian based and does not give any indication that there might be some validity for other forms of Christianity or others religions.
While the book is not suitable for use in public schools because of the extensive denominational content, the workbook just focusses on Holland’s work clusters and personality type without any reference to religious beliefs. It is attractively laid out and has a number of checklists that are helpful to determine your career interests and personality type.
I feel the book has many good ideas and would be a worthwhile resource for people working with youth either in a church setting or in schools. If you feel the theology doesn’t fit your denomination, or you are using it in a secular setting, you might consider just using the workbook with the young people directly and adapt some of the ideas from the book to fit your circumstances.
The book is aimed at a specific audience and it does its job well. It is good to see that the effort is being made to focus on youth to help them make better life decisions.