HOW WILL YOU MEASURE YOUR LIFE? by Clayton M. Christensen

I really liked this article from Clayton M. Christensen and especially the question caught my attention. At first I didn’t know that the Author of this article was a Member of The Church who found real happiness and success at applying those good principles and values he got in his life, in his academic and career.

I am amazed of how all what we learned before such us strategies, theories, facts, researches, etc, that are applied in business and companies, can also being applied in our daily life. I really would love to apply them throughout my life because it will help me to manage and face the different situations in a better way.

I really liked as well the part of the question: How to be sure we find happiness in our careers? This was something that I needed to ponder about. Every aspect in my career life point out that   our goal as business man and woman are to get a lot of money and to have recognition in the company we are working on. But according  to the theory of Frederick Herzberg and applying it in my life, I realized that I need to remember that I am in this career because I want the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, develop my skills and abilities and the most important contribute and serve others. Those must be my motivators in this career more than how much money I can make in a month or year.

I know that if I don’t lose the track of where I want to go with my career and my purpose of life, I will be successful in both aspects and I will really get to know what really happiness is. I read how Brother Christensen has seen more and more of his HBS classmates coming to reunions unhappy, divorced and alienated from their children because they are not balancing those important aspects in his life. This is not different from the realities that I see around me. We should understand that “no other success can compensate for failure in the home.” (David O. McKay) .We all want to be successful in life and in our careers but we need to source our priorities.

I like how the author states it:

“If you study the root cause of business disasters, over and over you´ll find this predisposition toward endeavors that offer immediate gratification. If you look at personal lives through that lens, you´ll see the same stunning and sobering pattern: people allocating fewer and fewer resources to the things they would have once said mattered the most”

We should learn how to allocate our resources such our talents, skills, time and don’t seek for recognition neither gratification. We should focus in what really is important to be successful without losing our purpose in life.

 To read more about this article click here Harvard Business Review

Create a life with purpose