Book Bites "How will you measure your life"?

I am excited that the book I selected today is one of a renowned writers and thought leaders, the late Clayton Christensen. I read this book few years back and it had a very huge impact on how I approached my career. It allowed me step back and evaluate my life not from "what have I achieved" but from the perspective of what I am learning right now.

The book has three sections, that divides into finding happiness in your career, finding happiness in relationship and staying out of jail!.

The first section is about finding happiness in your career. It discusses the concept of linking "tangible outcomes" to our happiness. The pay rise, the amazing title and the shiny office are not what would drive happiness, instead they would only be temporary. The approach that would provide sustainable happiness is the non-tangible impact your job offers. How much you are learning? how much responsibility this job offers? etc. This is what you should identify, plan and strategize for. Even after you have identified the road map, getting there would require a lot of trial and effort which is part of the journey. It is also important to keep checking if what you are doing is taking you where your want to be, in order to ensure that you are in the right path. My personal advice would be "make sure you also enjoy the journey" because it is long and hard, a little fun will take you a long way.

The second section is about finding happiness in your relationships. In the chapters of this section he focuses on the importance of having a strong bond with your family. As we are building our career, sometimes we neglect that our presence in the most critical time of their life is important. We need to understand at every stage of the relationship what do they need from us, and how can we help them. Specifically children, sometimes we are with the illusion that providing them with food, shelter, education and a busy life is sufficient to make them happy. But to raise them to be the strong value driven people you wish them to be, you need to be there to create the right culture and environment. I think this part of the book is very important because it goes sometimes against our ambitious self and we tend to expect that since our biggest supporters are our family they will always be there. However, if we don't nourish that, it might be too late.

The last section is about staying out of jail. The final section of the book talks about living a life with integrity. It is a short chapter in the book but in opinion as important as all the previous point. it is about this compass we have and we live our lives with it. He ends the chapter with a sentence that I think summaries the point of it which is "Decide what you stand for, and stand for it all the time".

I think the books is good guide while we are working hard to achieve success and happiness in life.

Let me know if you read it, and if you have any comments? Do you have any recommended books that you think I should review?