Seeking Next Steps for Personal Growth: “How Will You Measure Your Life?”
Clayton M. Christensen’s book “How Will You Measure Your Life?” is a profound example of the approach all self-help and personal growth books should take.
He states it best in chapter 1 of the book:
You might be tempted to try to make decisions in your life based on what you know has happened in the past or what has happened to other people. You should learn all that you can from the past; from scholars who have studied it, and from people who have gone through problems of the sort that you are likely to face. But this doesn’t solve the fundamental challenge of what information and what advice you should accept, and which you should ignore as you embark into the future. Instead, using robust theory to predict what will happen has a much greater chance of success. The theories in this book are based on a deep understanding of human endeavor — what causes what to happen, and why. They’ve been rigorously examined and used in organizations all over the globe, and can help all of us with decisions that we make every day in our lives, too.
With that said, I can assure you that this is not just another run of the mill self-help / personal development book filled with anecdotal research and top 10 list. On the contrary, this book provides some real red meat to chew on.
Christensen, who became renowned for his book “The Innovator’s Dilemma“, does a phenomenal job providing examples an actionable advice for career planning, family planning, and living a life with integrity.
One of the most riveting topics discussed in this book is the subject of creating a culture for your family in Chapter 9. This chapter is titled “The Invisible Hand Inside Your Family” and goes into detail on how your family’s culture is that invisible hand. His theory is that establishing a family culture must be deliberate if you want the best outcome. He states:
All parents aspire to raise the kind of children that they know will make the right choices–even when they themselves are not there to supervise. One of the most effective ways to do that is to build the right family culture. It becomes the informal but powerful set of guidelines about how your family behaves…
…This is what is so powerful about culture. It’s like an auto-pilot. What is critical to understand is that for it to be an effective force, you have to properly program the auto-pilot–you have to build the culture that you want in your family. If you do not consciously build it and reinforce it from the earliest stages of your family life, a culture will still form–but it will form in ways you may not like.
In short, if you are at a stage in your life where you’re seeking next steps for personal-growth in your career as well as in your family, I highly recommend you grab a copy of this book and spend a week or two devouring its 200 pages.