How do you measure your life? : The most important lesson at Harvard Business School

_Set goals for yourself, Only then can you understand what is the most important thing in your life. Even though I went through the physical challenges and challenges of cancer and stroke, I still think, I painted the right picture for my life, And have a happier life. _

The above is a passage written by the author Christianson at the beginning of the book. Let’s chew on its meaning carefully. “Set goals” is the advice your parents, teachers, and supervisors will give you. Sometimes this goal is set by them for you, such as studying hard to get into a good school, achieving departmental performance goals, getting first place in the exam, etc. These are the “goals” we are talking about, but is this your “goal” or the “indicator” used by others to measure you? Parents rely on whether you get first place in exams to measure whether you are a serious and good child, and supervisors use whether you achieve departmental performance to measure whether you are a good employee. These are imposed on us by others, but what about ourselves? What is our goal in life? How should we measure our lives? This is what this book wants to talk to us about.

The author raises three questions in this book: “How do I know I can be successful and happy in my work life?” “How do I know that my relationships with my spouse, children, and friends can be a source of joy?” “How do I know that I will stick to my principles throughout my life and avoid prison?”

These three questions may seem simple, but when you think about the issues behind them carefully, you will find that they involve the entirety of your life.

Work takes up 1/3 of your time. I have talked too much about the first question in my personal blog, so this is what I have thought about the most so far. I am constantly pursuing what I like to do, constantly learning and growing, and constantly giving myself new challenges. Looking forward to it. What you want is to be happy and joyful in your working life. Of course, success is also very important, but it is not that simple to achieve success and happiness. In addition to choosing the right job, you must also keep growing so that you can keep moving forward. Does your job make you happy? Do you like your current colleagues and environment? When you wake up every day, do you feel like “Yeah, I’m getting ready to go to work” or do you feel like “It’s time to go to work again”? Work has a huge impact on your life. Only in a job that you like can you be able to excel.

The family that occupies 1/3 of your time is about the balance of life. Many successful people who focus on work are not enough to manage the family. Even if they have a successful career, when they come home from work, they will find a cold home waiting for them. No one will leave a light waiting for him to come back. An elder once said to me: “My outlook on life, I feel that no matter how hard I work in this life, it is ultimately for this family. Without this family, there is nothing else.” This sentence comes from An elder who I admire very much said this, which had a great impact on me, because he is a very accomplished person in his career, but he still insists that no matter how busy he is, he must accompany his child for more than an hour every day before going to bed, and it must be arranged on weekends. On family day, if there is a parent-teacher meeting for children, he must attend it. He also told me: “There is a difference between 90 points and 100 points in work results, but there is no family relationship, and family relationships cannot be discounted.” I still remember this passage and I feel a lot.

In the end, how do you spend your life with integrity and adhering to your own principles? The book talks about the author’s classmates. Some of the author’s classmates became leaders of financial crimes because they could not resist the temptation of money, and were eventually imprisoned. These people all performed outstandingly at work and had high achievements, but in the end they died. The word “greed” cannot be overcome. There are countless such cases. There are many such figures in Taiwan’s political circles. They are powerful and have good salaries, but they still want more. Can we stick to our principles at every moment, earn the money we should earn, and get the salary we should get? In fact, I am very principled in my work. It is difficult to rely on a person without principles, because you never know whether he will change his mind or overturn his original decision.

This book “only” discusses these three issues, but the author guides readers to think through one case after another and questions, such as “Can there be priorities in life investment?” Have you ever thought about rushing into your career when you were young, and then accompanying your children after your children grow up and your career is successful? The book cites scientific data and believes that doing so will often cause alienation in the parent-child relationship, and there is no way to effectively make up for it. Therefore, even if you have imaginary priorities, the interpersonal relationship does not mean that if you do less in the past, you will be evened out by doing more now, but you must continue to invest. There are really many such reflective questions in the book, which are worthy of everyone’s careful consideration.

• Author: [Clayton. Christiansen, James. Overs, Karen. Dylan](https://search.books.com.tw/exep/prod_search.php?key=%A7J%B9p%B9y%A1D%A7J%A8%BD%B4%B5% A5%C5%A5%CD%A1B%B8%E2%A9i%B4%B5%A1D%BC%DA%A8U%B4%B5%A1B%B3%CD%AD%DB%A1D%A8f%AD%DB&f=author)
• Original author: Clayton M. Christensen, James Allworth, Karen Dillon
• Translator: Liao Yuejuan
• Publisher: Tianxia Culture

---