How will you measure your life?
If you were to read one article this month, this must be it.
https://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life
Some excerpts..
#1
But instead of telling him what to think, I taught him how to think—and then he reached what I felt was the correct decision on his own.
#2
The powerful motivator in our lives isn’t money; it’s the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to others, and be recognized for achievements.
#3
Management is the most noble of professions if it’s practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.
More and more MBA students come to school thinking that a career in business means buying, selling, and investing in companies. That’s unfortunate. Doing deals doesn’t yield the deep rewards that come from building up people.
#4
When people who have a high need for achievement have an extra half hour of time or an extra ounce of energy, they’ll unconsciously allocate it to activities that yield the most tangible accomplishments.
And our careers provide the most concrete evidence that we’re moving forward. You ship a product, finish a design, complete a presentation, close a sale, teach a class, publish a paper, get paid, get promoted.
In contrast, investing time and energy in your relationship with your spouse and children typically doesn’t offer that same immediate sense of achievement. Kids misbehave every day.
It’s really not until 20 years down the road that you can put your hands on your hips and say, “I raised a good son or a good daughter.”
You can neglect your relationship with your spouse, and on a day-to-day basis, it doesn’t seem as if things are deteriorating.
People who are driven to excel have this unconscious propensity to underinvest in their families and overinvest in their careers—even though intimate and loving relationships with their families are the most powerful and enduring source of happiness.
#5
Culture, in compelling but unspoken ways, dictates the proven, acceptable methods by which members of the group address recurrent problems.
And culture defines the priority given to different types of problems.
#6
If you want your kids to have strong self-esteem and confidence that they can solve hard problems, those qualities won’t magically materialize in high school.
You have to design them into your family’s culture—and you have to think about this very early on.
Like employees, children build self-esteem by doing things that are hard and learning what works.
#7
Unconsciously, we often employ the marginal cost doctrine in our personal lives when we choose between right and wrong.
A voice in our head says, “Look, I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s OK.”
The marginal cost of doing something wrong “just this once” always seems alluringly low. It suckers you in, and you don’t ever look at where that path ultimately is headed and at the full costs that the choice entails.
#8
If your attitude is that only smarter people have something to teach you, your learning opportunities will be very limited.
But if you have a humble eagerness to learn something from everybody, your learning opportunities will be unlimited.
and finally #9
Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.
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The above points do a really bad job of summarising the article.
Believe me. Do yourself a favor. Go read this.