Sokanu: The Blog

I just finishing reading this post and am absolutely blown away by what is written there. The man who wrote the post is an author named Clayton Christensen, who is a professor at Harvard University and the author of The Innovators Dilemma and The Innovators Solution.  He is famous for the concepts presented in The Innovators Dilemma, which have helped many companies produce millions of dollars of revenue.

The article is so fascinating because it deals with life in general, and what is important. By now you know that here on this blog we tend to speak about happiness and success a lot, and how to measure those things. That's why when the title of the article was: How Will You Measure Your Life? I was immediately interested.

I will probably write another article or two stemming from this article, but today I want to talk about a specific piece of info: Creating A Strategy For Your Life.

Mr. Christensen writes about this on page two of this article with relation to the students at Harvard Business School.  I will talk about it with relation to anyone in general.

When we hear someone talk about having purpose in our lives, we sometimes will immediately assume that the person is one of those "personal development gurus" that just wants to sell you a package and never talk to you again. The reality is though that having a purpose in our lives is the most important things that we can do for ourselves.

The reality is that most people in this world generally end up unhappy with their marriage, job and path in life. If we use the book Tribal Leadership as a reference, these people would be classified as "level 2", meaning "my life sucks".  They may not use those exact words, but they believe that they have been dealt a tough hand in life and they are bound to it.

Why is this? Drawing from the article, the reason is that those people had not created a strategy for their lives.  Of course, no-one goes into life thinking that they are going to end up divorced, unhappy and without purpose. Yet a high number of people seem to implement this strategy. The reason? They didn’t keep the purpose of their lives front and center as they decided how to spend their time, talents, and energy.

It is not a good sign when the majority of college students and young people in general spend little thought to the purpose of their lives.  When you are young, this is the perfect (and usually the only) time that you have to do this with dedication.  Think of your responsibilities right now versus what they will be when you are, say, 35.  When you are young you have no mortgage, you are probably not married and probably have no kids.  Going to college to learn and gain a degree for the career of your dreams is the perfect time to stop and think about what your guiding purpose is.

Keep in mind, though, this is not something you can just stop and think about sporadically and whenever you feel like it. Read what Clayton had to do in order to achieve this goal.

When I was a Rhodes scholar, I was in a very demanding academic program, trying to cram an extra year’s worth of work into my time at Oxford. I decided to spend an hour every night reading, thinking, and praying about why God put me on this earth. That was a very challenging commitment to keep, because every hour I spent doing that, I wasn’t studying applied econometrics. I was conflicted about whether I could really afford to take that time away from my studies, but I stuck with it—and ultimately figured out the purpose of my life.

Had I instead spent that hour each day learning the latest techniques for mastering the problems of autocorrelation in regression analysis, I would have badly misspent my life. I apply the tools of econometrics a few times a year, but I apply my knowledge of the purpose of my life every day. It’s the single most useful thing I’ve ever learned.

Purpose is like a rudder that keeps you on course for the rest of your life.  Without it, you will just drift along, being swept side to side, however the sea wants to take you. And remember, your purpose doesn't have to stem from religion or faith. It can stem from any of your core set of values and ideals that you happen to live by.

The choice and successful pursuit of a profession is but one tool for achieving your purpose. But without a purpose, life can become hollow.