A friend of mine pointed me to an article by Clayton Christensen this morning. Christensen is best known for his work on innovation (his book "The Innovator's Dilemma" is a classic) so I was intrigued to see him writing about a "soft" topic such as guidelines for finding meaning in life. The article is available at http://hbr.org/2010/07/how-will-you-measure-your-life/ar/1.
Christensen cites Frederick Herzberg's insight that the most powerful motivator in our lives is not money; instead it is the need to learn, contribute and to be recognized. He then shows how management principles can be applied to our personal lives: individuals need to find their purpose in life (just as companies need to find their mission and strategy), and allocate resources (time, energy, talent, money) in line with their stated purpose.
Christensen also talks about the importance of creating the right culture within the family (similar to creating a culture within a company). If we have a 2x2 matrix where the two dimensions depict the extent of agreement on goals and the extent of agreement on the steps towards attaining the goals, organizations/families need to use "power tools" (force, threats) when in the bottom left whereas having the right culture would enable them to operate in the top right quadrant.
When reading this article it struck me that I could not articulate a purpose statement for my life. I was reminded of the fact that I have been drifting along for quite some time now. Although I had made some half-baked plans some time ago I had not acted on any of it.
I ended up spending quite a bit of time in office doing some web searches and reading some of the material I found; one website that was quite useful was http://www.theonequestion.com. I have also been toying with the idea of working with a personal/life coach and found a few of them in Bangalore. I plan to follow up with them in the second week of August.
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