Week Three: A Life Well Lived - How Will You Measure Your Life?

A few ideas that stood out to me this week:

From “How Will You Measure Your Life” by Clayton M. Christensen:

“It’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time. If you give in to “just this once,” based on a marginal cost analysis, as some of my former class- mates have done, you’ll regret where you end up. You’ve got to define for yourself what you stand for and draw the line in a safe place”

What I love about this is he’s right. If you’re not 100% in a decision you’ll have doubt. If you’re not 100% in your commitment it will be easy to do it half way or skip things here and there. When people diet and they cheat a little, they always fail. You have to be fully committed to have something be a success and fully work out. You get what you give, so give 100%

“Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: 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.

We all want to be successful and have a good life. What is a success is as individual as the one seeking the success. And if you never receive a reward or have some banquet where you’re honored, you’re still a success. Some of my favorite people are those who serve and donate quietly. They don’t want their name on a building. They want to be a success and be able to look back and see their trail of success and joy from how they lived not from the accolades received.

From Jeff Hawkins:

Success is not about working hard, but about making the right decisions

Any organization that focuses on making better daily decisions will have the opportunity for broad and deep success.

We make decisions daily. Hundreds of them. We decide what time to wake up and what route to take to work and if we’re taking our lunch or going out, or even just turning left or right out of our neighborhood. Our decisions bring us results. And we can have those results be failures or success based on making the right decisions.