For many women, there is a utopian idea that you can have it all, but there are varying definitions of what it means to truly “have it all.” Some definitions lead to a life of stress and a sense of being less than satisfied with every aspect of your life including career, relationships, and finances. Marcus Buckingham explores this concept in his latest book Find Your Strongest Life: What The Happiest And Most Successful Women Do Differently.
Buckingham brings his expertise as a researcher who has studied the advantages of playing to your strengths to the dilemma that many women face as they try to balance and, more often than not, juggle family, career, and community. He defines a strong life as one that consists of energizing moments that you seek out selectively and intentionally to have a fulfilling life versus a life just filled with meaningless moments.
In his book, he advocates developing a strong life practice that allows you to make conscious choices about how you invest your time and talents. The key learning points that you will gain from this book are:
- Your life should strengthen you, not make you weak.
- You do have a choice as to how you live your life.
- Research shows that women are faced with more choices than men and, therefore, encounter stress as they choose how to spend their time.
- Stress is not necessarily caused by the number of hours you work but is a result of what you do within those hours.
- Rather than juggle random moments, which mainly involves the practice of “throwing,” you need to “catch and cradle” the moments in your life – a practice that Buckingham says involves an expectant search for (“catch”) and nurturing of (“cradle”) energizing moments.
Marcus Buckingham has developed a Strong Life Test which can be found at www.stronglifetest.com. Based upon your responses, this profile measures you against nine life roles in order for you to discover your Lead Role and Supporting Role. The nine roles include the following:
- Advisor
- Caretaker
- Creator
- Equalizer
- Influencer
- Motivator
- Pioneer
- Teacher
- Weaver
He suggests taking this online test before you read the descriptions of each of these roles in the book, so I will not provide them in this review. Once you have taken the test, you can find detailed descriptions of each of the nine roles along with ideas on how to make the most of each role.
While this book is targeted toward women, men will gain a unique insight from his research that can be applied at home, at work, and in the community. Buckingham further states that women will benefit the most from this book given the amount of choices and opportunities that face them on a day-to-day basis.
As a woman, can you have it all? If “having it all” means living a fulfilling life of meaning and purpose, Buckingham answers with a resounding “Yes!” and provides a book of thoughts and tactics that will help you achieve it.
To order this book, click here.
