Monday, October 5, 2009

Find Your Strongest Life - Book Review

Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently, By Marcus Buckingham

In Find Your Strongest Life, Marcus Buckingham declares that there IS a way for women to “have it all”. However, his definition of having it all is not doing it all, but feeling fulfilled and in control in what you choose to do. Buckingham states that by finding and following your strengths, you can better define what you need to live a strong life.

I found the premise of the book interesting - that to be happy and fulfilled in life, it is important to define strengthening moments, those moments in which you feel most alive. He provides an on-line Strong Life Test to help readers identify personality roles in which their strengths help them succeed. After giving the reader various real life examples of women who follow his process, Buckingham states “the secret to success and happiness lies in your ability to know yourself well enough to make strong choices without regret…”

This book gave me many things to think about in how I manage and focus my life. I gained new tools with which to evaluate what is truly important to me and to sift through my obligations, self-imposed and otherwise, to determine what to keep and what to drop or change. However, I also felt that Buckingham often veered off to the trite, indicating that if only we would follow his advice any problem could be resolved with his methods. I am a bit more cynical than that. Overall, if you are willing to overlook what I considered a slightly over-optimistic view point on solving life problems, the basic advice in the book is good food for thought.











No comments: