I often ask this question. And I've self-diagnosed myself with having a Quarter-Life Crisis because I got so obsessed with this question that I felt it was eating me alive. Good thing, Google gives out the best suggestions and it led me to finding this magnificent book How Will you Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen.
I initially thought that this was a self-help book and I was looking for a step-by-step guide on how to get out of the rut I was in. But boy was I wrong -- it was one of the most surprising, stimulating and spectacular read I had in awhile. It doesn't give you procedures but something even better - it gives you guidance on how to think through academic theories. Back in college, I thought that theories were the nerds way of explaining things (something of now value in the read world because their experiments where usually in a very controlled environment) but now through this book I saw their value in guiding us through life (both personal and professional) and it's just amazing.
And here are my favorite excerpts from the book which I hope will entice you to read the whole thing:
"Behing the facade of professional success, there were many who did not enjoy what they were doing for a living."
"People often think that the best way to predict the future is by collecting as much data as possible before making a decision. But this is like driving a car looking only in the rearview mirror--because data is only available about the past."
"It's possible to love your job and hate it at the same time."
"In order to really find happiness, you need to continue looking for opportunities that you believe are meaningful, in which you will be able to learn new things, to succeed, and be given more and more responsibility to shoulder."
"...this approach of "What assumptions must prove true?" offers a simple way to keep strategy from going far off-course. It causes teams to focus on what truly matters to get the numbers to materialize. If we ask the right questions, the answers generally are easy to get."
"Work can bring you a sense of fulfillment--but it pales in comparison to the enduring happiness you can find in the intimate relationships that you cultivate with your family and close friends."
"It's natural to want the people you love to be happy. What can often be difficult is understanding what your role is in that."
"Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time."
"You can see the immediate costs of investing, but ti's really hard to accurately see the cost of not investing."
"I realized that, constrained by the capacities of our minds, we cannot always see the big picture."
