In 2004, I left a career I loved at Microsoft so Patty and I could homeschool our son Trevor as a team. With Trevor on the autism spectrum, we felt he was going to need more help transitioning from sixth to seventh grade than the school system would provide. I focused on math and science, and Patty focused on arts and languages. Finally, we brought him back to the public school for the ninth grade. Today he is a college graduate, living alone, paying his own bills, and leading a typical life for someone his age. Every time I look at my son, I remember that the decision we made in 2004 was so good.
Fast forward to today. My post-Microsoft career has been very satisfying as an author, consultant, and editor. But deep down I wondered what our life would have been like if I had stayed at Microsoft. I decided to do an exercise in which I analyzed what our life was like today compared to what I thought it would be if I had stayed at Microsoft. This is where something I created called The eight drivers of contentment comes into play.
In my Eight Drivers of Satisfaction Seminar, I focus on eight specific dimensions of your life and help you assess your level of satisfaction in each of those areas. The drivers are as follows:
- Professional satisfaction – How satisfied are you in your current and future career potential
- Financial satisfaction – How satisfied are you with your current and future financial status
- Family contentment – How satisfied are you in your family relationships
- Health satisfaction – How satisfied are you with your physical and mental health
- Leisure satisfaction – How satisfied are you with the quality time spent on leisure activities
- Inherited satisfaction – How satisfied are you with the legacy you are leaving behind if you die today?
- Relational contentment – How satisfied are you with the relationships built and maintained with friends and loved ones
- Spiritual contentment – How satisfied are you with your spiritual life
What I found from giving the seminar and helping others is that satisfaction boosters are very helpful not only in assessing your overall satisfaction, but also in making life decisions, i.e. changing jobs or buying a home. By looking at each decision alternative through the lens of the eight satisfaction drivers, it forces the decision maker to see how the decision will affect their overall happiness, rather than looking at it from a limited set of content drivers. For example, many people view the decision to accept or not a new job through two lenses: financial and professional. While these are certainly important to consider, what about the impact on areas like family, relationships, or health? There may be great professional and financial potential with a new job, but if it means an adverse impact on other areas of your life, is it worth it? By looking at the decision alternatives across the eight satisfaction drivers, you are forced to consider each driver and assess what each driver’s life is / will be like.
To help you make decisions, I have included a simple Excel spreadsheet. When completing your decision alternatives, it is important to keep a few things in mind:
- State clearly what your alternatives are, even if there are more than two alternatives.
- Include anyone else affected by your decision (spouse, partner, loved ones, etc.) in the process. Most likely, they will give you a perspective that you may not have considered.
- Be brutally honest about your satisfaction responses for each alternative.
- Remember that at the end of the day this is just a tool to help you make a good decision. Don’t get caught up in the tool itself or try to make the tool say something you want it to say.
- After completing your initial answers, take some time to sleep, look at the answers again, and adjust until you are comfortable with your decision.
As this relates to my decision to leave Microsoft, I reconfirmed that leaving homeschool and starting an alternative career as a consultant, author, and editor was the right overall decision for us. While we sacrificed in a couple of areas, the overall benefits of leaving were worth what we gave up.
You likely have more life decisions around the corner. The next time you’re faced with a big decision, consider using the Eight Satisfaction Drivers to help you fully understand each of your alternatives and make a better-informed decision.
