Get a Life

What's extraordinary about these stories is that they're, well, so extraordinary. Phillips, Casey, and Galston had to reckon with the fallout from success. They faced personal challenges of the sort faced by millions of other people. But they took simple, decisive measures to create a new kind of success - one that's more satisfying and more sustainable. They vowed to get a life - and did.

Can you make the same claim?

"Maintaining a complicated life is a great way to avoid changing it," argues simplicity guru Elaine St. James, whose how-to books have sold more than 1.4 million copies - and have helped shape a growing movement. "As long as our work is so vital that we can't slow down, we don't have to look at our own lives: a marriage that isn't working, a career that isn't satisfying, children we're out of touch with, friendships we've outgrown. There's nothing more 'dangerous' than having a little time on your hands." (See the companion article, "Keep It Simple," page 152.)

Personal-productivity guru David Allen, 52, who coaches and trains executives at Microsoft, L.L. Bean, the U.S. Navy, and other high-performance organizations, is equally direct: "Change - even change meant to improve our lives - creates stress. That's why we avoid new experiences and tough choices. They're outside our comfort zone. We get comfortable with our problems."

So get ready to get uncomfortable - and get a life!

You Can't Love Your Life If You Hate Your Work

In an age when work is more personal than ever - when who you are is what you do - work is a deeper source of personal satisfaction than ever. And it's not just about discovering some inner truth. It's about solving a math problem. William B. Gartner, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, offers this simple calculation: Say (conservatively) that you work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for 50 years. That's 100,000 working hours over the course of a career. Do any of us want to spend 100,000 hours on work that we don't find satisfying?

"You have one thing of value, and that's your time," argues Gartner. "This is one of the first challenges I pose to my students: 'You have 100,000 hours. What are you going to do with them?' That is the one real limitation that all people face. Not money - time. Too many people underestimate the opportunity cost of their time."

Or they underestimate their ability to change how they spend it. A recent Wall Street Journal /ABC News poll reported that half of all Americans would choose a new line of work if they had the chance. The obvious follow-up question: What's holding them back from taking the chance? The just-as-obvious response: If it were an easy question, more people would have the answer. Experts write books on the subject. Professors teach courses on it.

"This is complicated," says Robin Hirschberg, a faculty member at New York University and the founder of Not So New Age Consulting. Hirschberg, a former director of training at Lehman Brothers in London, coaches executives who want to redirect their careers. "People tend to confuse their purpose (What do I love to do?), their ideals (How am I comfortable behaving?), and their desired results (What can I achieve?). If you untangle those questions, and compare the answers with your natural talents and abilities, you'll start down the path to success. It takes experimentation. You don't know the answers until you know the answers."

Deborah Lee, a social psychologist based in San Francisco and the author of Having It All/Having Enough (Amacom, 1997), is less forgiving: "Lots of people don't want to sit down and look themselves in the eye, because then they'll feel a responsibility to act on what they learn. And that can be very frightening." Atlanta-based career counselor Bob McDonald is even tougher: "People have more options than they think they do. But most people spend more time planning their vacations than thinking about what they want to do with their lives."

No one would lodge that charge against Larry Smith, 62, who teaches public management at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Smith has led an accomplished and wide-ranging career. He's served as counselor to two secretaries of defense and to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He's managed political campaigns, and helped design Gary Hart's run for president in 1984. He's taught college. He's painted houses.

"I think there is a 'sweet spot' that each of us has," he says. "It's the kind of work we want to perform, the kind of work that makes us proud. But finding that sweet spot requires deep self-knowledge. You start by looking at the work you're drawn to. You try it, you evaluate the experience, and you evolve as you discover more about it. I think of this process as developmental self-interrogation. You're working on a mental model of yourself - always."