As part of my 2021 goals, I intend to read 24 books this year. As of writing, I've already finished five (5) books. I'm behind by one (1) but I think I'll be able to catch up. I used to read so many books during my young adult days. Then, I noticed that I read less and less as I grew older.
Two years ago, I decided to bring back the joy of reading and I slowly picked up my pace since then. Last year, I had the chance to read Limitless by Jim Kwik and that's how I learned speedreading. I knew I could read more books this year and that's why I challenged myself to a meager 2 books a month.
I am starting this Book Review series to share with you my reading experiences and some highlights from the books I've read. I will not be summarizing or synthesizing the contents of the book. I want to make this review short. I will end with whether or not I will be recommending the book and my overall rating in terms of reading experience, content, and learning.
MY READING EXPERIENCE
The book is entitled, The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals. It has 3 authors namely, Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling. I wanted to read this book because the company I used to work for was applying The 4 Disciplines of Execution or 4DX right before I left.
This was the first book I read in 2021 that's why I was so excited to get started. I knew the book was intended to be applied mostly in corporate settings but I was interested in learning about the process to help me achieve my goals for 2021.
My reading experience with the book was good. It's not like a textbook where things are all technical. There are practical and inspiring examples thrown throughout the chapters. My motivation to get to work on my goals was heightened because of the success of the 4DX system in different real-life organizations and settings.
After reading the book, I couldn't wait to apply my learning about the 4 disciplines in achieving my 2021 goals.
BOOK HIGHLIGHTS
For me, the most striking topics discussed in the book are the idea of your whirlwind and the process of identifying lead measures.
The book states that the reason that most people don't achieve their goals is because of the "whirlwind" of other activities that they need to do in their day-to-day struggles. This hits hard because I used to wonder why I couldn't execute my important goals before even though I thought my plans were really solid. The challenge is to work above the whirlwind or to chose among your whirlwind which one you can spend 20% of your time to significantly improve your performance or be closer to your goals.
The second highlight of the book is about lead measures. I used to be worried during strategic planning sessions of my previous company because I had trouble setting the correct targets for my goals that were attainable. I was used to creating lag measures instead of lead measures. Lead measures are metrics or activities that are influenceable and are predictive of your bigger goals.
The simplest example is having a lag measure of losing 20 lbs in 2 months and the corresponding lead measures are maybe to exercise 3 times a day and eating within the caloric deficit limit. You focus on your efforts on achieving the lead measures and the lag measures will naturally come through.
Let's say you want to set a goal of earning USD2,000 through writing in Hive after 1 year. Your lead measures may look something like this:
-Write at least 300 words per day
-Post at least 2 articles per week with at least 1000 words
The next steps to performing these lead measures consistently are detailed in the book.
WOULD I RECOMMEND IT?
For people who are working in the corporate world or those that have their own business and want to level up their performance, I would certainly recommend this book. However, in terms of those who would want to achieve their personal goals, I think a bit of a disclaimer would be required before I recommend it.
The book is intended for people working in structured organizations although there's a chapter in the book discussing how you can make use of the 4DX in your personal life. There are also several examples of people making use of 4DX to help them achieve their personal goals in different areas of their lives.
I would certainly not be recommending this book to everyone but if I were given the chance to discuss how the things in this book can help you achieve your goals, I would definitely do that.
OVERALL RATING
This would be the first book that I'll be rating for this series. I think I'll be giving it a 4 out of 5 with my breakdown below:
Reading Experience - 4/5
Content - 4/5
Learning - 5/5
The book is chockful of learning, there's no denying that. The content can sometimes be technical but not too much. Lastly, my reading experience was good and the language and structure were easy to follow.
I have been able to apply the 4DX to one of my goals for 2021 and I could honestly say that it's helping me really well in bringing me closer to that goal.
And that's it! Thank you so much for reading my post. I am so excited to be able to start this new format for my blog. I am now looking at other formats where I will be able to easily share my interests in certain communities. For the next book, I will be reviewing The Shack by William Paul Young.
See you in the post. Cheers!
