A while ago, I heard an HBR IdeaCast podcast episode that stuck with me.
Leslie Perlow, HBR Professor & founder of the Crafting Your Life Project, talked about how busy executives find joy (or don’t).
During the interview she talked about finding our JAM – Joy, Achievement, and Meaning.
I found this combination to be intriguing.
She talked about the Life Matrix tool being a measure of your personal combination.
After a bit of research, I realized there were some free resources here.
You can take a short quiz to understand your JAM profile.
Then, you can start to track your life to see how closely you live to your profile and where there are opportunities for improvement.
My Perspective
I always like a quiz that gives me some insight about myself. This one was short and I thought the result was interesting. However, the combination of length and type of questions made me unsure of the result.
Was it my true nature or rather the result I wanted it to be?
Either way, I left with interesting thoughts.
While the resources are great, what I found even more interesting is just thinking about the three attributes:
Joy, Accomplishment, and Meaning.
Asking myself questions about what brings those three qualities into my life.
I spent a year with the word “Joyful” as my word of the year and really dug deep on what brings me joy, what brought me joy in the past, and how I could foster it in my life.
With accomplishment and meaning, I realized I’ve thought about them much less.
I know that we each have our unique fingerprint.
What qualifies as part of my JAM, may not be part of the JAM of someone else.
Today, I encourage you to start defining your “JAM”.
Your Turn
What activities bring you joy?
When do you feel accomplished?
How could you bring more meaning into your life?