Living A Strong Life

To get you started on your path to living your strongest life, Oprah.com features  Marcus Buckingham's eight-step Strong Life Plan to help you build both your career and personal life. Get the steps to give you that Strong foundation. >>

Strong Life Plans

To get you started on your path to living your strongest life, Marcus Buckingham has written an eight-step Strong Life Plan to help you build both your career and personal life.

Step 1: Finding a Career
You have a unique combination of talents and skills—but are you fully aware of what they are? Discover the strengths that will lead you to your ideal career.
The key steps to finding a career  



Step 2: Switching Careers
You've been working hard as a lawyer, as a flight attendant, as an office manager, but now you realize—and perhaps you realized it long ago—that the job is depleting you.
How to dive into a new field



Step 3: Decision-Making
The fear of making the wrong choice can be completely debilitating. We often get stuck living with the status quo because it is safe.
It's time to face your fears



Step 4: Problem-Solving
What is the most effective way to solve a problem? If you think the answer is "Find out what is wrong and fix it," you're only amplifying the problem.
The 5 steps to solving any problem



Step 5: Building Resilience
If you've suffered a setback recently, you may still be reeling, feeling helpless and hopeless. But a crisis can also bring you face-to-face with what really matters.
Find your true strength after a crisis



Step 6: Loving Connections
Choose relationships that leave you feeling stronger and foster those relationships by "supporting the being" of your partner.
6 steps to building a connection that will strengthen your life



Step 7: Resolving Conflict
Having a system or process for dealing with conflict or disagreements will enable you to spare your relationship from undue stress born from misunderstandings, assumptions and misinformation.
8 ways to resolve an argument



Step 8: Resolving Conflict
When it comes to raising your kids, you may be faced with some of the most challenging moments of your life.

Give your children a solid platform on which to build a strong, fulfilling life

How Do I Discover My Purpose?

Marcus Buckingham is answering the big questions about discovering your purpose and finding balance in work and in life.

How do I discover my purpose?

That word "discover" is a sneaky one, isn't it? It implies that your purpose is there, intact, just waiting to be found like Fleming discovered penicillin. But your purpose or destiny is not something that is going to dawn on you one day in a Eureka-type moment. Let that go. Goals, dreams and vision are important, but they do not provide the answer to living a fulfilled life. The answer lies in your strengthening moments. You have to pay attention to the activities, instances and events in your life that fill you up. They teach you, guide you and sustain you. Like small flames, they can be fanned into bigger fires with a little attention. Your strongest life is built through a continuous practice of designing moment by moment.

Everyone has heard the old adage: Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Are you actually registering your experience as you live your life, or are you always looking into the rearview mirror pining over what happened or staring off into the distance imagining what will happen—all the while missing out on what is actually happening?

Moments matter most. Build off of a few strong moments, follow the path they lay out for you, and trust your direction. They will not let you down.  (continued >>>)