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How an Excel Spreadsheet Led One Woman to Change Careers

When even the unconventional life isn’t working out as you planned, how do you course correct to get on a more fulfilling track? Bethany Butzer broke out a spreadsheet and charted her way to a life more aligned with her values.

I’ve never really followed a linear path. I graduated with a Ph.D. in Psychology, turned down a job in academia to work in the corporate world, but very quickly realized that the 9-to-5 cubicle life wasn't for me. After a year and a half, I quit.

A job opened up at Harvard Medical School for someone to help research school-based yoga interventions. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to combine my passion for research with my interest in well-being, so my husband and I sold our house and we moved to Boston.

To my surprise, Harvard didn’t end up being what I’d hoped for. The work environment was extremely competitive and exhausting. The cost of living was through the roof. I spent most of my time at work or recovering from work. After two years of this lifestyle, I realized that something needed to change. Four guidelines helped guide my husband and me through some major lifestyle changes to get us where we are today.

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Only Floss the Teeth You Want to Keep

That’s what dentists tell you. You don’t need to floss all your teeth—just the ones you need to keep.

When it comes to your business, your life, or your relationships, a similar principle applies. You don’t have to pay attention to everything and everyone. But you do have to pay attention to what matters most.

It may help to identify some priorities. In my business I track only two metrics on a consistent basis:

1. Email subscribers

2. Product sales
My thinking is that if these things are going along okay, everything else will fall into place. I don't check other statistics or track anything else. Checking my bank accounts will not make more money.

This year I added a "relationship metric":

Every day I will write or call at least one friend.

It’s simple, but effective (at least for me). So far this year, I haven’t missed a day.

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A Story of Friendship and Values


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Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point of the journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other one in the face.

The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand: TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.

They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a bath. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him.

After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone: TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.

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7 Alternative Ways to Evaluate Your Life Every Day

As regular readers know, I’m all about setting goals and working toward big projects over time. When you have a big goal, especially one with a clear end point, it’s easy to know when you’ve achieved it. But most big goals take time, and—as I’ve been learning—our lives consist of more than just a series of work-oriented projects that occupy our time.

No, to truly define success, we need to think of both these long-term goals and the actions we take every day. We also need to ensure our lives are in proper order. The challenge lies in the middle: how do we accomplish all of this?

Therefore, it may be more helpful to create an alternative method of evaluating ourselves as we go along. Here are seven different ideas to consider.

5549123_dd3e6c2b3f_z 1. At the end of the day, ask yourself, “Did today matter?”

Sure, you could spend a long time thinking back on your to-do list and reviewing your calendar. And what were all those emails about? But when you ask yourself this question, chances are you’ll know the answer intuitively.

Did today matter? If so, great. Do more things like it tomorrow. Can't remember anything in particular that made a difference? Well, better change it up.

Before you hit the ground running, take a few moments in meditation or thoughtfulness to decide what you’d like to see happen by the end of the day. Again, be sure to prioritize: it would be great to make a ton of progress on everything, but you probably won’t. What's most important? What is realistic to achieve?

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How Much Does It Cost to Visit Every Country in the World?

I’ve mentioned a few times that going to every country in the world wasn’t as expensive as most people initially think. But how much did it really cost?

The short answer is that I’m not 100% sure of the precise figure. I didn’t tally up every expense associated with ten-and-a-half years of travel, and I didn't save all the receipts. Much of the travel (perhaps one-third) was done in cooperation with other work and commitments. The whole time I was living in West Africa, for example, I was visiting a bunch of new countries, but usually in my capacity as an aid worker for a charity.

Even during the time when I was focused mainly on going to countries for no good reason, it wasn't a business project. It wasn't something I needed to account for or get reimbursed. It was a personal challenge that I would have pursued regardless of the cost.

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Playing It Safe Is Riskier Than You Think

From a Harvard Business Review article cited by Tom Fishburne: “Executives and entrepreneurs face two very different sorts of risks. One is that their organization will make a bold move that failed — a risk they call ‘sinking the ship.’ The other is that their organization will fail to make a bold move that would…

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Creating and Living by Your Own List of Values

Everyone lives their life by some sort of internalized moral code, but many people don’t take the time to sort out what they really believe in. Because of this disparity, we often feel conflicted when deciding how to make regular choices about time, money, and personal decisions.

One definition of integrity is how closely your life aligns with your values. In other words, do you do what you say you do? Do you live your life according to what you believe in?

This definition is somewhat incomplete, because it allows for you to do pretty much anything you want to do (even harm other people, which most of us would not consider to be a good thing). But there is still some truth to the idea that integrity relates to how you live by the standards you have set. If you don’t do what you say you do, how can you say you practice integrity?

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