Why Aren’t You Where You Want to Be?

I was given the book The Principle of the Path by Andy Stanley to review thanks to BookSneeze, a division of Thomas Nelson publishing. When I first got this book, I didn’t figure I would be posting the review on my personal finance blog. I figured I would be posting it on my personal growth blog Still Not There where many of my book reviews are posted. As I read through the book though, the author continually referred to the Path Principle as it applied to finances. I have to agree that it does apply very well.

To summarize the “principle of the path”, it basically states that in most cases, you have ended up where you are due to a choice you made somewhere along your path. A very simple example would be that if you get on 80 West in Chicago, you should not be surprised that you ended up in California, not New York. The same thing applies to other areas of your life. People’s financial condition is a direct result of the decisions they made along the way. If you decided to purchase a home with no money down and a 30 year mortgage at the peak of the housing market, you should not be surprised when you end up in foreclosure or facing a short sale when you are unable to make the payments after having to take a cut in pay at the bottom of the housing market. It’s not that you just suddenly encountered some bad luck. You made direct choices that resulted in your current financial condition.

This book was an excellent read. It was quite refreshing after having struggled through a book recently that I did not find nearly as well written. This book kept me turning the pages and fully engaged. Honestly, the basic premise is quite simple and when you think about it, not very shocking. If you do “x”, then “y” is going to happen every time you do that. It seems pretty plain in the highway driving illustration I gave earlier, but really it applies in so many areas of life. Andy Stanley does a great job of providing stories and examples to explain his premise and how we should deal with this principle in our lives. I highly recommend this book to anyone regardless of what area of life they are struggling with. If you aren’t where you want to be, then read this book to get a look at why you may be there, and what you can do about it.