The One Question You Should Ask Yourself When Setting Goals

Ev Chapman
November 6, 2022
2 min read

I'm not usually a goal setter, but yesterday I found myself jotting down some goals on my daily walk.

Goals are a weird thing. Some are big, some are small. Some are intentional others are off-handed. But every goal has focus, energy, time & attention attached to it. So if you're going to set a goal, you need to make sure it's worthy of those things.

This is why when I do set goals, I ask myself ONE question.... WHY?

Why uncovers my intentions quick smart. For instance, yesterday when I was setting some goals for November I thought... I should put get to 20k Twitter Followers on the list. But then I asked myself WHY?

And I couldn't think of one good reason.

I could think of lots of ego reasons. I should be at 20k by now, other people are at 20k, everyone else is growing faster, and all the other BS comparison reasons.

But not a good reason to pour time, energy, focus & attention into Twitter (more than I am currently - which is a heck of a lot anyway).

None of us has unlimited time, energy, focus & attention. And if you're anything like me you tend to underestimate how much of it will be taken up by things that are not worthy of it.

So the WHY question has been invaluable for me as a filter to make sure I'm working on the right things that are leading to the outcomes I'm seeking - not ego-based outcomes that mean nothing.

So next time you're setting goals for yourself using WHY? as a way to filter out things that don't actually matter and spend your time, energy, focus & attention on only things that do.

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