Remember Your Why: The Key to Everyday Drive and Achievement

Type in a search for “find your why” and you’ll see a raft of helpful and inspiring articles, talks, and books etc. There are some great references, and I’ll touch on some useful starting points a little later in this article. For now, I want to make the point that finding your WHY is only the first part of an ongoing commitment – to always ‘remember your WHY’ and live by it.

So, for example, if you’ve ever found yourself running on autopilot, getting through the day-to-day, juggling tasks without questioning why you started them in the first place, like I was – this article might be for you.

Perhaps it’s an all-consuming project at work, or a hobby that’s lost its spark, when you lose sight of, or don’t have, a deeper purpose (the driving force behind all your actions) you might begin to feel disengaged, overwhelmed, or other negative thoughts.

What do we mean by WHY?

WHY is the purpose, belief, goal, cause, or dream that is the driving force within us. Think of WHY as your personal compass – it guides decision making towards actions that are meaningful and truly matter. It’s also something that we communicate about ourselves to other people, much like an organization does.

1. Why ‘Remembering Your WHY’ Matters

Clarity

An obvious place to start, but when you clearly know your why, the way forward becomes a lot clearer. There is less confusion about what’s important and/or urgent.

This is particularly helpful when someone is trying to impose their priorities onto you. What’s important to them, might not align with what’s important to you.

Decision Making

I’ve often felt like I’m being pulled in 10 different directions in my personal and professional life, but factoring WHY into my decision making and priority setting, helps to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Perhaps you’re weighing up whether to accept a new position at work, sign-up for a volunteer project, or spend time on personal/professional development, move house, or start a side hustle. Life is complex and it isn’t possible to do everything.

Simply ask, does this align with my why?

Focus

The world is full of opportunities and distractions – more than at any other point in history. Knowing your WHY can help you to identify and pay attention to the tasks that matter most.

In other words, that you’re in the right quadrant of the Eisenhower Matrix (see below) and putting time into the must-do tasks after you’ve done your MoSCoW prioritization.

Time and energy

Time and energy are limited resources so where you spend them matters.

1.1 Setting Your Priorities

Knowing your WHY helps you to become better at setting priorities. To illustrate the point, here are three methods that I use when thinking about what my work and personal priorities are.

• Eisenhower Matrix
• MoSCoW Method

Eisenhower Matrix

The time we spend falls into one of four categories, defined by their level of importance and urgency, shown in the four-quadrant matrix below.

For anything that demands your time, determine where it belongs in the matrix:

• Level of importance: Think about this in terms of outcomes that align with your why. Ask yourself if an activity helps with your mission, values, and most significant goals.
• Level of urgency: To what degree does a task require attention? What is the consequence of not completing them by a particular date? Urgent matters are sometimes a demand made by others – so to what extent… Or perhaps it’s a self-imposed deadline

The diagram shows four quadrants:

1. Important and urgent
   Things that matter and require action now; they have usually been imposed. The crises and problems in this quadrant have consequences for non-completion by a deadline and cannot be avoided.
2. Important but not urgent
   This is where the true long-term value is.
3. Not important but urgent
   The trickiest of the four quadrants. Completing these non-important tasks, you might feel super productive and even benefit from a quick shot of dopamine. From the outside you appear busy to colleagues for example. They’re easy achievements. Perhaps you… examples. What to do? Four ideas – deprioritize, delegate, rationalize, or reschedule outside of your peak productivity times (more on mapping your peak productivity times).
4. Not important or urgent
   What are you wasting your time on? Doom-scrolling, TV, reading celebrity gossip, whatever it may be. This is the stuff that you either reduce to the minimum if you need mind-numbing downtime (and let’s face it, we all do sometimes!), or stop doing altogether.

The Matrix and Your Why

What doesn’t contribute to your why?

• Quadrants three and four can be cancelled, straight off the bat. Under no circumstances do these activities directly align with your WHY.
• Take an example such as someone who is self-employed and works from their laptop. They might have paperwork relating to clients, timesheets for example. Important but not urgent stuff – streamline.

Your most productive time should be spent in quadrants one and two, on things that align with your WHY.

• The big problem with quadrant one is that’s where people can end up living most of their lives.
• Constant work demands can mean that 80-90% of your time is there, which means that the more strategic big picture stuff is lost. Leaving you stuck in the daily grind.

The matrix for work and/or personal time:

• Much of what’s published about the Eisenhower Matrix is focused on worktime only…
• …But, if like me, you’re self-employed and work-from-home, this Eisenhower Matrix is best employed at the life level – all things personal, family, and professional included.
• Also consider the temporal aspects of the Eisenhower Matrix. Does it apply to today, a week, the next month. I consider weekly cycles.

MoSCoW Method (for Individuals)

MoSCoW is a prioritization technique commonly used in product and project management. If you’re in a leadership position, use this to get stakeholders thinking when setting priorities and discussing constraints – time, cost, scope, resources, risks, and quality. Get to the crux of what work needs to be done, rather than what people think they want done.

Even better, it can also be used to help organize your own life, particularly in relation to your WHY!

The original buckets that features can be placed into are:

• Must-have
  Elements that absolutely must be part of the product.
• Should-have
  Important things that while not vital, should only be omitted if project constraints don’t allow.
• Could-have
  Significant and desirable aspects of the development, which should be included resources permitting.
• Won’t-have
  Not essential to the success of the project and can be excluded.

A subtle adjustment and this can become part of your approach to prioritization in all areas of life.

• Must-do
  Things that I absolutely have to do.
• Should-do
  Important things that while not vital, should only not be done if there’s truly insufficient time/money left.
• Could-do
  Nice-to-have things, which ideally would be done but aren’t going to impact the achievement of my goals if not done. Consider delegating, rationalizing, or rescheduling.
• Won’t-do
  Not essential and can be excluded from the to-do list.

1.2 Increased Motivation… and Discipline!

It’s easy to understand the argument that discipline is more important than motivation. But we need both and having a well-defined WHY top of mind can help!

• Motivation can be fleeting so can’t be relied upon for the consistent effort it requires to hit those big goals. That said, when motivated, that’s when my best and most creative work is done.
• When I’m feeling a bit meh – it’s the discipline that gets me tapping on that keyboard. Doing the right things, at the right times, to the best of my ability when I’m not feeling the vibe – that’s discipline.

Motivation is controlled by the brain’s limbic system, along with emotions, decision making, memory, and behavior. Some of that drive we feel to act in certain ways is unconscious, it comes from deep within.

• Emotional fuel
  A well-defined WHY comes from your core values and desires, which makes you more able to tap into your reserves of emotional fuel when doing tasks that align with that why.
• Sustained drive
  Motivation can wane when you forget your purpose. By reaffirming WHY, we can keep that internal spark alive, even if it’s enough to summon the discipline necessary to get through tough times, distractions, and periods of low energy.
• Better performance
  A strong sense of purpose will help with productivity and boost your chances of producing a quality outcome.

1.3 Take Risks and Staying the Course

We’re talking about calculated risks, rather than recklessly jumping into the unknown without any forethought.

Let’s consider two quotes to illustrate the point:

“In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”

– Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook and Meta

And from the author of “How to Win Friends and Influence People”:

“You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.”

– Dale Carnegie, writer and teacher of self-development

Firstly, the reality of the modern world. Taking risks is a part of life and knowing your WHY, call it a purpose, belief, goal, cause, or dream, can help you to overcome fear to take that initial leap, bolster your sense of resilience, and persevere through uncertainty.

1.4 Overcoming Challenges

Encountering obstacles and setbacks in our personal and professional lives is inevitable. Being mindful of your WHY can help you to draw on reserves of resilience and creativity.

• Bouncing back
  “Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” – Julie Andrews. Never lose sight of why you started, and getting up after failure and tough times will become a little easier.
• Burnout
  Doing things that align with a bigger WHY can wipe away any creeping feelings that your efforts are in vain. Sure, fatigue will set in from time to time, but you’re better able to recover and refocus with that neon WHY on the horizon.
• Problem-solving
  Stay mindful of the bigger picture by keeping WHY top of mind. You’ll approach problems differently with a bird’s eye view, rather than trying to hack your way through the undergrowth.

1.5 WHY Makes Things Bearable

Sometimes, your WHY just isn’t going to be that glamourous.

In episode 13 of the sixth season of The Simpsons, “And Maggie Makes Three”, Homer leaves his job at the powerplant in a blaze of glory (playing Mr. Burns’ head like the bongos and burning a small wooden bridge on his way out of the plant!) to pursue his dream job at a bowling alley.

Marge becomes pregnant with their third child (Maggie) and realizing his salary at the bowling alley won’t be enough to support the family, he decides to return to the plant to get his old job back.

The humiliation of returning to his old job begins when he’s is diverted away from a normal sized door signed ‘Applicants’ to crawl on his hands and knees through a tiny door marked ‘Supplicants.’ Once back at his old workstation, Mr. Burns informs him that he’s to be the recipient of a demotivational plaque to break what’s left of his spirit. It’s drilled to the wall right in front of him and reads, “Don’t forget, you’re here forever.”

Homer creatively places pictures of Maggie over the plaque, so that it reads, “Do it for her.”
In other words, she is his WHY, for which he endures the wretched reality of his job at the power plant.

Watch the highlights here…

2. How to Identify Your Personal WHY

Processing the full gamut of factors involved in finding your life’s calling has the potential to overwhelm.

To some it’s obvious, and for the rest who are searching, while there isn’t a magic formula for unearthing your life’s calling, there are some helpful pointers!

A full blog post on finding your why (purpose/belief/ goal/ cause/dream) is in the works but for now I’ll highlight some key considerations and include links to some literature on the topic.

2.1 Reflection and Self-Assessment

Reflect on your experiences to find positive meaning and potential signposts. Here, we’ll discuss several perspectives focused on both looking back and into the future.

Start With Your Element

Ask the right questions to direct self-reflection and assessment in a meaningful and productive way.

That’s why Ken Robinson’s element concept is a great starting point. What you’re looking for is the sweet spot – the overlap you find when answering:

• What are the things you do well?
• What things do you have a passion for?

When people are in their element, they feel more alive and are super productive. What they’re doing might not even feel like work because they love it so much and can’t imagine doing anything else; it’s who they are and brings fulfillment in a way that doesn’t exist for those who are yet to find their element.

As the author points out, it’s an inward journey to find out what lies within you and an outward journey to see what opportunities exist in the world.

To find your element you need to know yourself better. Some questions you might ask yourself are:

• What kind of tasks or activities do I find effortless but others struggle with?
• Have people pointed out a specific skill or ability I have?
• What kinds of tasks give me energy rather than drain me?
• When faced with a challenge, what kind of problem-solving approach comes naturally to me?
• Do I tend to think logically, creatively, visually, or intuitively?
• Am I good at working with numbers, words, people, or physical tasks?
• Do I prefer learning by doing, observing, reading, or experimenting?
• Do I thrive when working alone or in a team?
• What abilities have I gained from life experiences that weren’t taught in school?
• Offer tips for spotting misalignment (e.g., constant dread or boredom in tasks).

Care, Contribution, and Value

I particularly like the way Margie Warrell outlines four questions to help get you moving in the right direction. One and two refer to passion and ability (the element or sweet spot), with three and four taking it to the next level.

1. PASSION: What makes you come alive?
2. STRENGTHS: What are your innate gifts and strengths?
3. EXPERTISE: Where can you make the biggest difference?
4. VALUES: How will you measure success?

How Your Past Shapes You

From Ben Arment’s excellent book “Dream Year” is the idea that our past contains traces of your passion. Relevant experiences that point to your dream having a history.

By asking questions it’s possible to track back and see where if showed up at different points in your life, then give you confidence to pursue the big dream. This was certainly the case for me and once I’d interrogated my past a bit by asking a series of relevant questions, the future was more obvious than I had thought.

For me, I had a broad professional experience in digital marketing and website development/management. I had convinced myself that the digital marketing side was the way to go, but once I took time for reflection, it was obvious that blogging was my passion. The historical markers where all there in abundance and the way forward now completely clear.

“Dream Year: Make the Leap from a Job You Hate to a Life You Love” by Ben Arment is available on Amazon, or you can get a free preview of the first two chapters on Google Books.

More Tips for Finding Your Why

Methods aside, finding your WHY is a self-development process that should be undertaken with great care and diligence. There’s everything to gain from getting it right.

“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.”

– Stephen R. Covey

Some general pointers, from my own experience, on getting it right:

• Give yourself time
• Get outside perspectives
• Try new things/ventures and be open to new experiences
• Explore new paths and possibilities in yourself and the world around you
• Stop longing for the things that you decided not to do

2.2 Understanding the Golden Circle

Simon Sinek developed the Golden Circle – a model for understanding the purpose or belief that drives an organization.

The model is often applied to businesses, but it’s relevant to individuals too.

He makes the point that everyone knows WHAT they do personally and professionally, and a proportion of those people know HOW (their strengths and guiding principles) they do what they do.

But only a small number can express WHY they do things. The WHY is the reason we get out of bed, it’s the thing that drives a person beyond simply getting a paycheck – it’s what inspires us; it’s the difference we make to others, how we serve them; it’s why we exist.

The three levels to the Golden Circle are:

• WHAT – the tasks we perform professionally and personally.
• HOW – the unique way we do things.
• WHY – our purpose, the reason we do what we do.

Most people go outside in, starting with WHAT and figuring out the HOW and then the WHY. But those who are best at inspiring themselves and others start with WHY!

The inside-out is driven by the limbic brain (responsible for emotions, trust, and decision-making), which means a couple of things: i) people are drawn to those who act and communicate with purpose; ii) when we live by our WHY, we’re going to feel more fulfilled and driven because our actions are more likely to align with our core beliefs.

Start Inside, Go Outwards, Two Examples

• At an organizational level…
  Apple’s WHY would be: “Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently.” HOW: “The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly.” WHAT: “We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?” Watch the full TED Talk here.
• At an individual level…
  A landscape gardener’s WHY could be: “I believe in creating beautiful outdoor spaces that inspire and connect people with nature.” HOW: I blend creativity with sustainability, carefully selecting plants and designs that enhance each space.” WHAT: “I’m a landscape gardener. I design and build gardens that bring beauty and tranquility to homes and communities.”

Why This Matters

Use the Golden Circle as a self-discovery tool. Apply it to career, entrepreneurial ventures, relationships, or personal growth, because understanding your core WHY provides clarity and direction.

You’re more likely to see daily tasks as meaningful contributions to something bigger, and it can help to inspire others and draw people to you.

2.3 Visualize Your Future Self

Use visualization to create an image of your desired state of being, where you’re living your WHY. For example, that might mean achieving a certain goal, following a particular lifestyle, living committed to a cause, or carrying out professional work according to your (Golden Circle) WHY.

Envisioning the future in this way not only helps to provide clarity and direction, but also motivational fuel.

Some things to factor in:

• Where do you want to be in one, five, or 10 years?
• What qualities or abilities do you want to develop?
• How do you see your relationships, career, or personal growth evolving?
• Create a vision board, see visual triggers below…
• Use an app such as Calm, Headspace, or Insight Timer for guided meditation by an expert. This is my preference because it helps me to picture living in alignment with my WHY – how I’ll feel, interact with others, what success looks like, etc…

Read our article on quotes about visualization…

3. Remembering Your WHY on the Daily

There are many ways to ensure your core purpose is kept front and center when life gets busy, and your time and attention are pulled in all directions.

I’ll run through some strategies that I’ve found helpful, and some popular approaches advocated by others. I recommend trialing some methods and seeing what works for you.

3.1 Morning Rituals and Reminders

Daily Affirmation

Reinforce your why with daily affirmations. Affirmations keep your why front of mind but also help with focus, self-belief, motivation, and discipline.

We’re not talking about generic statements. This is a present-tense affirmation that is personal and relevant to your purpose, goals, and reason for existing.

1. Write a short and powerful affirmation that captures your why. Place it somewhere you’ll notice. This can be adapted from an affirmation you might in a book or online, just make sure it ends up personally relevant.
2. Say them out loud or quietly in your mind, whichever you prefer.
3. Visualize fulfilling your why as you speak the affirmation.
4. If you need to, set calendar reminders to ensure you repeat them daily.

Some examples:

Visual Triggers

There are a number of ways

• Vision Board
  Gather images, quotes, signs, symbols, and any graphic that represents your why. If it’s a physical board, put it in a place you’ll see daily. Use an app to create a digital board if you prefer but be sure to set reminders to check it regularly. Vision boards are great visual reminders that reinforce your purpose and keep those motivation levels up.
• Signs/posters
  Create signs or posters with phrases, keywords, quotes, pictures, and symbols that reflect your purpose. Not as comprehensive as a vision board, these are small visual cues that you associate in some way with your purpose.
• Technology
  Tech provides multiple options for visual reminders. My Instagram feed is focused only on things that relate to my business and a big trip that I’m planning for my family. Same for Pinterest. A super simple idea – use a relevant image to represent your why on your phone’s lock screen. Use an affirmations app to serve
• Abundance check
  Fill out a blank check and make it payable to yourself! Although checkbooks are rarely used these days, it’s still a popular way to prominently display the amount of money that you’d like to make in the future. Read more about abundance checks here.

3.2 Regular Check-Ins

Reviews

One thing I never miss is regular reviews. There’s no set format, how you do it is up to you.

For example, on a daily and weekly basis I will:

• Measure output against what I’d planned to complete (to understand why things did/didn’t get done and get better at estimating timelines.
• Check to see what tasks aligned with my WHY and which didn’t.
• Make adjustments for the coming day/week.

And for a monthly or quarterly:

• Revisit the big goals.
• Ask if those goals or tasks are still aligned with the evolving WHY. Are you still on the right path? For example, I’ll review my schedule of blog post topics to see if they still align with my evolving WHY and sometimes make changes.

3.3 Stay Accountable

An Accountability Partner

Select someone who can support you to stay committed to your why. This could be a family member, friend, acquaintance, professional contact. This is less formal than a coach or mentor. Trust is key, this is someone who you feel comfortable with and is pursuing an endeavour that they need help being accountable for too. Your projects don’t need to be related at all. Perhaps they’re trying to launch an online store and you’re learning a new language, for example.

Coaching and Mentoring

A productive mentoring/coaching relationship can offer a huge payoff. Here’s a list to illustrate the point:

• Steve Jobs > Mark Zuckerberg;
• Benjamin Graham > Warren Buffet;
• Warren Buffet > Bill Gates;
• Maya Angelou > Oprah Winfrey;
• Crates of Thebes > Zeno of Citium (founder of the Stoic school of philosophy);
• Sir Freddie Laker > Sir Richard Branson;
• Christian Dior > Yves Saint Laurent.

Note, Zeno of Citium was active around 300 BC, so this type of relationship has stood the test of time.

Finding a mentor or coach isn’t necessarily straightforward. Tap into your network including colleagues past and present, attend professional events, and explore professional associations that might help to connect members. Follow the three Cs of successful mentoring – clarity (your goals etc.), communication (open communication to build trust and exchange information), and commitment (consistent investment of energy and time)

Tech solutions

Find dedicated support using an online service. Some examples include:

• GoalsWon will provide you with a personal accountability coach based on your requirements.
• Focusmate provides a virtual coworking space so that you and a partner can support each other in the completion of tasks.
• Forfeit allows you to stake money on doing an activity. Declare the activity and when you’ll do it, and how much money you’ll lose if you don’t do it.

Online Communities

Finding a community of like-minded people has many potential benefits – a sense of belonging, access to information and ideas, and some degree of help to remember your WHY and hold yourself accountable.

Some popular platforms include Facebook Groups, Reddit, Discord, and Skool.
What can you gain form these groups?

• Sharing your experiences
• Seeking feedback on ideas or things you’ve done
• Learning from others’ journeys
• If you’re lucky, drawing on messages of encouragement
• Taking comfort from the fact that others are on the same journey, which in itself is proof that it’s a worthwhile path to take

In terms of holding yourself accountable, in my experience of online communities, it’s not like someone is going to hold your hand or mentor you to success. But they can be worthwhile in terms of staying connected and inspired.

3.4 Mindful Task Selection

There are some important considerations here that broadly fall into three buckets – planning, assessment, and distraction. Here are a few pointers:

• Schedule tasks (over whatever timeframe you choose, daily or weekly for example) that align with your why, first. Do those tasks when your energy levels are highest in the day.
• What deadlines need to be factored in? Are any negotiable?
• Consider the Eisenhower matrix and MoSCoW method when planning your schedule. Where do these tasks fit?
• What dependencies are there? Does one or a set of tasks need to be completed before more can begin?
• Take a step back, and look at your schedule and/or project plans. Review them on a daily and weekly basis. Ask how they’re feeding into your why, your purpose. Reschedule accordingly.

For all the strategizing and planning, our days end up the same, a series of tasks that we spend some time on and move to the next.

4. Overcoming Common Barriers

In pursuing your life’s purpose and major goals, you’re going to come up against barriers. For me, with my wife and I both working from home and having two children under eight at the time of writing, our most common barriers involve running a smooth house, staying on schedule, and making sure things get done before they accumulate and become major jobs.

4.1 Dealing with Distractions

• Identify those time-sucking activities that don’t help you towards your why. This stuff belongs in quadrant four of your Eisenhower Matrix – low importance and low urgency. Be honest, how many times have you read the news, checked emails, and scrolled through social media feeds today?
• Timebox those time wasters and perhaps push them to a time of the day when you typically have lower energy levels. You could even use the five minutes at the end of a Pomodoro to scroll a bit of social media. But just don’t get sucked in!
• Create Boundaries by turning off all phone notifications for apps that don’t support your why.
• Batch similar tasks, like checking email accounts, only at set times of the day.
• Leverage technology by using productivity apps such as:
  • Use the Pomodoro method, which is 25 minutes of focused work followed by a five-minute break. Pomofocus is a desktop app for Windows and Linux. Or try Pomodoro Timer for Android or Focus Timer for iOS.
  • Minimalist Phone (Android), Before Launcher (Android), Minimalist Launcher (iOS), and Dumbify (iOS) are examples of apps that will simplify your smartphone’s interface, helping users to be more mindful of their usage.
  • Restrict access to distracting websites and apps using a service such as the Freedom App.

4.2 Managing Self-Doubt

When chasing the things that matter, self-doubt is something most, if not all of us has experienced from time to time. We expect negative thoughts when things aren’t going so well, it’s not a surprise. I always found it perplexing when they crept in after I’d achieved something or was flying high, so to speak.

Here are a few ways to switch up those unwanted doubts when they come…

Celebrate small wins

Reward yourself with a mini celebration every time you complete a task or project that aligns with your why. Share it with the people that matter – family, friends, community, coach, or accountability partner. Read our article on small wins quotes…

Reframe negative thoughts

Flip your internal script to gain a different perspective. For example, when I catch myself thinking, “This isn’t good enough and it’s taking too long, I’ll never get it right,” I try to reframe it as something like: “I’m learning, and progress is more important than perfecting it right now. Keep going, you’ll get there.”

Seek feedback

Pursue an outside perspective from a source that can remind you of your strengths and offer constructive advice on how to move forward. A coach or professional community contacts are ideal for this.

Lifestyle basics

Another important aspect is to get the basics right. It’s a general point but one worth mentioning.

For example, at times I’ve worked into the night on things that are at the core of my WHY, but it’s only resulted in a lack of sleep and ultimately affected my mood. My low mood then translated into self-doubt. It sounds simple but for someone who can be quite productive at night, I have to keep myself in check.

Regular exercise also helps me to focus when I need to be productive. Spending time with my family also gives me a sense of great fulfillment, which in turn, makes me feel good and I can be more productive at the right times.

Find the lifestyle that works for you. It can involve a bit of trial and error to get into the right routine, but it’s worth it.

4.3 Avoiding Overcommitment

Set Realistic Goals

Diluting your focus on what matters leads to poor results, disappointment, and a range of other negative outcomes. As I write this, I’m grappling with this issue!

Writing and producing this blog is a passion, but I’ve had another blog on the back burner for a while in an area I have a lot of professional knowledge and experience; I can’t do both equally given my commitments, and particularly a young family.

Be ruthless when selecting which goals to pursue. If there are competing goals that align with your why, ask which has the biggest payoff and benefits.

It’s essential to have some idea of how goals translate into a series of tasks and how long they might take over a given period. I’ve known many people who have a lot of trouble with estimating/guesstimating the time required to complete tasks or projects, even when they’re vastly experienced. But it’s a necessary step to avoid overcommitting.

For example, you might be working a full-time job and have a family, but have two great side hustle ideas. In your mind, both are equally good. Drill down a bit, ask the important questions about payoff and time. Decide how many big things you can handle each quarter (or other period of time) without sacrificing quality.

Learn how to say ‘no.’

This is a common problem, and I’ve witnessed firsthand the problems that chronic people-pleasers can create for themselves (and others) and how it can make staying on course with your WHY almost impossible.

This doesn’t mean being rude or outright refusing to do things that, for example, an important client is asking of you. It means dialing down your level of agreeableness, not giving a knee-jerk ‘yes’ to everything – I once heard this referred to as impulsive compliance.

When a request is received, be positive but build in a buffer – some time to consider a realistic timeframe for delivery. If it’s an urgent non-negotiable, which does happen, then yes it must be scheduled as a priority. But if these demands spill over into all areas of your life, forcing you to work into the night for example, then it’s time to manage your clients.

MoSCoW is a great method for getting clients and business stakeholders to really think about what they’re asking for. Oftentimes, they’ll realize that not everything is ’must-have’ and you’re able to get the crux of what needs to be done urgently, then schedule the rest sensibly.

Delegate or Automate

A talented graphic designer friend would itemize everything and provide their clients with detailed time sheets. They were strongly of the view that every single thing needed to be declared because it created transparency which their clients appreciated. No problem there; I’ve seen billing itemized to lesser or greater degrees for various services.

Thinking of going into consulting myself, I quizzed them on how they tracked work done. The response – pen and paper, then manually entered into InDesign (Adobe’s layout and desktop publishing software) line-by-line, adding up totals using a calculator. The itemization was long, and this wasn’t the right software to use. Even Excel would have been an improvement.

This is a prime example of a form of overcommitment, a bit of perfectionism, and an unwillingness to put in some time to learn a more efficient way.

There is software that can help with this task, freeing up time for things that either directly contribute to your WHY, or can be used for other important but not-urgent stuff.

Remember your WHY, think hard about the things you’re doing, and stop wasting time on administrative tasks when there are better solutions available.

In summary:

• Use solutions such as scheduling software, tracking tools, and all manner of AI tools (for example, it’s possible for AI to scan your inbox, formulate responses, and leave emails in draft to be human-edited and sent).
• Hand off tasks to a VA, freelancer, or other service provider that don’t require your unique skills. Cost permitting, of course.