I fell in love with this question a couple of years ago.

Whenever someone tells me “I want to start a business.”

I ask: “what are you optimizing for?”

If you’re optimizing for making $10k a month in passive income without having to work much, you’d need an entirely different plan than someone who’s optimizing for making $10m in 5 years regardless of how much effort it takes.

The thing is, nobody asks themselves that question when they’re starting out.

Whenever we take action, there’s an inherent goal tied to it. We just don’t always think about the goal itself.

Sometimes the answer is not so pretty.

“I want to buy a nice car”

“What are you optimizing for?”

“Signaling higher social status to my community”

Nobody wants to admit that! But it’s often very true.

Whenever I find myself about to take an action or make a decision today, I ask myself this question. It did wonders for me.

Also, it’s a common mistake to be optimizing for 10 things at the same time. Everyone wants to be super healthy, wealthy, happy, and have a killer social life, travel the world, but also settle down and have a nice home, etc…

It’s impossible to succeed at optimizing for 10 things at the same time. Pick the goal you care the most about now, and expect to not make as much progress on the other 9. Once you achieve 1, optimize for the next most important one.

What are you optimizing for in the next 5 years? (what life do you want to live?)

What are you optimizing for this year? (Health goal? Financial goal? Fun goal?)

What are you optimizing for today? (What tasks do you want to achieve?)

Try to ask yourself this question every day, see what it does for you.