He writes that the question we all need to ask ourselves is, not how we can do it all, but who gets to choose what we will and will not do. McKeown points out it takes courage to eliminate opportunities and obligations, because it's not just a mental discipline, it is an emotional discipline to reject social pressure. The more things in your life that you leave in the gray area, the less focus you will give to your most meaningful priorities. Life is never as simple as things that "make the highest possible contribution toward my goal" and things that "don't make the highest possible contribution toward my goal," there is a lot of gray area, and we often want to please our colleagues, family and friends by saying, "yes" to them. The question essentialists ask themselves when weighing opportunities and obligations is,"Will this activity or effort make the highest possible contribution toward my goal?" Non-essentialists will sign-up for more efforts without carefully considering if if will advance their goal, they often sign-up simply because someone asks them. Part of their logic is because they will completely commit to only one or two efforts, they will deliberately consider a broad set of options so they are certain they make the right decisions. According to McKeown, a core difference between "essentialists" and "non-essentialists" is essentialists actually consider and evaluate more options than their non-essentialist counterparts.
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