What proof did you create today?

Aspirations are dangerous if they become intrinsically satisfying.

In other words, it’s possible — perhaps without fully realizing it — to be satisfied with wanting something without taking any of the material action required to obtain it.

To that end, it’s important to align the right daily metrics to avoid this trap.

It’s easy enough to do a gut-check and ask yourself if something still feels important to you — but there’s no skin in the game here.

The real accountability is in pointing to the specific things you invested your time and energy into — the project you advanced, the person you messaged, the problem you delegated, the solution you set in motion.

If you are able to point to proof, great.

If you can’t point to proof, that’s great too, because it represents an honest, undeniable appraisal of where you’re at in your journey and just how seriously you’re taking your purported goals.

Lastly, it’s also a nice and simple framework for thinking about where you put your time: an activity can be proof-generating or not. Making choices on the basis of this mental model can be very effective.

Bottom line: don’t point to what you think or how you feel as evidence of progress. Point to what you did. Ask yourself every day: “what proof have I created?” And if you can’t point to anything, you can either a) accept that what you thought was a goal is actually a dream or b) produce the required effort.