By definition, applying highly selective criteria is a trade-off; sometimes you will have to turn down a seemingly very good option and have faith that the perfect option will soon come along. Sometimes it will, and sometimes it won’t, but the point is that the very act of applying selective criteria forces you to choose which perfect option to wait for, rather than letting other people, or the universe, choose for you. Like any Essentialist skill, it forces you to make decisions by design, rather than default.
Nonessentialist
- Says yes to almost every request or opportunity
- Uses broad, implicit criteria like “If someone I know is doing it, I should do it.”
Essentialist
- Says yes to only the top 10 percent of opportunities
- Uses narrow, explicit criteria like “Is this exactly what I am looking for?”
Making our criteria both selective and explicit affords us a systematic tool for discerning what is essential and filtering out the things that are not.
* Source: Essentialism by Greg McKeown