Ask AltoTRY · 10 MIN
Define Enough
TAIU
Enough is the number that would let you stop chasing more. Write it down, with the life it buys, so it stops moving.
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Tool 91 · Develop yourself
What do I currently count as evidence that I am doing well? What do I believe it proves?
A guided 14 to 18 minutes conversation, here in TAIU. The measure is worth naming before it is trusted.
GUIDES
You have named it. Now spend some time on it.
Each Guide gives you a clear way to look at one subject in your own time. Choose where to begin. You do not need to work through everything.
The evidence you use
What you count as evidence
Notice what you currently treat as proof that you are doing well.
Where this often ends up: The evidence you actually use, written down.
It may also end with a clearer view of something, or with nothing that needs doing.
Around twenty minutes
In your words
Your working definition
Write what success means to you, in language you would use out loud.
Where this often ends up: A definition of success in your own words.
It may also end with a clearer view of something, or with nothing that needs doing.
Around thirty minutes
Does it hold
Whether it still fits
Test that definition against the life you are living, then change it or keep it.
It may also end with a clearer view of something, or with nothing that needs doing.
Around twenty minutes
This Guide is free, like everything else in The Clearing.
You can see what it covers before you begin.
Start this GuideName the list, not the word.
Ask what each item is meant to prove.
Where did this measure come from?
What you'll look at
- 01The evidence
- 02The source
- 03The proof
- 04The fit
A note from Mark
People say the word success as though it names one thing. It doesn't. It names a list. Most people have never written the list down.
I ask what somebody would point to right now as proof they're doing well. Then I ask what each item is actually meant to prove. Money proving security is a different claim from money proving you were right to leave.
A lot of these measures came from somewhere specific: a parent, a school, an industry that has since moved on. Naming the source isn't an accusation. It's just tracing the thing back.
Read my full view ↓
Sometimes the list still holds and saying so is the whole result. Sometimes it doesn't, and the person already knew before I asked.
What you'll get
This will not sort you into a personality type.It will give you answers about your own life that you can test.
01
The evidence
02
The source
03
The proof
04
The fit
+
Your TAIU handover: a summary of what the conversation found, written so you can take it with you.
See everything included ↓
- 01What you count as evidence
- 02Where the measure came from
- 03What it is supposed to prove
- 04Whether the evidence still fits the life you have
- 05The rival measure
- 06What deserves protecting
- 07Where this goes next
When you finish
Bring it back to your tree.
Your tree is where TAIU keeps a picture of your whole life, in parts like work, money and health.
This session works on the whole of you, not one part of your life. Nothing is scored. At the end, you are asked once which part of your life this touched most. You can answer none.
The conversation writes this summary for you. Keep the sheet, print it or paste it into My Tree. Nothing from the conversation is stored by TAIU.
- Session
- Date
- The part of life this belongs to
- What we found
- The alternative we tested
- What deserves protecting
- What should change, if anything
- Next actions
- What to notice or find out
- What remains unresolved
What now?
01 · Save it
The evidence you currently use.
02 · Test it
Write down the actual list of what you currently count as proof.
See more ↓
What I would do
- 01
Write the actual list, not the word.
- 02
Ask what each item is meant to prove, not just whether you have it.
- 03
Trace at least one item back to where the measure came from.
- 04
Say plainly whether the measure still fits.
- 05
Leave the list alone if it still holds.
Test it
- 01
What would you point to right now as proof you are doing well?
- 02
What is each thing meant to prove?
- 03
Does the measure still fit the life you have?
The alternative
The usual reading is that somebody chasing the wrong measure needs a new one. Often the evidence shows a measure that was never examined rather than one that is wrong, and once it is stated plainly the person recognises it as their own and keeps it. The reverse also happens. Somebody has already outgrown a measure they are still reporting to, and the exercise mostly gives them permission to say so.
Think about this
- What you would point to right now as proof you are doing well.
- What each thing on that list is actually meant to prove.
- Where that measure came from, and when.
- Whether anything on the list has stopped proving what it used to.
- Whether anything true of your life isn't on the list at all.
Take this to Ask Mark
You have done the exercise. Now look again at what it found.
This looks at what you found and helps you understand it. It is not another exercise to repeat.
Take this to Ask Mark →Want to go further?
Recommended by the TAIU community
What helped you?
If you've read, watched, listened to or tried something that helped you think about this differently, we'd like to hear about it.
We review recommendations before sharing them with the community.
Finished the exercise?
What did this uncover?
Tell us whether it helped and what you discovered. It takes less than a minute.
Next tool
Am I happy?
If the measure holds and something still feels flat
Further thinking
The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel
Income and emotional well-being: a conflict resolved
Matthew Killingsworth, Daniel Kahneman and Barbara Mellers
A theory of social comparison processes
Leon Festinger
See the thinking ↓
Book
The Psychology of Money
Morgan Housel
Housel's argument is that financial behaviour is mostly not a maths problem. People handle money according to what they lived through, what they saw at home and what they are frightened of. Read it for the chapters on enough and on wealth being the money you do not spend, which are the two ideas this exercise keeps running into.
Article
Income and emotional well-being: a conflict resolved
Matthew Killingsworth, Daniel Kahneman and Barbara Mellers
Two researchers who had published opposite findings sat down together to work out who was right. The answer was both, in different populations: for most people happiness continues to rise with income, while for an unhappy minority it flattens once real hardship is behind them. It is the most honest available answer to the question of whether more money would help, and it refuses to give you a slogan in either direction.
Article
A theory of social comparison processes
Leon Festinger
The original paper, and still the clearest. Festinger's claim is that in the absence of an objective measure we evaluate ourselves against whoever is nearby, and we choose people close enough to us for the comparison to sting. It explains a great deal about why private ambition and public ambition often turn out to be different things, without reducing everything you want to envy.
Book
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
Erving Goffman
Goffman watched ordinary social life the way somebody watches a play, and found that all of us run a front stage and a back stage. The front is not a lie. It is the working version of ourselves that a situation requires. Reading him takes most of the moral charge out of the question, and leaves a far better one behind: which of your performances is worth the effort it costs.
Book
Essentialism
Greg McKeown
Useful when too many commitments are competing for limited attention.