When you’re aiming to create change—whether you’re building a business, launching a book, or growing an audience—a powerful strategy is to identify the constraints and eliminate them radically.
Try approaching your challenges by asking, “What is limiting right now?” This simple question shifts your focus to the present and forces you to confront the immediate obstacles standing in your way. It brings three key insights into sharp relief:
- Focus on the present, not the future. Zero in on what matters right now.
- Identify the bottlenecks. Recognize the specific obstacles that are holding you back.
- Clarify your priorities. When you pinpoint what’s limiting you, you can channel your efforts where they’ll have the most impact.
This is the very question that has everyone in Silicon Valley buzzing. Once you understand your primary growth constraint (and it’s rarely about money), you can start working on what truly moves the needle. The 10x thinkers are particularly adept at this—they know that the key to exponential progress is eliminating the most critical barriers.
It’s a mental model that’s both brutally honest and remarkably effective. By consistently challenging yourself to remove constraints and revisiting this question every few weeks, you naturally steer your efforts in the direction you want to go.