Wait—Why Am I Doing This Again?
Audit Your Habits
Pauses are essential to living an enlightened life. When you stop and step back, you can finally see what’s truly happening (or not) in your life.
One of the biggest gaps in our day-to-day is understanding the why behind what we do. And why have we been doing what we do for so long? Is it working or hurting us?
1) Work
Earl Nightingale noted that many people don’t know why they get up and go to work every day. If your answer is “to earn money” or “to provide for your family,” ask yourself: Why those? How much is enough? What would “enough” look like? When would you stop—or what would change? What meaning does work add to your life?
2) Media
Why do we sit in front of a screen or check our phones every few minutes? What do we actually get from it beyond a quick dopamine hit?
3) Communication
A friend told me that radio silence is rare these days. We don’t take breaks from communicating; we’re always accessible—to other people.
Ever realize you’re texting someone every day and then wonder how you got there? It feels “normal,” so you keep doing it.
Try a 24–48-hour break from communicating with everyone. Notice who you naturally reconnect with—and who you don’t. What does sustainable communication look like for you? Some people want daily access to you, but do you want to give it? Does talking to them every day water your soul, or does it take from you?
4) Goals
Recently I hit a wall with my goals. I couldn’t keep up. Then I realized I had them prioritized all wrong. I was elevating surface goals over transformational ones—the kind that compound and add value now and in the future.
Once I reordered them, defined the deeper meaning behind each, and got honest about what matters most, the pressure lifted.
5) Health
Health is one of those areas where habits often go unchecked because they feel automatic. We eat what’s convenient, we push our bodies without rest, or we avoid movement altogether. But why?
Do you eat to nourish, or to distract? Do you exercise because it fuels you, or because you feel guilty if you don’t? Sometimes people grind through workouts or starve themselves chasing a number, forgetting the deeper purpose—vitality, energy, longevity, peace.
It’s very easy to override what we’re feeling. After stripping away a lot of noise, I started noticing almost everything in my body (pressure, pain, strain, stress, feeling, etc.), which was a wake-up call that things needed to shift. That awareness showed me how much I had been running on autopilot, ignoring signals that were always there.
Even rest is worth questioning. Do you sleep enough, or do you sacrifice it in the name of “productivity”? Do you know what restores you, or are you running on autopilot? Pausing to ask why you treat your body the way you do can reveal whether your daily choices are life-giving or slowly draining you.
Health isn’t about chasing perfection. It’s about aligning your actions with a deeper reason: to feel alive, present, and capable of living the life you say you want.
6) Commitments
People-pleasing and overcommitting often go hand in hand. Once you’re ready to take your time back and focus on happiness and well-being, you start saying no more often—even to simple things: work meetings, casual catch-ups, conversations, dates, hangouts, “opportunities,” or even unnecessary generosity.
People’’s feelings may get hurt. But what about your feelings?
Ever recognize times when you say “yes” before you even think about it? It’s a trap. Try pausing before you respond. Stop saying “yes” automatically and observe how you feel. Keep practicing this, and you may notice your life shifting. You’ll gain time, clarity, and freedom that overcommitment once stole from you.
Sometimes we sign ourselves up for things that make no damn sense.
Pause. Think it through. Question everything.