At any given time, there’s probably a few areas of your life you’d like to change or improve. Given that it’s arguably best to go after one goal at a time, how then do you choose where to focus your efforts and attention?

Pick the point of greatest leverage.

A leverage point is a place that allows you to lift a much heavier load of personal change than you otherwise could. It’s a spot at which a single move doesn’t just create a localized effect, but sets off multiple positive dominos that ripple throughout the entire system of your life.

If you lose weight, you’ll get healthier and look better, which will boost your confidence, which will increase your chances of finding a long-term relationship, which will make you a lot happier in general.

If you start working out, your mood will be elevated, maybe even to the point you can get off that antidepressant that’s killing your sex drive, which will improve your relationship with your wife, which will make you a lot happier in general.

If you stop hitting the snooze button, you’ll have time to meditate in the morning, which will make you less stressed, which will make you more focused at work and less irritable with your children, which will make you a lot happier in general.

Heck, maybe the change you need to make is simply to hire a housekeeper – which will help you clear your mind and fight less with your wife. Which will make you a lot happier in general.

How do you locate a key leverage point in your life?

This question from real estate mogul Gary Keller offers a clarifying prompt: “What’s the one thing I can do, such that by doing it everything else is easier or unnecessary?”

That’s the place to go to work.