aristotle

To trace any pursuit back to the final end it serves, asking "Would I still want this if it led to nothing else?" and redirecting toward that.

Once a month, choose one goal you are actively pursuing and ask: "What is this for?" Write the answer. Then ask of that answer: "And what is that for?" Keep going until you reach something you want purely for its own sake, not because it leads to anything else. If your daily effort points at a link in the chain rather than the end of it, adjust your time so more of it touches the thing that actually matters.

Aristotle opened the Nicomachean Ethics with a logical observation that explains nearly every misplaced priority: everything we pursue is desired either for its own sake or for the sake of something else. If we only ever chase things for the sake of other things, the chain extends to infinity and our striving becomes, in his words, "empty and vain." Therefore there must be some final good, something wanted not because of where it leads but because of what it is. Aristotle did not condemn pursuing instrumental goods: money, credentials, status. The mistake is forgetting what they are for. When the instrument becomes the destination, a person spends a life in efficient motion toward nothing.

She had spent two years chasing a promotion until she aristotled and realized the thing she actually wanted, more time doing creative work, was available right now without the title.