What Is Your Goal?

I’ve always been pretty business-oriented. I love the process of creating something from scratch—building, testing, refining. That’s part of the reason I built this site and wrote She Doesn’t Hate You, You Just Don’t Matter: The New Father’s Guide to Surviving the First Six Months After Childbirth. There’s something satisfying about turning an idea into a product, putting it into the world, and seeing if people connect with it.

In my career, I spent years helping real estate agents build their businesses—especially brand new ones. Bright-eyed, full of energy, straight out of HGTV binge sessions, thinking their first million was just a few open houses away.

It usually wasn’t.

One of the first things I’d ask these new agents was simple:
“What’s your goal?”
What are you working toward? Why are you doing this?

Because if you don’t know that, everything else becomes harder. And everything shiny becomes a distraction.

I’d teach them to use their goal like a North Star. If your goal is to retire by 30 (lol), take three vacations a year, or make every client feel like family, then you can measure every opportunity, every challenge, every fork in the road against that goal. If it doesn’t align—pass. If it does—go for it.

That same principle came back to me hard when I found out we were pregnant.

I was overwhelmed. Not just with the obvious fears—keeping a child alive is no small task—but with the deeper stuff too. What kind of father did I want to be? What kind of man did I want to raise? How tough should I be? What should I teach him about masculinity, especially as a mixed-race kid growing up in Canada? How do we discipline him? How do I help him embrace his Filipino heritage when I’m still figuring it out myself?

The questions felt endless. And just when I thought I might drown in them, I stopped, stepped back, and did what I’d done a hundred times before in business.

I asked myself:
“What’s your goal?”

That question grounded me. And after sitting with it for a while, I found my answer:

My goal is to raise a son who can survive and thrive in this world, even without me.

That’s it. That’s my North Star.

My mom passed away when I was sixteen, and it left a hole I didn’t know how to fill. I wasn’t prepared for life without her—not emotionally, not practically, not spiritually. That’s not a knock on her—none of us know how much time we’ll get—but it shaped me deeply.

I don’t want my son to feel that lost if something ever happens to me. I want him to be equipped—with life skills, with character, with love. Not just to function in the world, but to thrive in it.

And I want him to know, without question, that he is loved. Fully, completely, unconditionally.

Once I landed on that goal, a lot of the other questions became easier to navigate. Not easy, but easier.

Do I want to play Call of Duty with him one day? Sure. But is he emotionally mature enough right now to play a game like that? No. And does letting him play it now serve the goal I set above?
Nope.

So the answer is no. Keep it moving.

Having a goal helps keep me focused. It keeps me from getting pulled in a thousand different directions by the latest parenting trend, my own emotions, or what other dads are doing.

Look, none of us are perfect at this. We’re all just trying to figure it out as we go. But having a clear goal—one that’s rooted in values, not ego—has helped me become a more intentional father. And that’s something I can stand behind.

This approach might not work for you. But it might be worth asking yourself the question anyway:

What’s your goal?

Because when the chaos hits—and it will—it’s good to have something solid to come back to.