Good questions prime your brain to look at the world in a different way. By simply holding a question in your mind and pondering potential answers, you can find unexpected paths to get from where you are now to where you want to be.
This afternoon, I re-discovered a list of questions I put together a few years ago. The intent of the list was to help me figure out what I wanted to improve about my life, both as a person and as a professional. This list helped me figure out who I was and what I wanted during a particularly difficult time in my career, and I sincerely hope they help you as much as they’ve helped me.
Here are 49 questions you can use to improve your results…
Do I use my body optimally?
- What is the quality of my current diet?
- Do I get enough sleep?
- Am I managing my energy well each day?
- How do I manage daily stress?
- Do I have good posture and poise?
- What can I do to improve my ability to observe the world around me?
Do I know what I want?
- What achievements would make me really excited?
- What “states of being” do I want to experience each day?
- Are my priorities and values clearly defined?
- Am I capable of making decisions quickly and confidently?
- Do I consistently focus my attention on what I want vs. what I don’t want?
What am I afraid of?
- Have I created an honest and complete list of the fears I’m holding on to?
- Have I confronted each fear to imagine how I would handle it if it came to pass?
- Am I capable of recognizing and correcting self-limitation?
- Am I appropriately pushing my own limits?
Is my mind clear and focused?
- Do I systematically externalize (write or record) what I think about?
- Am I making it easy to capture my thoughts quickly, as I have them?
- What has my attention right now?
- Am I regularly asking myself appropriate guiding questions?
- Do I spend most of my time focusing on a single task, or constantly flipping between multiple tasks?
- Do I spend enough time actively reflecting on my goals, projects, and progress?
Am I confident, relaxed, and productive?
- Have I found a planning method that works for me?
- Am I “just organized enough”?
- Do I have an up-to-date list of my projects and active tasks?
- Do I review all of my commitments on a regular basis?
- Do I take regular, genuine breaks from my work?
- Am I consciously creating positive habits?
- Am I working to shed non-productive habits?
- Am I comfortable with telling other people “no”?
How do I perform best?
- What do I particularly enjoy?
- What am I particularly good at doing?
- What environment do I find most conducive to doing good work?
- How do I tend to learn most effectively?
- How do I prefer to work with and communicate with others?
- What is currently holding me back?
What do I really need to be happy and fulfilled?
- How am I currently defining “success”?
- Is there another way of defining “success” that I may find more fulfilling?
- How often do I compare myself to my perceptions of other people?
- Am I currently living below my means?
- If I could only own 100 things, what would they be?
- Am I capable of separating necessity and luxury?
- What do I feel grateful for in my life and work?
Pick up a journal, set aside a few hours, and spend time with yourself answering these questions. Make it fun: treat yourself to a nice lunch or dinner at a restaurant you like, and write as you eat. By the time the check arrives, you’ll have more than a few new ideas about how to change your life or business for the better.
Have a question you find useful to contemplate? Please share it in the comments!
(Photo credit: duchessa at sxc.hu)
{ 4 trackbacks }
{ 18 comments }
Good post John,
it’s getting late in Tokyo, I have neglegted my diet and haven’t got enough sleep lately, so I’d better print your list tomorrow and continue from question 4.
Hi Josh,
It would be great if you could make these posts
printer friendly.
- S Deshmukh
Love this article, thanks Josh
Josh!
You’ve basically created a coaching package here! I’ve worked with a few life coaches and business coaches. They basically ask you questions and get you thinking about your answers. They don’t tell you what to do or how to do it. They simply ask you questions to facilitate your own progress. So, I’d say the value of this list you’ve put together is a few hundred if not thousand dollars saved in coaching fees! One could coach themselves simply by spending some time on a few questions each day.
Once again, thanks for the amazing contribution! I’ll have to link to it for my blog readers!
Zoe – thanks! I do a good bit of coaching and consulting, and I use these questions a lot, along with many others. In my experience, the best coaches (1) have a ton of practical subject-matter expertise, and (2) ask very good questions. I do my best to provide both. (If anyone’s interested in checking out coaching, click here.)
Can you please consider providing a ‘print’ option for your articles? I would like to store these articles and have them as references.
BTW, good questions. Instead of just a good read and forgetting, I would like to take a print and find the answers.
Joseph
Awesome article.
These questions are absolutely fantastic.
Wow! Initially, this is a painful list of questions for me. I realized that I answer no to far too many questions where the answer should be yes. I think the one I probably need to work on more than any other is this: am I consciously creating positive habits? I don’t want to say I’m completely contrary but I have a large set of non-productive habits I need to be rid of.
Thank you for another great article.
Thank you. You don’t know how you are doing if you don’t have anything to measure against. The questions are to the point and well done. Again thank you.
@Joseph: I have started a google doc with these questions for myself.
The last question: What do I feel grateful for in my life and work? Is the first thing I ask myself when I wake up in the morning and before I go to sleep. Though I shortened it to: For what am I grateful?
i was attracted to this article because i have personally experienced how pondering questions change your thoughts. i was originally introduced to this when i learned to meditate and the questions who am i, what do i want, and what is my purpose became a magic wand. after practice, the period of time between thought and fulfillment of desire shortens to the point in which you feel as if you are showered with gifts and your list of what you are grateful for grows. its a beautiful tool for growth. interestingly if you infuse passion to these thoughts-in other words, if you are genuine in your practice-you get everything you want. great post. i love this site.
Zoe is right, this list does save money & Questions help us think better. Thanks.
This question: What is currently holding me back? is important to answer often. If you really want to improve then challenging your assumptions about your limitations really makes you rethink what is possible. Really great post.
This is a great post. Thank you!
Another great post josh. This really is one of my favourite sites. Thanks.
This is great Josh. You really gave me courage to pursue my dreams. I have the extra capacity and would like utilise it fully. Lastly i would like to distribute your publication in the retail outlet which I am opening soon.
thank you for sharing those very helpful questions.. i’m updating my Twitter with it and have followed you, too.
i do have some questions that i wrote several months back, and i would like to share them as well:
http://core-relate.blogspot.com/2009/07/purposefully-yours.html
more of God’s blessings to you as you bless others!
What stupid questions!
Just kidding
Very nice. My first time sitting down and serious working thru a list of life questions was with your personal master plan in 2008. It seems to me that this list is even more specific.
It also reminds me of First Things First by Stephen Covey.
That book has some amazing advice including a whole section on working out a personal mission statement for one’s life.
At the end of 2008 I went through the list of questions for forming a personal mission statement and I have to say that it was absolutely life changing (or perhaps “life-focusing” is more accurate).
About your section “Is my mind clear and focused?”
That is so important. Just like Getting Things Done encouraged we have to capture our thoughts and put them out of our minds so that we can focus.
When you look at the great inventors, statesmen, and world-changers throughout the centuries one thing that comes up again and again is the fact that they kept journals and notes.
Leonardo DiVinci had 13,000 pages of notes and drawings!
How do you keep your journals?
I have a journal writing system that I use to capture all of my thoughts in one place. It lets me attach them to to dos and reference them in my calendar too.
A self challenging, a direction, a guide – a reference i had used to improve myself and become a better individual – pertaining to my life and my career.
Many thanks to you and inspire more!
Comments on this entry are closed.