And when you ask yourself great questions, you discover important, even life-changing insights about yourself.
Questions focus our attention and make us think. If you never ask yourself questions, you limit the progress that you make in your life. Questions are like keys that open doors to your dreams, hopes, values you have. But to get valuable, good (i.e., helpful) answers, you must ask good questions!
The questions you ask yourself, or fail to ask yourself, can alter the course of your life!
1. What are the most important things I need to accomplish tomorrow? When you make the most of each day, you can make the most of your life. Avoid starting a new day without a plan of action. Give your day some thought the night before!
2. Which activities and people are a waste of my time? We have activities that do little more than serve as distractions. We also have people that are just distractions, or worse. What activities and people are costing you more than they’re wort? Surround yourself with people that support you.
3. What are my long-term plans? What is the overall objective of your life? If you don’t know that, you’ll struggle to plan your time appropriately. You’ll make wiser decisions if you know what you’re trying to accomplish over the next decade or more. Write down your goals and where you want to be in 10 years.
4. What did I do poorly today and how can I do better tomorrow? Evaluate your errors and poor decisions and learn from them. Making a mistake once is just part of life. Making a mistake more than once because you didn’t learn from it is, well, to put it kindly, not preferred.
5. What did I do well today? It’s just as important to identify what you did well, so you can do it again! Identifying and feeling good about your victories also build your confidence, self-esteem, and an optimistic view of your future.
6. How do others view me? This is a difficult question to answer accurately.. Most of us are clueless about how we appear to others. We have our own vision of ourselves in our mind, but it’s often far from a complete picture. If you can view yourself as others see you, you may discover a few simple tweaks to make that can change your results dramatically.
7. What are my values, and am I living them? Most people only have a fuzzy idea of their values. When you know what your values are, it’s easier to make decisions that align with them and that sustain and build your self-esteem.
8. What are my greatest flaws and what can I do to correct them? Everyone has a critical flaw that’s holding them back. Few of us are aware of our most significant flaws. Spend some time thinking about this and ask some honest friends for their advice.
9. What can I do to strengthen my most important relationships? Think about how you can lift your relationships up to the next level. List some specific actions you can take to nurture those relationships, express appreciation and add value to those persons.
10. Who and what am I grateful for? This is a great question to ask each day, but especially when you’re feeling frustrated or down. Expressing gratitude for the good things in your life will lift your spirits, give you a more optimistic view of life, and foster the likelihood for more good things to come.
You may find some of these 10 questions to be challenging, even painful. But print them out. Take the challenge to regularly ask and answer these questions. The answers can yield insights that open doors of opportunity for your continued, positive growth as a leader and solopreneur.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
