5 Questions That Could Change Your Life

One of the most profound shifts that I have experienced in my life occurred when I realized, probably in my late 20s, maybe very early thirty s, that the quality of my results, the quality of what I was getting out of.

My life, was largely dependent on the quality of the questions that I was asking myself at any given moment. And this has only been reinforced as time has gone on. And I’ve had more scenarios, more situations in my life where I’ve seen that the value of having the answer is directly proportional to the quality of the question asked. So, simply put, if you want better answers, you have to ask better questions. And when I realized that the quality of our questions makes such a massive impact on the quality of our lives and the results that we’re achieving, I started going on this search for better questions. And I have a journal that I keep with some of my favorite questions that I like to cycle through from time to time. Questions that have helped me clarify what it is that I want out of life. Questions that have helped me clarify where I’m trying to go and what I’m willing to give up to get there and why I see the world the way that I do.

And so I wanted to share with you guys today five of the questions that have had the most profound effect on my life. And I hope that they bring you some value and that maybe you take a little bit of time today to think through these questions and answer them for yourself. So the first question is, and I have talked about this one so many times on this podcast, that it’s not going to come as a surprise, but it is the most impactful question that I’ve ever asked myself. It is, what’s my outcome? What’s my outcome? I don’t know why, but when I was younger and really in the throes of ADHD and really struggling to focus my chaotic mind in a productive direction, one of the things that I struggled the most with was understanding the consequences of my actions. And I’ve talked about this in relation to my tooth, which, depending on when you’re tuning into this, you may or may not know, but I am missing a tooth in my mouth, and that tooth is missing because I could not accept or could not understand the consequences of not brushing my teeth or flossing my teeth all throughout my teenage years and my twenty s. And as a result, when I was 27 years old, I had a dead tooth and I needed to have it removed. And it sounds stupid to say it out loud, but for whatever reason, I have just always had a very hard time understanding the consequences of my short term decisions in the long term. Like, what are the long term ramifications if I do what I do right now? And maybe I’m not alone in that, but I think I particularly have a weakness here.

Now, the question that really helped me start turning and being aware of that weakness of mine and then start counteracting it, was the question, what’s my outcome? Now, you might know this, but I programmed this alarm to go off on my phone multiple times throughout the day at random. And with that alarm, it was accompanied with the question, what’s my outcome? The idea of this question is that it stops you and gives you a moment to reflect on what it is you’re doing in that moment and whether or not if you continue doing that thing, it’s going to move you towards your goals or away from your goals. Quite often, that alarm, when it would go off, I was always seeming to be caught in the midst of some activity that was not actually moving me forward. I maybe was scrolling Facebook or I got caught into a video game death spiral and the alarm would go off, what’s my outcome? And all of a sudden, I’d have this pattern interrupt and ask myself, oh.
If I keep doing what I’m doing.

Right now, what’s going to happen? And just forcing myself to think through that has had such a profound effect. Now, you can ask this question in a macro sense. It doesn’t have to be on a minute by minute basis just right now, what are you doing with your life? And if you continue doing what you’re doing, will you get to the place that you hope to get to? If the answer is yes, awesome. Keep doing it.

If it’s not, then it’s time to make a change. All right, question number two is, what’s it look like to win the day? And I’ve talked about this one a number of times in recent past because I did a video that talked a lot about this concept on the main YouTube channel pretty recently. But it’s just so interesting to me how often we go through life without having stopped to very clearly articulate to ourselves, what’s it look like if I were to win this day? We create these to do lists, and we just run forward with this endless pile of things that we have to do, but we never take a moment to say very clearly, okay, here are the things that I do need to get done today, or if I were to do this, or if I was able to spend time on that, or if I did not do this thing, this would be a win. And just by chalking the field and defining this at the beginning of the day, I find it very, very easy, therefore, at the end of the day, to put my work away and not get caught into the endless to do list and say, you know what? I did the things I needed to do. I won the day. Did I get everything done? No. That’s impossible. It’s never going to happen.
So the goal, when you set your winning, defining what winning the day looks like, you got to set the goal to be achievable. Don’t make it impossible. Don’t do that to yourself, you nerd. Okay, question number three. What dream am I not pursuing? I think our dreams, they die. One, I’ll get to it tomorrow at a time. But the truth is, all we have is right this moment, right this instant. So you have to use it.

And so ask yourself, what are you putting off for a tomorrow that may never come? And then ask yourself, what would it look like to stop putting it off and to start making meaningful progress towards it right now? And I hope for the greatness that you have inside of you and your ability to manifest it, that you stop delaying for some moment in time that may never come, and that you start taking those actions right now, regardless of whether or not you’re ready, whether or not you feel like you have the tools and the resources to do the thing, start moving towards your dreams. If you do not, you will one day most likely look up and realize you’ve never, in fact, started because one day never came. All right, question number four is, what are you holding on to that doesn’t serve you? That could be anger. It could be jealousy. Could be self doubt. It could be resentment. Maybe it’s the good old days, like thinking about high school and when times were so good. Or back when you were married and before the divorce.

And I get it. It’s very easy to hold on to these things from the past. It’s very easy to hold on to this luggage, this baggage. But the path is long, and it’s hard enough as it is. So I encourage you to drop the dead weight, drop these things that no longer serve you. And the first step to doing that is by taking some time to identify what are those things that you’re holding on to that no longer serve you, and then just let them go. I know, easier said than done. But question number five.
Who are the five people that you want sitting next to you on your deathbed? Who are the five people you want.
Sitting next to you on your deathbed.

And then the bonus question here that comes with this is, do they know.

Just how much they mean to you?

Often we take it for granted that they do. But in my experience, you have to give love to get love. And we can take for granted the people we love. The people that we take the most for granted are the people that we love the most. And so don’t take them for granted. Don’t trust that they know how much they mean to you. Tell them, do it now. Because again, you don’t know when that day is going to come.

And if you don’t put the effort in now, if you don’t plant the seeds and water them and nurture them, those relationships, then you might get to the end of this road sooner than you think and find yourself alone. So give love. To get love, go tell those people that you love them. Go through these other four questions, and I hope these bring you some insight, some clarity, and a ton of value. As always, thank you for being here, guys. We’ll catch you in the next episode. But until then, stay hyper focused, my friends.