Lifestyle

Anyone can give up, and lots of people do, because it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.  But to keep going when everyone would understand if you stopped, that’s what winners do differently.  In fact, this is the most significant principle of winning.  Because without this kind of determination and persistence, the first nine points in this article wouldn’t matter.  But when you combine determination and persistence, as described in point #10 below, with each of the other nine points below, that’s when the real magic happens.

On their relentless road to victory, winners…

1. Take 100% responsibility. – Your life is your statement to the world, representing your values, beliefs, and dreams.  It is yours to create, to enjoy or not enjoy, to fight or to be at peace.  In the end, the very best years of your life will be the ones in which you decide your problems are your own.  You do not blame them on your parents, society, or the economy.  You realize that you control your own destiny.  Read The Road Less Traveled.
2. Focus on the controllable. – Life is a balance between what we can and cannot control.  You must learn to live comfortably between effort and surrender.  Life does not owe you anything; it has already given you everything you need.  Freedom is not overcoming what you think stands in your way;  it is understanding that what is in your way is part of the way.
3. Eliminate the wrong things. – The true price of anything you do is the amount of time you exchange for it.  If something you’re doing or thinking isn’t fixing or improving the situation, then it’s wasting your time.  There comes a point when you have to choose between turning the page and closing the book.
4. Maintain control. – Start shaping your own days.  Start walking your own walk.  This journey is yours.  You know you were born, and you know you will die.  The in between is all up to you.  Stop wishing, and start doing.  Either you run your days, or your days will run you.
5. Keep good company. – It’s not always where you are in life, but who you have by your side that matters most.  Some people drain you and others provide soul food.  Be sure to get in the company of those who feed your spirit, and give the gift of your absence to those who do not appreciate your presence.
6. Think constructively. – Change your thoughts and you change your reality.  Our thoughts are the makers of our moods, the inventors of our dreams, and the creators of our will.  That is why you must sort through them carefully, and choose to respond only to those that will help you build the life you want, and the outlook you want to hold as you’re living it.  Read Learned Optimism.
7. Conquer oneself. – Being yourself is the foundation of happiness.  Knowing yourself is the foundation of wisdom.  Pushing yourself is the foundation of success.  It is better to conquer yourself is these ways, than to win a hundred battles elsewhere in life.
8. Practice self-love. – We need to fix ourselves first before we fix others.  Caring for yourself is not an act of self-indulgence, it’s an act of self-respect.  The day will finally come when you have to accept that you need to be your own caretaker.  There will be times when you’ll have to work hard to mother yourself with the compassion and patience that any messed up kid would need.  Doing so will prove to be a great challenge, but a happier life is your reward.
9. Work through the pain. – One day this pain will make sense to you.  Sometimes it takes the worst pain to bring about the best change.  The strongest people you know became strong because of the pain they once faced, and conquered.  So in spite of all the put-downs and negativity you’ve heard from others in your life, stay focused on your goals, and remember that how you rise up is no one else’s business but your own.  Read Man’s Search for Meaning.
10. Keep going. – No matter what you do, no matter how many times you screw up and think to yourself that there’s no point to carry on, and no matter how many people tell you that you can’t do it – keep going.  Pick yourself back up.  Don’t quit.  Don’t quit, because a few months from now you will be so much closer to your goal than you are now.  Focus on the road ahead.  Do something today your future self will thank you for.

Photo by: Zach Ancell

by Benny Hsu

Over the years you’ve created a set of beliefs in your mind that you hold to be true.  Some are indeed helpful and true, while others have completely fooled you.  It’s these latter, false beliefs that quietly hinder your potential and hold you back from the life you are capable of living.

Here are five such false beliefs to be aware of:

1.  Life owes me something.

Just because you’re alive doesn’t mean life is going to hand everything to you.

Life doesn’t just get better by itself.  It isn’t like flying in a plane through turbulence.  Life doesn’t just improve if you fasten your seat belt and wait.

Sadly, so many people expect that a great life is coming to them automatically.  They believe it’ll come next month or next year.  So they continue thinking the same thoughts and doing the same things, just waiting for that day when life will get better.

They come home from work, heat up a microwave dinner and sit on the couch for hours watching TV.  They get on the Internet and spend entire evenings getting nothing done.  They keeping hoping and praying for a change without ever taking action.

When you were younger, you got a trophy if you played sports.  It didn’t matter if you were the leading scorer or the leading benchwarmer.  Adulthood is a bit different.  You don’t get trophies anymore for just showing up.  You have to earn them.

If you keep believing life will somehow automatically improve on it’s own, then you’re going to waste many years of your life in a state of disappointment.

It’s up to you to decide how you want to be.  You are the one that determines the quality of your life.  It is not the people around you, your boss, the government, or anyone else.  If you are serious about being healthy, wealthy, successful, respected and loved, then you are going to have to do something about it.

No one is going to give you the life you dream about except YOU.

Let this be your wake-up call.  Take full control of your life, starting now!

2.  The universe is out to get me.

It seems like life has gone wrong for you in every imaginable way.  You can’t catch a break.  You don’t know why other people are successful and happy, but you’re not.  You believe the universe is somehow working against you.

The truth is the universe doesn’t care about you one bit.  That might sound harsh, but it’s true.  The universe isn’t out to get you.  You aren’t cursed.  You don’t have bad karma following you around.

Why would the universe choose you to be the unlucky one?  It wouldn’t and it hasn’t.  We are all born with a chance to live a full and happy life.  It’s up to you to use the resources the universe has given you – the ones you have right now within you.

If you have an unlucky streak, it’s because you are choosing your own reality with the thoughts in your head and the action you take or don’t take.  If the universe really picked sides, those who grew up poor would always remain poor while the rich would always remain rich.  Obviously this is not true.  There have been many rags to riches stories, and stories of those who have grown up rich and lost everything.

Understand the universe isn’t out to get you.  It wants you to be happy and succeed, but you’ve got to go out and create your own opportunities for happiness.

To start changing how you view the world, start a gratitude journal by writing down three things that you’re thankful for every day.  What this does is to get you in the habit of focusing on what you do have in life – the good, instead of what you do not – the bad.  (Read The How of Happiness.)

3.  I am stuck in my current life situation.

Humans are the only creatures on this planet that can choose to change their life situation at any moment.  A shark can’t one day decide to be a chef.  An ant can’t decide it wants to be a dancer.  Their lives are built into their DNA.

You, on the other hand, can change if you want to.  Oftentimes the only problem is that the fear of change is holding you back.  Excuses keep piling up.  You only remember the times you failed, and this memory scares you off from trying again.  You feel hopelessly stuck in life.

What you need to realize is that life isn’t meant to be a straight line that goes from point A to point B.  Life is meant to be a series of zigs and zags.  It should look like a mess, but a beautiful mess.  It shows that you have changed throughout the course of your life.  You’ve had your ups and downs.  You went down one path, but decided to change course… perhaps on many occasions.

That’s how life should be.  Life is a continuous experience of independent present moments and choices.  So whatever situation you are in right now, just know that it can change if you want it to.

It’s up to you.  You just have to choose something new.

4.  It’s too late to start anything.

How old would you think you are if you didn’t know and couldn’t see yourself in the mirror?

Age is just a number.  What’s important is how you feel.

The only reason you think it’s too late to start is because that’s what you grew up believing.  You believe that you should have everything figured out in life before you reach 30, 40, 50, etc.  The older you get, the less opportunity you think you have to do something new.

You think that you have to cram everything in before the general retirement age of 65.  After that, it’s time to play golf, work on your garden, travel, and play with the grandkids.  This simply isn’t true.

If you’re determined to do something, it is never too late to start.  Here are some famous examples of people who started late.

• Ray Croc was 59 years old when he bought out the McDonald’s brothers.  He turned it into an empire.
• Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man was 40 when he began drawing these legendary superheroes.  He’s now 90 years old and makes a cameo in every movie based on his comic books.
• Julia Child didn’t even learn to cook until she was almost 40 and didn’t launch her popular show until she was 50.
• Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken was 66 when he began to promote his style of cooking and create an empire.

Can you imagine if anyone of them thought it was too late to start?  They wouldn’t have created their best life’s work.

Don’t let age stop you from going after your dreams.  (Read Quitter.)

5. Others will think what I’m doing is foolish.

You worry so much about other people’s opinion.  You’re afraid you will get laughed at.  You don’t want people to reject your ideas.  You don’t want to look like a fool.  What you need to realize now:  None of this matters.

At the end of your life when you look back, what you want to remember is a journey that makes you smile.  Regardless of what everyone else thinks of you, if you’ve followed your intuition and done your best, win or lose, you won’t regret a thing.

There have been so many crazy ideas that even the so-called experts thought was a bad idea.  That did not stop these people:

• J.K. Rowling was penniless, recently divorced, and raising a child on her own.  She wrote the first Harry Potter book on an old manual typewriter.  Twelve publishers rejected the manuscript.  A year later she was given the green light by Barry Cunningham from Bloomsbury, who agreed to publish the book but insisted she get a day job cause there was no money in children’s books.  The series has sold 450 million copies and made J.K Rowling a billionaire.  So much for publishers who told her, “There’s no money in children’s books.”
• Can you imagine a gentleman telling you he wants to build a massive theme park where families can spend time together in a hot Florida swamp?  You might not think it’s too crazy now.  However when Walt Disney wanted to build Disney World, he was rejected for financing over 300 times.
• The Beatles were rejected by many record labels.  In a famously quoted rejection letter, a music label said, “Guitar groups are on the way out” and “the Beatles have no future in show business.”  Shortly thereafter the Beatles signed with EMI, brought Beatlemania to the United States, and became the most influential band in the history of rock and roll.

These are just three examples, but there are countless more.  Each person involved was ahead of his or her time, but they didn’t let other people’s opinions stop them.   There might be something you’ve always wanted to do, but haven’t because you’re worried about what others will think or of being rejected.  Let these stories inspire you to realize that good fortune favors the bold.

Final Thoughts

If you suffer from one or more of these false beliefs, it’s time to make a change.  When you were younger you didn’t believe these untruths, but as you’ve grown up they have been given more power simply because you have given them more attention.  By doing so, you have slowly become your own worst enemy.

Take back control of your life now.  You can do that by shattering these beliefs and choosing to take positive action today.

Your turn…

What’s one belief that has slowed you down and held you back in life?  Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

Author Bio:  Benny Hsu is a blogger and app entrepreneur.  He is the author of the personal development blog, Get Busy Living, where he shares his experiences and lessons to help you live an epic life.  Download his eBook, Get a Life that Doesn’t Suck for free.  You can also follow him on Twitter.

Photo by: La Bele

“The trouble is if you don’t spend your life yourself,
other people spend it for you.”
?Peter Shaffer

Every summer, like clockwork, after high school and college graduation ceremonies send new graduates trotting off into the real world, Angel and I receive a few hundred emails from eager late teen and early 20-something subscribers (subscribe here) that basically ask the same fundamental question:

“What do you suggest I learn or work on now that I’m out of school and on my own?”

Obviously, a comprehensive list of important lessons and life skills could be infinite.  And over the years Angel and I have written several articles like “18 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I Was 18” and “25 Things I Would Tell My 20-Year-Old Self” geared to give the 18 to 22 crowd something positive to think about.  But every time we write an article like these for the youngsters, we inevitably receive a few hundred more emails that say something like, “I loved the article, but what about an article for my age bracket?”

So today, for graduates, 30-somethings, and beyond, here’s a list of general lessons and life skills Angel and I work on every single day – a list worth growing into and working on for the rest of your adult life:

1. You have to stand beside yourself, 100%, every day. – Self-respect, self-worth and self-love.  There’s a reason they all start with “self.”  You can’t receive them from anyone else.  You are GOOD enough, SMART enough, ATTRACTIVE enough, and STRONG enough.  Believe it!  Own it!  And never let insecurity and negativity run your life.  There will always be someone who tells you that you can’t do something.  Your mission is to smile and prove them wrong.  One smile at a time.
2. Nothing great ever comes from a comfort zone.  Period. – If you want to stunt your growth and feel stuck in the same place forever, keep making excuses.  If, on the other hand, you want to stop feeling trapped, you have to start doing things that make you uncomfortable – things you aren’t very good at.  There is no excuse for remaining stuck.  There is no excuse for doing the same exact mundane things over and over again.  Life is too short.  Ask yourself if what you’re doing today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow.  What a disgrace it would be for you to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of your full potential.
3. Fight for it.  Do what’s right, not what’s easy. – Short-term adversity and failure are two of the surest stepping-stones to life-long success.  Things can change if you want them to, at any age.  As I awoke this morning, I marveled at my life today.  Where once I woke with dread at the thought of a new day, now I wake with excitement to begin – grateful to be doing what I’m doing for a living.  I am so happy I did what I had to do, and struggled through the tough times and the fears, and realigned my life with the things that make me happy.  When friends ask me how I did it, as they sometimes do, I tell them, “Hard work and persistence.  It’s a small price to pay for a changed life.”
4. Be a beacon of honesty and respect. – Be the type of person you want to meet and be around.  Be the type of person whose actions, words and values always agree with each other.
5. Neglecting your interests and passions is self-deception. – Doing so is like pretending to be someone you’re not – living a lie.  Don’t do it.  Live a life you are proud of.  Follow your excitement.  When you lose yourself in the things you love, you will find yourself there, too.  (Read The 4-Hour Workweek.)
6. Challenge yourself to beat your own personal records. – No one can do it for you – you have to choose to use your wings.  Challenge yourself to be who you know you are capable of being.  Challenge yourself to follow through – to live what you preach, to walk your talk.  Don’t worry about how slowly you feel you’re heading towards your goals, or how many roadblocks you find, or how many detours you’re forced to take.  As long as you keep doing your thing, you’re still cruising far ahead of everyone who’s too scared to even try.
7. Your struggles are really your best growth opportunities. – Know in your heart that there is strength inside you that is greater than the troubles you face.  Stay strong.  Be positive.  We all struggle sometimes.  Life’s about breaking our own limits and outgrowing ourselves to live our best lives.  The more obstacles you overcome, the stronger you become.  The one who falls and gets up is so much stronger than the one who never fell.  You will honestly never know how strong you truly are until being strong is the only choice you have.  Keep going.  Keep growing.
8. Your alleged flaws will often work for you. – The little things about you that you think are your flaws are often the reasons others fall in love with you.  Accept your flaws.  Admit your mistakes.  Don’t hide and don’t lie.  Deal with the truth, learn the lessons, endure the consequences of reality, and move forward.  Your truth won’t penalize you.  The mistakes won’t hurt you.  The denial and cover-up will.  Flawed and vulnerable people are beautiful and likable.  Liars and phonies are not.  Every beautiful human being is made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions and finished with unique qualities.
9. Let go and grow.  Embrace change. – Always respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that holds you back and no longer grows you. Thank your past for all the lessons, and move forward.  By leaving behind your old self and taking a leap of faith into the unknown, you find out who you’re truly capable of becoming.  You can’t grow unless you’re willing to change.  You will know you’re on the right track when you become uninterested in looking back.
10. Work through your fears and take calculated risks. – No matter how long you get to live, life is relatively short.  And before you know it, you’re going to be dust.  And the janitor gets buried next to the doctor.  And all that really matters in the end is how big you showed up and how bold you were.  Because when you’re taking your final breath, what will fill your heart with the greatest regret will not be all the risks you took, and not all the opportunities you chased, and not all the times you fell on your face and looked like a fool.  What will fill your heart with the greatest regret in that final moment is all the risks you never took and all the opportunities you never had the courage to explore.
11. Balance your time with your priorities. – There will always be more than one option and more than one obligation competing for your time.  You must find the balance that works best for you in your unique situation – the right balance between activity and rest, work and family, passion and money, short-term and long-term goals, getting things done and leaving them undone.  Without balance everything falls out of whack.  For instance, when you let your work life, or social life, or family life consume you, and 100% of your energy is focused in that one area, every other area of your life suffers.  Maybe that’s OK with you.  Maybe not.  But you need to decide and manage your time accordingly.
12. A small attitude change always makes a BIG difference. – Those who move forward with a positive spirit will find that things always work out.  In any situation, it’s not your specific circumstances that shape you, it’s how you react to your circumstances.  You can’t direct the wind, but you can always adjust your sails.  When it rains look for rainbows, when it’s dark out, look for stars.  Making a habit of this takes time and practice, but the positive effects will change the trajectory of your life.
13. Stop from time to time and ask yourself, “Is it true?” – It’s funny how humans can wrap their mind around things and fit them into their version of reality.  Thinking something does not make it true.  Wanting something does not make it real.  So watch your thoughts.
14. Put as much positive energy as you can muster into the present. – Be at peace with what has been.  Doing so enables you to focus your energy into making the best of what can be.  Get beyond your worries about what may or may not happen, or what other people might think of you.  Invest yourself in the real and present actions you can take to make a positive difference.  Your life is too important to waste on things you can’t do anything about.  Put your efforts into present opportunities.  Feel love instead of fear, joy in the place of worry, and focus on your possibilities instead of your resentments.  Imagine your life at its best, and bring the best to your life.
15. Let needless stress rest in peace. – Would you like to have less stress in your life?  Then quit creating it.  Rather than jumping at the chance to be offended, choose to be amused.  Instead of filling your thoughts with resentment, fill your heart with forgiveness.  If someone is rude to you, let it be that person’s personal problem and not yours.  Quickly grow beyond each disappointment, while savoring and sharing each joy.  Life in general is what it is.  Yet your life in particular, and your experience of it, is the way you choose to live it.
16. Many of your biggest questions can only be answered through experience. – Regardless of your age or stature, life is always filled with unanswered questions.  It is the courage to ask these questions and adventurously seek the answers that continues to give life meaning.  Have patience with everything that remains unresolved in your heart.  Try to love the unanswered questions themselves.  Do not demand all the answers; they cannot be given to you because you have to live through them.  It is a matter of experiencing everything.  Only when you do will you gradually, perhaps without even noticing it, find yourself arriving at the answers you seek.
17. Make time every day to be alone. – Sometimes you need to be alone… not to be lonely, but to enjoy some free time just breathing and being YOU.  In order to be one with your relationships and life’s work, you have to turn away from the busyness of the world for a while.  You need to find solitude to refuel.  You must withdraw into your innermost self.  You need to ponder your successes and failures in seclusion; you need the sunshine and the moonlight to illuminate you without others to distract you, without the ongoing banter, face to face with your inner core, with only the sound of your heartbeat for company.
18. There’s a maintenance cost for everything you own and hold on to. – We can speak in dollars – insurance, taxes and interest.  Or even in time – cleaning, updating and protecting.  But the hardest maintenance cost for most people is simply sentimental value.  We transfer our feelings and memories onto an object and decide we can’t let go because we’ll risk losing the feeling or memory.  Before long, we become surrounded by these visual reminders of our memories and no longer have room to make new ones.  It’s hard to move forward in your life when your past is crowding your present.  Bottom line:  Buy less crap and more new, enlightening experiences.  (Read The Joy of Less.)
19. True wealth is NOT measured in money. – No matter where life takes you, big cities or small towns, you will inevitably come across others who think they know what’s best for you – people who think they’re better than you – people who think happiness, success and beauty mean the same things to everyone.  They’ll try to measure your worth based on what you have, instead of who you are.  But you know better than that – material things don’t matter.  Don’t chase the money.  Catch up to the ideas and activities that make you come alive.  Go for the things of greater value – the things money can’t buy.  What matters is having strength of character, an honest heart, and a sense of self-worth.  If you’re lucky enough to have any of these things, never sell them.  Never sell yourself short.
20. Practice being mindful of your blessings. – You honestly never fully grasp how much someone means to you until the reality of their existence becomes an uncertain, immanent matter of life and death.  You never truly appreciate what you have in every little moment until you are faced with the possibility of not having another.  But try your hardest every day to appreciate what you have anyway.  Look around and be thankful for your life.  For your health, your family, your friends and your home.  Many people don’t have these things, and never will.
21. Don’t hold your love in.  Let it out. – Where you invest your love, you invest your life.  Love without limits.  Love like there’s no tomorrow.  And if tomorrow comes, love again.  It’s this love that makes the impossible possible.
22. There are right people and wrong people for you. – There are fake people, and those who are true friends.  There are people who take the heart out of you, and those who put it back.  You have a choice of who to spend time with.  True friends have an honest heart, and will go out of their way to help you when you need it most.  Stick with the people who never let you down and keep their promises.  You can’t fake that.
23. Pay close attention to who really cares. – You have to allow yourself to be loved by the people who really love you, the people who really matter.  Far too often, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don’t even matter in the grand scheme of things.  We waste our time and the people who truly do love us have to sit on the curb and watch us beg in the streets.  Don’t do this to yourself.  (Angel and I discuss this in detail in the “Relationships” chapter of 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.)
24. Never be ashamed to speak up. – Don’t hold all your thoughts hostage.  Anything that’s true in your mind – feelings, fears, etc. – is mentionable to a good friend, and anything that’s mentionable can be more manageable.  When you can talk about how you feel, your thoughts become less overwhelming and scary, and more understood.  The good friends you trust with these important talks ultimately help you realize that you’re not alone in this world.
25. Keep your envy in check. – When you feel flustered because someone has received the very thing you want, force yourself to remember how much you have already been given.  Remember that there’s plenty for everyone, and that everyone gets one dose at a time.  Remember that what happened to someone else has absolutely no bearing on what happens to you.  Your success is unique to you.  Remember that a wonderful thing has happened to this other person, and if you keep working and pushing forward, something wonderful will also happen to you at just the right time.
26. Be selective in your battles.  Peace is often better than being right. – Sometimes we choose to be wrong, not because we really are wrong, but because we value our relationship more than our pride.  When two people who care about each other fight, both are wrong.  They have put some kind of superficial outcome over love and compromise.  The one who apologizes and makes up first, is the one who is right.
27. When someone is unpleasant, they may just need your kindness. – Some people are rude as a way of crying for help.  They may not be conscious of it though, so their comments come across as attacks rather than requests.  Show a little love and concern.  Do something nice for them.  Just a simple “Are you okay?” or “Is there anything I can do to help you?” can work wonders in certain situations.  Resist the urge to judge or assume.  It’s hard to offer compassion when you assume you have them figured out.  Let them know they’re not alone.  People overcome the forces of negative emotions, like anger and hatred, when the counter-forces of love and support are in full effect.
28. Learn who the liars are, and don’t let them affect you more than once. – Don’t lie to people who trust you, and don’t trust people who lie to you.  These negative relationships will never give you a positive life.  And whatever you do, don’t let the same exact people lie to you over and over again.  If someone fools you once, shame on them.  If someone fools you twice, shame on you.  If you catch someone lying to you, speak up.  Some people will lie to you repeatedly in a vicious effort to get you to repeat their lies over and over until they effectively become true.  Don’t partake in their nonsense.  Don’t let their lies be your reality.
29. Don’t betray yourself by hating someone for betraying you. – Betrayal is a double-edged sword.  Not only do you feel betrayed by someone you trusted, you feel like you betrayed yourself for trusting this person in the first place.  You blame them and then you blame yourself.  If you feel betrayed, it’s important to release any feelings of hate at once.  By doing so the bitterness has no time to take root.  Only then can you begin the process of evaluating the real situation – perhaps a frightening possibility such as:  “My beloved doesn’t love me,” or perhaps a more innocuous realization:  “This was an honest mistake that deserves to be forgiven.”
30. Keep the reckless expectation of perfection in check. – If you always look for perfection you will always look unhappy, in all walks of life.  And this is especially true for relationships.  So don’t berate people for not being perfect.  Admire them for not being fake.  Even though you probably get confused sometimes, you don’t really want your friends and lovers to be perfect.  What you do want is people you can trust, who treat you right – people you can act silly with, who love being around you as much as you love being around them.

Afterthoughts

If you’re struggling with any of these lessons and life skills, know that you are not alone.  Many of us are right there with you, working hard to feel better, think more clearly, and keep our lives and relationships on track.  This is precisely why Angel and I wrote our book, “1,000 Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently.”  It’s filled with short, concise tips on how to do just that.  And believe it or not, Angel and I review a lot of our own material on a regular basis too, just to center our minds on these positive principles.

The bottom line is that it’s never too late to take a step in the right direction.  It’s never too late to become the person you are capable of being.  Things can change if you want them to, at any age.  Right now you have the opportunity of a lifetime.

Your turn…

What has life taught you that has helped you excel?

Think about all the things you would love to tell yourself if you could travel back in time to give your younger self some advice about life.

Please leave a comment below and share your insight with the community.

Photo by: Lee

At the cusp of a new day, week, month or year, most of us take a little time to reflect on our lives by looking back over the past and ahead into the future.  We ponder the successes, failures and standout events that are slowly scripting our life’s story.  This process of self-reflection helps us maintain a conscious awareness of where we’ve been and where we intend to go.  It is pertinent to the organization and preservation of our long-term goals and happiness.

The questions below will help you with this process.  Because when it comes to finding meaning in life, asking the right questions is the answer.

1. In one sentence, who are you?
2. Why do you matter?
3. What is your life motto?
4. What’s something you have that everyone wants?
5. What is missing in your life?
6. What’s been on your mind most lately?
7. Happiness is a ________?
8. What stands between you and happiness?
9. What do you need most right now?
10. What does the child inside you long for?
11. What is one thing right now that you are totally sure of?
12. What’s been bothering you lately?
13. What are you scared of?
14. What has fear of failure stopped you from doing?
15. What will you never give up on?
16. What do you want to remember forever?
17. What makes you feel secure?
18. Which activities make you lose track of time?
19. What’s the most difficult decision you’ve ever made?
20. What’s the best decision you’ve ever made?
21. What are you most grateful for?
22. What is worth the pain?
23. In order of importance, how would you rank: happiness, money, love, health, fame?
24. What is something you’ve always wanted, but don’t yet have?
25. What was the most defining moment in your life during this past year?
26. What’s the number one change you need to make in your life in the next twelve months?
27. What’s the number one thing you want to achieve in the next five years?
28. What is the biggest motivator in your life right now?
29. What will you never do?
30. What’s something you said you’d never do, but have since done?
31. What’s something new you recently learned about yourself?
32. What do you sometimes pretend to understand that you really do not?
33. In one sentence, what do you wish for your future self?
34. What worries you most about the future?
35. When you look into the past, what do you miss most?
36. What’s something from the past that you don’t miss at all?
37. What recently reminded you of how fast time flies?
38. What is the biggest challenge you face right now?
39. In one word, how would you describe your personality?
40. What never fails to frustrate you?
41. What are you known for by your friends and family?
42. What’s something most people don’t know about you?
43. What’s a common misconception people have about you?
44. What’s something a lot of people do that you disagree with?
45. What’s a belief you hold with which many people disagree?
46. What’s something that’s harder for you than it is for most people?
47. What are the top three qualities you look for in a friend?
48. If you had a friend who spoke to you in the same way that you sometimes speak to yourself, how long would you allow that person to be your friend?
49. When you think of ‘home,’ what, specifically, do you think of?
50. What’s the most valuable thing you own?
51. If you had to move 3000 miles away, what would you miss most?
52. What would make you smile right now?
53. What do you do when nothing else seems to make you happy?
54. What do you wish did not exist in your life?
55. What should you avoid to improve your life?
56. What is something you would hate to go without for a day?
57. What’s the biggest lie you once believed was true?
58. What’s something bad that happened to you that made you stronger?
59. What’s something nobody could ever steal from you?
60. What’s something you disliked when you were younger that you truly enjoy today?
61. What are you glad you quit?
62. What do you need to spend more time doing?
63. What are you naturally good at?
64. What have you been counting or keeping track of recently?
65. What has the little voice inside your head been saying lately?
66. What’s something you should always be careful with?
67. What should always be taken seriously?
68. What should never be taken seriously?
69. What are three things you can’t get enough of?
70. What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
71. What fascinates you?
72. What’s the difference between being alive and truly living?
73. What’s something you would do every day if you could?
74. At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive?
75. Which is worse, failing or never trying?
76. What makes you feel incomplete?
77. When did you experience a major turning point in your life?
78. What or who do you wish you lived closer to?
79. If you had the opportunity to get a message across to a large group of people, what would your message be?
80. What’s something you know you can count on?
81. What makes you feel comfortable?
82. What’s something about you that has never changed?
83. What will be different about your life in exactly one year?
84. What mistakes do you make over and over again?
85. What do you have a hard time saying “no” to?
86. Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?
87. What’s something that used to scare you, but no longer does?
88. What promise to yourself do you still need to fulfill?
89. What do you appreciate most about your current situation?
90. What’s something simple that makes you smile?
91. So far, what has been the primary focus of your life?
92. How do you know when it’s time to move on?
93. What’s something you wish you could do one more time?
94. When you’re 90-years-old, what will matter to you the most?
95. What would you regret not fully doing, being, or having in your life?

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Photo by: Hartwig HKD