These 5 Questions Will Change the Way You Live
All you have to do is ask them to yourself at the end of every day.
It’s the end of the day. Everything is quiet. You tuck yourself into bed. You close your eyes. Instead of falling asleep you ask yourself 5 questions.
- What do I want to achieve tomorrow?
- Did I achieve my goals for today that I set yesterday?
- What do I have today that I did not have yesterday?
- What did I do today that wasn’t good?
- Is this what I want?
We will go over these questions one by one, and why they are important.
What Do I Want To Achieve Tomorrow?
No one will make something, or be something amazing overnight. Life is a marathon. Focusing on your biggest goal is good, but you cannot achieve it by seeing the “staircase”
The red bar is where you start. You have many skills to learn, many things to do. The black bar is your end goal. Where you want to be, what you want to have.
Jumping from the red bar to the black bar is impossible in a short time. You have to grow overtime gradually to get there.
This is exactly what this question is for. When you finalize and make it clear to yourself what you want to achieve tomorrow, you set the next stair. This makes you a staircase so you can climb it.
You can’t climb a non-existent hill!
Did I Achieve My Goals For Today That I Set Yesterday?
This question reflects on yesterdays “step”. Was the step too low? Was it too high? You want the step size to be perfect.
When you understand how to size your daily steps, that is when you will accelerate fastest. With this you can properly push yourself every single day. This is one of the ways that you can achieve exponential growth.
Most people make the mistake to practice/do things without a goal. Like if you are programming, you don’t want to just solve problems blindly. If you do, you probably wont be able to see the keyboard 😉 Other than puns, even though it is not a complete waste of time, you can achieve much more growth by setting & achieving goals. I used to make this mistake.
What Do I Have Today That I Did Not Have Yesterday?
Experience is useless without permanent relevance. If you learn a couple of things by the end of the day, and they don’t stick with you, what use is that wisdom?
What were your main takeaways from today? These sort of questions help you summarize the day, which make these pieces of relevant knowledge become a permanent part of you.
When you think of it you are just like a bank account. You learn new things every day which collectively make you grow your skills by a significant amount if you do it correctly.
What Did I Do Today That Wasn’t Good?
This question brings you your feedback for today, so you can do better tomorrow. Were you planning to take a jog but you ended up watching Roblox!? Were you not able to release that article of yours on medium because Tik Tok algorithms are just too good at showing videos to keep you swiping for hours?
These sort of things suck. Okay, maybe once in a while the brain might need a vacation. But definitely not 3 hours a day! Life is short! Do things that matter!
Regardless of this question, it is always a good idea to consider feedback, also hunt for it. If you ask, people might give you feedback. Without feedback you are living in a simulation of trial and error that takes ages to achieve something. How bout’ you take that feedback and grow from the community?
Is This What I Want?
For my final piece of advice to you from today’s article, is don’t force yourself into things.
If you know that you don’t love something, why are you forcing yourself into it? I mean — you're eventually going to quit at some point. It doesn't achieve anything other than:
- Waste your time
- Make portions of your life miserable
TL;DR
- What do I want to achieve tomorrow?
- Did I achieve my goals for today that I set yesterday?
- What do I have today that I did not have yesterday?
- What did I do today that wasn’t good?
- Is this what I want?
These 5 questions will help you not only learn, but accelerate your personal growth. All you have to do is ask them to yourself and you will understand what I mean.
Action Items
What do you think I’m gonna say? Ask yourself these questions! Your time is valuable. Life is short. Do things that matter.
