I don’t know if it’s just the time of year or if it’s just the way life goes, but we all are so busy! The world keeps on turning and we are expected to do the same. With life being so busy it’s easy to get off track with our goals. Sometimes the last thing on our mind is our goal for that week, month, or even that year. To help keep you on track and moving towards your goals, here are 5 questions that you should be asking yourself regularly. If you can keep these questions in the back of your mind they will act as a guardrail against being distracted from your goals.
Am I happy?
How hard is it for you to answer this question? In my opinion if the answer doesn’t come to you immediately something has to change. While we aren’t going to be happy every moment, or even every day, happiness needs to be found in the majority of your time. Why it is so important to ask yourself this question often when contemplating your life, goals, or change is because where you find unhappiness is where you need to change.
Last year at this time I remember lying in bed and breaking down into tears. I couldn’t figure out why I was crying. My life was great! I couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong. Then I asked myself if I was happy with all the areas of my life. That is when I was able to identify the problem. While I was happy the majority of the time, there was one part of my life that was starting to take hold and make me miserable. Needless to say, that once I was able to answer this question honestly, I made some serious changes to my life and what direction I was heading.
What do I believe will make me happy?
Sometimes we are chasing the idea of happiness. We can’t be happy now because we won’t allow ourselves to be. Sound a little harsh? I don’t mean to be, but this question should always be a giant red flag in your pursuit of fulfillment and a life full of joy. When you place the acquisition of your happiness on someone else or something else, you are setting yourself up to be miserable. “I’ll be happy when…” is a dangerous statement. Learning the balance between continual progress and enjoying your life now will always be a struggle familiar to the achievers of the world.
To avoid falling into the endless hole of “I’ll be happy when…” be grateful for what you have now and enjoy the journey. There are too many songs about living in the “good old days”, but more likely than not, your “good old days” are sprinkled throughout your life. Now and in the future there will be good days.
What do I want out of life?
Not many people ask themselves this question. It requires taking time out to think and meditate over the direction of your life. It is vital though that you understand what you want out of your life. Everyone has different goals and isn’t that wonderful! Know yours and set your goals accordingly.
When it comes to answering this question make sure to avoid generalized statements such as, “I want my life to be successful,” or “I want to be wealthy.” I would love those too, but what does that look like to you? Make sure you know the details for your own life. People spend more time planning their vacations than they ever do their own lives. Don’t let that be you! Develop a game plan and outline what you want out of life and how you plan to achieve it. (P.S it’s okay if that plan and the answer to this question changes.)
Am I living in accordance with my goals?
We should be asking ourselves this question daily if not multiple times a day. Lying to ourselves is so easy and this question helps us to have integrity with ourselves. Are you trying to lose weight but don’t eat the way you know you should? Are you too tired at night to work on your business plans? I understand that we are all human and we can (and probably need to) give ourselves a break every now and then. But make sure that the majority of the time you can answer this question with a resounding “YES!”
What if it isn’t? Maybe take a look at your goals and make sure they are still what you want out of life and that they are actually achievable. If your goal is to wake up at 4am every single morning and work on your personal business or workout for an hour, but you always sleep in past your alarm clock, then rethink that goal. Can you find an hour somewhere else? Before bed, on your lunch break? If your goals really matter to you and are achievable then you should be able to make them apart of your daily routine.
Am I growing?
Knowing if you are progressing or not is vital to living a fulfilled life. You can be meeting all your goals, working hard, but with no true results. That’s because you have stopped growing. Think of it like this:
When we are in grade school we start out the year not knowing our assigned math course. With lots of work and learning we try to master it by the end of the year. If we were to take that course again next year we would still be working hard, and we would be completing our goal of taking math but we would no longer be growing. We would know the answers to the problems because we did them last year. 2 years of math, 1 year of growth.
This is true in our lives. Make sure you are growing and stretching yourself to be better than you were even yesterday. This more likely than not means that you will have some growing pains. Even just this week I was asked to take on an assignment that scared me! Typically, new growing opportunities do scare us. That means you are on the right track. To quote Simon Sinek, “if the challenge we face doesn’t scare us, then it’s probably not that important.”
Xoxo,
Abbi J