Four Powerful Questions for an Empowered Life Journey

Questions are powerful tools for prompting shifts in perspective and deep reflection that create insight and awareness. Questions invite imagination and activate possibilities thinking that is energizing and fun. They encourage creativity and out of the box thinking. Being asked a question or posing one to oneself is like opening a file. It helps the body-mind focus on finding right information and creating a fitting, feeling response.

There are everyday kinds of questions and then there are, what I’ve discovered, four fundamental questions that get to the core of life purpose. Together, these four questions, when asked in sequence, can help clarify what might be required to become the best version of yourself:

1. What are my strengths and talents?
2. What are my most important values – what am I committed to?
3. What contribution do I want to make? Where and when will I make it?
4. What are my challenges and what will I risk to attain what I want?

What are my strengths and talents? No matter what your age, reflecting on and identifying your strengths and talents is self-affirming and helps you recognize what you love and what you’re good at. Identifying and developing skills builds confidence and acknowledging confidence leads to taking informed purposeful action. The time you spend at identifying, categorizing and affirming your skills and talents, and where and how you developed them, helps you see your life as a journey of continuing personal and professional growth.

Once your life way has become more clearer by reflecting and journaling on question one, the time is right to ask yourself the second question – What am I committed to? What are my most important values? Another way of asking may be What aspect of my life am I willing/wanting to invest in? Whether it’s your family, your children, your partner, your career, business or yourself – intellectually, emotionally, physically, spiritually…what are you committed to now, in the next 90 days?

If you’ve done the introspective, reflective work and answered question one honestly, your response to question two may come easily. It is the categorizing and inventory grouping of your skills and talents and how you feel about them, that will give you clues and guide you in responding to question two in a way that feels true, good and strong.

And then you’ll be ready for the third question: What contribution do I want to make and where and when will I make them? I invite you to use this question to tune into your inner guidance and trust that your gut will power up your imagination….what image comes to mind? What can you imagine yourself doing? Allow the spark of an idea to grow into a clear image…the ideal you, as if already real…breathe into it; add colour, smell, touch, feel…make it real. Now, live it, as if already so. What does it feel like to be you in your ideal version of yourself? Breathe into this reality and hold your breath, for a moment…so as to “fix” the image in your consciousness….and claim it. “THIS is what I want.”

Then settle back…feel your feet below you and breathe deeply, mindfully…and ask yourself, “What is in my way? What’s blocking me from having what I want, now? What am I resisting?”

The process of overcoming the challenge, the resistance, is RISK which leads us to the final question: What am I willing to risk to attain what I want? What am I willing to give up, to guide my skills and talents, direct my focus, manage my energies and channel my desire to contribute in the best way I can?

Grappling with the emotional and psychological challenges inherent in taking responsibility for yourself, for your life is about taking charge of your life. Instead of leaving things to chance or giving your power to another, this is your moment of truth, of self-ownership. To lead yourself, you must occupy yourself and take full responsibility for the life that is yours, and yours alone, to live. Facing and embracing the risk, is an act of courage, of self-belief – an act that affirms your sense of self-worth.

It’s tackling the risk head-on, with courage and determination that helps us transcend the fear of failure. What makes it possible and fun even, is to live in our hearts, the ideal version of ourselves, while holding steadfast in our minds the vision of our ideal life as if already real, and then to act – heart, mind, and action, all aligned.

After all, it’s the small steps we take, in the right direction, that get us to where we want to go. Knowing that, you can enjoy your life journey every step of the way.