‘Ask yourself the right Questions’

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29th April 2024

“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”  ~Naguib Mahfouz

We all want to find the right answers. To do that, we first need to know how to ask the right questions.

One of my most strongly held beliefs is that, ‘The greatest discoveries in life come not from finding the right answers, but from asking the right questions.’

The right question at the right time has the potential to change your life.

I regularly introspect and ask myself these questions:

What is the most important thing I need to accomplish? What am I tolerating?

What problems or challenges do I foresee happening in the future?

What mistakes did I make today?

What am I grateful for?

What am I looking forward to?

What do I want to change about myself?

Am I Living a Life True to Me? Or am I living the life that I think others expect me to live?

Am I Acting on the Life I Want for Myself?

Thinking and doing are two different things.

For the last several years, I’ve been adding to a list of questions that have changed the way I work, move, live, and love.

Then there are these 3 questions I always ask myself before starting something new.

Why this?

Why now?

Why me or Why not me?

Asking those questions every time you plan to start something new will help you gain clarity and find direction.

Finally, Here is one of the questions that has had a dramatic impact on my life and changed the way I actually and live my life

If I repeated this day for 100 days, would my life be better or worse?

We live our life zoomed way, way in.

It makes it difficult to assess the quality of our daily actions and whether you’re on the right course.

On a regular basis, zoom out by asking yourself this question:

How would your actions from a typical day compound in your life?

Would they be driving you forward in the direction of your goals and vision?

Would they be steering you towards your goal or putting you off course?

Remember the 1-in-60 Rule: A 1 degree error in heading means a plane will miss its destination by 1 mile for every 60 miles flown.

Small errors in heading are amplified by distance and time.

Course correct early and often.

Shall just like to end with A beautiful passage from ‘Letters to a Young Poet:’

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books.

Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.

And the point is, to live everything.

Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

As we get ready to start a new week, Focus on the questions—live the questions—and the answers you seek will follow in time.

Stay blessed forever.