January is a natural time to pause and recalibrate your life. With the beginning of each New Year, it’s critical to take time to reflect and make positive changes. Are you designing the life you want?
I’m a leadership coach, but have worked with very few people that actually have a plan for their life. Most people passively watch their lives unfold a day at a time. As a result, they end up discouraged, disillusioned, and wonder where they went wrong.
“If we would only give the same amount of reflection to what we want out of life that we give to what to do with our two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days…” — Dorothy Canfield Fisher
It doesn’t have to be this way! You can live your life with purpose, passion, and balance. The process of creating a life plan and regularly reviewing it can be transformational.
Reflecting on the following 10 questions will help you close the gap between who you are now and who you want to be in the future.
10 Critical Questions to Transform Your Life
1. What do you wish would be different a year from now?
2. If money were no object, what would you be doing with your life?
3. If you could teach 3 things to others about what matters most to you, what would you share?
4. As a result of your having lived, what do you hope will have changed or shifted in this world?
5. What are the most important outcomes that you need to accomplish personally or professionally?
6. If you had unlimited resources – time, money, people, information, technology – what is something new you would try?
7. What do you believe are your greatest strengths?
8. How can you apply your strengths more at work, home, and in your relationships?
9. How/where can you have the biggest impact over the next 6-12 months?
10. What is the single most important thing you could do now to make progress on one of these goals, outcomes, or ideas?
It is possible to live without a plan, just as you might get to a destination without a map. But life is easier with a plan, and you’re more likely to be thoughtful, discerning, and purposeful along the way.
At the end of your life, you want the testimony of your family and friends to provide proof that you lived your life with purpose, finding time for the things that matter most.
