The type of questions you ask yourself impacts the life you lead. These questions demarcate the things your mind focuses on, actions, and inactions, as well as trigger particular thoughts, affecting the outcomes you see in life.
When you ask yourself deeply reflective, empowering questions, your mind shifts your consciousness to a whole new level, setting into motion the actions and thinking to jumpstart your life.
In this article, you’ll find powerful questions to ask yourself every year. These questions are reflective, and others are future-focus. This could serve as a key to your self-awareness and personal growth as you unlock meaningful answers within you.
If you have never asked yourself some questions before, your mind is likely to go blank. Don’t give up questioning yourself, though. Think over every question and allow your mind to run free. Ask them many times over at different sittings, and answers will eventually come to you.
Your answers to these questions may be completely different one, two, or three years down the road of your journey. That’s just fine. Note your answers and then refer them to the years down the road to see how much you have transformed and matured.
1. Am I in control of my emotions?
Knowing how to handle your emotions is a superpower. It is one of the most noteworthy things that you can have. Individuals who are good at controlling their emotions can calm themselves down and control their behavior and are more likely to have healthy relationships and be able to manage setbacks and difficulties that life throws at them.
Just imagine how cataclysmic your life would be if every negative event made you lose your cool and if all opposing opinion triggered you into a frenzy. Without knowing how to control your emotions, you’ll only let your surroundings manipulate you.
Emotions aren’t that immoral to have. It is, in fact, one of the things that make us exceptional. They are essential to navigating the world around us and even ourselves.
Making decisions while in the heat of emotions often leads to less than great decision-making. Make sure to observe your emotions to understand them. You need to unload your emotions and get to the root of them, so you can calmly regulate and respond.
2. Have I forgiven people who hurt me?
Forgiveness is a milestone that many people fail to recognize and celebrate. More often, forgiving someone is more favorable for yourself than it is to that one person who hurt you. You need it more than anyone else.
Holding on to heavy emotions can damage your emotional intelligence, hindering you from deciding rationally and making progress. Forgiveness will not only free you from the heavy heart but will also open new doors of opportunity for your growth.
3. How are my relationships doing?
We are all social animals who want to feel connected on have relationships. However, though we all actually have the same characteristics, our individual nature just causes us to see infinite take-ups of the same basic principles.
Sometimes, the desire we have to belong is so strong that we no longer care what the expense is. Remember this: if the cost of the relationships you have is your authenticity, it would never be happily sustainable in the long run.
Take a closer look at your relationships— these relationships would be more stable and happy if you were at peace with yourself. On the other hand, if your relationship is burdensome, the chances are that you also have problems with yourself. Fix the relationship you have with yourself, and everything will start to flourish along with it.
4. Have I broken free from negative conditioning?
Our mind conditioning is made up of thought loops that can be turned off if you are willing to exert some effort. The most common thought loops that might have gotten into your system include, “It’s my fault,” “I should’ve acted differently,” “I’m stupid,” “I don’t know what to do,” and “I can’t control things.”
Take on these beliefs and challenge them one by one. Identify if these ideas are actually correct or were just inside your head on a default. Think of the experiences that you have that can prove these statements the opposite.
5. How many people know that I love them?
Most often than not, we have no idea how much we mean to others, and they also have no idea how much they mean to us unless we tell and show them. There’s no other way around it. Even if you say that you’re showing it through actions, it could still cause some confusion if not accompanied by words.
Researchers conducted a study on plants with varying relationships with its caregiver. The first plant was told how much it is loved and treated with kindness and adoration. The second relationship consisted of negative words, angry feelings, and yelling. The third one was characterized by pure neglect, acting as if the plant didn’t actually exist.
The study has shown that the plant that was treated with love was the one that grew the most while the other two that were disregarded wilted away and died. This only shows that if you want your relationship to be strong and healthy, you need to pour your love into them. You need to tell them that you love them. Speak out.
6. Did you expand your brain capacity?
Learning shouldn’t cease when schooling does. Our brain was created to be a problem solver, and there are no boundaries on how much it can learn. Limitations are only levied by a narrow mindset and beliefs.
Changing familiar routines, solving logical problems, and learning new things make the brain lose neural connection, making it function at a topped-up capacity.
Expanding your brain capacity would make you score on cognitive tests, making you more courageous and confident— which would lead you to examine more thrilling possibilities, grab new opportunities, achieve new goals, and reach new heights.
