12 Questions that can Change Your Life
Think of 12 questions that, if you had the answers, would change your life. Don’t list the first twelve questions that come to mind. Really think about this because, as Tony Robbins notes, “Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.”
In my recent reading, I came across the idea of generating this list of 12 questions. The book that gave me this idea was Building A Second Brain, and this concept was perhaps the single most beneficial idea that I took away. My goal is to explain the very simple way that I’m applying this to my life, and how you can also benefit from this.
First of all, create the list of 12 questions. There’s no rule that says ’12’ is the magic number. You can have more or less, but 12 is a great number because it isn’t too many or too few. When you think seriously about your life, what problems do you keep running into? What problems, if solved, would dramatically improve your quality of life or quality of relationships? What aspects of your faith, if better applied, would greatly increase your spiritual health? These are the sorts of questions that you want to put on your list of 12 questions. A few questions from my own list include,
“What are the most valuable uses of my time?”
“How does one pray biblically?”
“How can I wake up refreshed and energized each morning?”
As you can see, these questions don’t have to be deeply theoretical to be useful. Simply choose twelve questions that, if you had the answers, would dramatically improve your life.
Asking the right questions is half the struggle; now you need to find the answers to these questions. The way that you will find these answers, however, is simply by going through life and making observations. Because you know what questions you are asking, you are going to start paying attention any time that you hear something that might help you find the answers.
Here’s what you do. Go to your phone and open up your ‘Notes’ app (if you have an Android rather than iPhone, find a similar app). Create a folder labeled ‘Questions.’ Now, create the first note in this folder and pin it to the top of the folder. Give it the title of ‘12 Questions’ and type out the twelve questions that you came up with. You want to pin this to the top of the folder, because you want to refer back to these questions again and again – it’s important to know what questions you are asking so that you can know which answers to look for.
Within this ‘questions’ folder, create twelve more notes. Give each note a label that identifies it with a specific question. For example, I might create a note titled ‘Time’ that refers to my question, “What are the most valuable uses of my time?” After creating the note ‘Time,’ type the question itself at the top of the note, just under the title.
Once you have the list of 12 questions and the 12 notes, start collecting information that helps you answer these questions. There is no rush to do this, and you’ll keep up with this process for, ideally, the rest of your life. Your questions might change, but you keep trying to find the answers.
For example, in my note that is titled ‘Time,’ I would take note of any information that helps me think through how to use my time more valuably. I would take down quotes, write out significant ideas from books, or add the hyperlink to articles that address this topic. Don’t try to write down everything that applies; there is far too much. Instead, simply take note of the very best, the most helpful information, the information that will result in you answering the question well.
The goal isn’t to finally ‘find’ the answer; instead, it’s to create a crock pot of ideas that help you to gradually understand and answer your questions. Rather than trying to understand a single answer to my question about valuable uses of time, I simply want to give my brain lots of thoughts and ideas to help me think through this. Eventually, I’ll be able to intuitively know what is the most effective use of my time, because I’ve thought through this topic well.
The process that I am outlining is a simple method, but you can adapt it to your own setting. You might use a paper journal, or a different note-taking app. You might have more or fewer questions. The important thing is that you generate really high-quality questions (see again the Tony Robbins quote at the beginning of this article) and that you start collecting information that is really helpful in answering these questions.
In place of comments, I would love to hear from you personally. Please reach out to me via the Contact Page to share your thoughts and perspectives on this post!
