General questions to ask yourself in life (quotes)

Questions to find your purpose in life

  • What is your ultimate purpose and dream? What do you truly desire in your life—not only for yourself, but for the world as well? And how will you begin to make that desire a reality? Andrew Newberg
  • What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Mary Oliver
  • What do I love to do? How can I use what I love to do to help the world around me? Susan Jeffers
  • What do you truly value and enjoy? What is your heart trying to tell you? Is there something that you have an inner need to pursue? These are the types of questions that will put you on your path toward greatness. Richard Carlson
  • “What is my job on the planet?” is one question we might do well ask ourselves over and over again. Otherwise, we may wind up doing somebody else’s job and not even know it. Jon Kabat-Zinn
  • How can I best make my contribution to the world? Tom Morris
  • Of all the questions I have asked my readers this is the most important: What would you do if you weren’t afraid? When you finally give wings to that answer then you have found your life’s purpose. Shannon L. Alder
  • Instead of asking ‘what do I want from life?’ a more powerful question is, ‘what does life want from me? Eckhart Tolle
  • It is necessary… for a man to go away by himself… to sit on a rock… and ask, ‘Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going? Carl Sandburg
  • It is not enough for me to ask the question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for? Abraham Joshua-Heschel
  • Purpose
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Questions to help you direct your focus and energies

  • What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? Robert Schuller
  • The question you should be asking isn’t, “What do I want?” or “What are my goals?” but “What would excite me?” Tim Ferris
  • What one great goal would you dare to set for yourself if you knew you could not fail? Brian Tracy
  • If money was no concern and you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do? Deepak Chopra
  • Healing from our past is an essential aspect of expanding our sense of self and awakening our capacity to love. This shift often manifests as a change in the questions we’ve been asking ourselves. Instead of What do I need? we ask, How can I serve? Instead of What am I getting out of this? we start to ask, What can I bring to this situation to promote the highest possible outcome for everyone involved? David Simon
  • Identify the things that matter most to you. What are you truly passionate about? What makes you come alive? Who are the people in your life whom you love spending time with? What truly brings you pleasure? What are the absolute must- haves in your life? What can you not live without? What do you need to thrive? Marelisa Fabrega
  • … that the only question which matters is, “Am I living in a way which is deeply satisfying to me, and which truly expresses me?” This I think is perhaps the most important question for the creative individual. Carl Rogers
  • Focus,  Energy management
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Questions to create a vision for yourself

  • Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not. Pablo Picasso
  • What is the biggest and best thing you can imagine for yourself? David Allen
  • Where am I going? What am I becoming? What do I wish to do and become? Louis L’Amour
  • Who will you have to become to achieve all you want. Tony Robbins
  • If you were wildly successful in the coming years, what do you imagine or see yourself doing or being? David Allen
  • Vision
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Questions to ask in challenging times

  • What part of my Self do I wish to experience now in the face of this calamity? What aspect of being do I choose to call forth? For all of life exists as a tool of your own creation, and all of its events merely present themselves as opportunities for you to decide and be, Who You Are. Neale Donald Walsch
  • So, ask every failure – this is what I do with every failure, every crisis, every difficult time – I say, what is this here to teach me? Oprah Winfrey
  • When faced with adversity, ask yourself the following questions: What’s good about this? What can I learn from this? How can I benefit from this?  Is there something about this situation that I can be grateful for?  Marelisa Fabrega
  • Think about it. Every time you fail at a task you’ve actually learned something new. The question is “what?” Limani David
  • Ask yourself this question: Will this matter a year from now? Richard Carlson
  • When you find yourself stressed, ask yourself one question: Will this matter in five years from now? If yes, then do something about the situation. If no, then let it go. Catherine Pulsifer
  • Challenge,  Adversity
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Questions to help you direct your beliefs and actions

  • How am I going to live today in order to create the tomorrow I’m committed to? Tony Robbins
  • Ask yourself this daily question: ‘How would the person I’d like to be do the things I’m about to do?’ Jim Cathcart
  • For true success ask yourself these four questions: Why? Why not? Why not me? Why not now? James Allen
  • What has to happen for the stuff that strengthens you and moves you forward in life to be considered fun? James Arthur Ray
  • Half of the secret to achieving clarity in any situation is asking, “What are we trying to do here?” David Allen
  • How can I do this and have fun doing it? Charles Connolly
  • You can judge the validity of any idea or concept by asking, “Is this true for me?” Brian Tracy
  • Belief,  Action
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Questions to ensure you focus on what matters

  • At least three times every day take a moment and ask yourself: What is really important? Have the wisdom and the courage to build your life around your answer. Lee Jampolsky
  • It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: what are we busy about? Henry David Thoreau
  • Will what I am about to do, bring me closer to, or take me further from my goals? Zig Ziglar 
  • What is the most valuable use of my time right now? Brian Tracy
  • How is what I’m doing right now, going to help me to get to where I’m trying to get to? Eric Thomas
  • Perhaps the very best question that you can memorize and repeat, over and over, is, “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?” Brian Tracy
  • Put first things first,  Focus
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Questions for self-discovery

  • Do you know what you’re good at? Do you know what you need to learn so that you get the full benefit of your strengths? Peter F. Drucker
  • We want to answer this classical question, who am I? So I think that most of our works are for art, or whatever we do, including science or religion, tried to answer that question. Paulo Coelho
  • Discovery
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Questions for making decisions

  • When making decisions about your life, imagine yourself on your own deathbed. Looking back from there, what do you wish you had chosen at this time? Lucy Jo Palladino, Ph.D
  • Decision making
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Questions for relationships

  • How can I help? How can I help all those that I come into contact with? Deepak Chopra
  • If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting? Stephen Levine 
  • What would love do now? Neale Donald Walsch
  • If you propose to speak, always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind. Buddha
  • Does he treat you with respect at all times? That’s the first question. The second question is, if he is the exact same person twenty years from now that he is today, would you still want to marry him? And finally, does he inspire to be a better person? You find someone you can answer yes to all three, then you’ve found a good man. Colleen Hoover, Slammed
  • Principles for healthy relationships
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Questions to elevate your life

  • What one thing could you do in your personal and professional life that, if you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your life? Stephen Covey
  • If this were happening for a higher purpose, what would it be? Marci Shimoff
  • What’s the “big” thing you’d like to change that just hasn’t been happening? Creating a meditation practice? Exercising? Eating better? How can you start super small? Robert Maurer
  • What is the number one thing you could start doing that would have the most beneficial impact on your life? Brian Tracy
  • What is the number one thing you could stop doing that would have the most positive effect on your life? Brian Tracy
  • If this were to be the last day of my life would I be content with it? Jane Rule
  • Our highest goal is to connect to the highest within ourselves. What would the highest version of you do in this moment?  Brian Johnson
  • Think about what it’s like to be a good friend to someone. Then ask: Am I that kind of friend to myself? Rick Hanson
  • There is not a stream of badness and a stream of goodness, or sickness or wellness. There is only a Stream of Well- being. The question that you’re wanting to ask yourself is, “In this moment, am I letting it in or not? Am I allowing it or am I not?” Abraham/Hicks
  • If you were absolutely fearless, would you be earning a living in exactly the same way as you are now? David Deida
  • When do you feel powerful, passionate, free, incredibly useful, excited, inspired? Danielle LaPorte
  • What’s chronic, repetitive, or inflamed in your inner or outer life? Danielle LaPorte
  • If you only had six months to live what would you spend the last six months of your life doing? Jerry Bruckner
  • Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not. Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end. Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm. There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay? Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.   Tom Robbins
  • Transformation
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Questions to determine if you’re present in this moment

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Questions to get perspective on worries

  • Hardly anything matters: if you get upset, ask yourself, “Does it really matter?” Olivia Joules
  • Ask yourself this question: Will this matter a year from now? Richard Carlson
  • When you find yourself stressed, ask yourself one question: Will this matter in five years from now? If yes, then do something about the situation. If no, then let it go. Catherine Pulsifer
  • Do you remember the things you were worrying about a year ago? How did they work out? Didn’t you waste a lot of fruitless energy on account of most of them? Didn’t most of them turn out all right after all? Dale Carnegie
  • Worry
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Powerful questions to ask yourself in the moment

  • What would the person I would like to be do in this moment? Eric Maisel
  • Look at what you are doing moment to moment. Ask yourself in the midst of it, “What does this have to do with my real reason for being here? Is this what I have come all the way to the Earth to experience?” If the answer is a resounding Yes, keep doing it. If the answer is No, ask yourself, “What in the world am I doing?” Neale Donald Walsch
  • What is going on right now? And what can you do Right Now to make Now better? Make each Now better and the future will take care of itself, while the past will not matter. Neale Donald Walsch
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Questions to ask in retrospect

  • It’s like, at the end, there’s this surprise quiz: Am I proud of me?  I gave my life to become the person I am right now! Was it worth what I paid?  Richard Bach
  • At the end of life, our questions are very simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well? Jack Kornfield
  • Now that it’s all over, what did you really do yesterday that’s worth mentioning? Coleman Cox
  • At the end of each day, ask yourself the following four questions: What touched me today? Who or what inspired me today? What made me smile today? What’s the best thing that happened today?  Marelisa Fabrega
  • When you die and go to heaven, our maker is not going to ask, Why didn’t you discover the cure for such and such? The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is, Why didn’t you become you? Elie Wiesel
  • In the end, these things matter most: How well did you love? How fully did you live? How deeply did you let go? Buddha
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More thought provoking questions

  • How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
  • Which is worse, failing or never trying?
  • If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?
  • When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?
  • What is the one thing you’d most like to change about the world?
  • If happiness was the national currency, what kind of work would make you rich?
  • Are you doing what you believe in, or are you settling for what you are doing?
  • If the average human life span was 40 years, how would you live your life differently?
  • To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?
  • Are you more worried about doing things right, or doing the right things?
  • You’re having lunch with three people you respect and admire. They all start criticizing a close friend of yours, not knowing she is your friend. The criticism is distasteful and unjustified.  What do you do?
  • If you could offer a newborn child only one piece of advice, what would it be?
  • Would you break the law to save a loved one?
  • Have you ever seen insanity where you later saw creativity?
  • What’s something you know you do differently than most people?
  • How come the things that make you happy don’t make everyone happy?
  • What one thing have you not done that you really want to do? What’s holding you back?
  • Are you holding onto something you need to let go of?
  • If you had to move to a state or country besides the one you currently live in, where would you move and why?
  • Do you push the elevator button more than once? Do you really believe it makes the elevator faster?
  • Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?
  • Why are you, you?
  • Have you been the kind of friend you want as a friend?
  • Which is worse, when a good friend moves away, or losing touch with a good friend who lives right near you?
  • What are you most grateful for?
  • Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones?
  • Is is possible to know the truth without challenging it first?
  • Has your greatest fear ever come true?
  • Do you remember that time 5 years ago when you were extremely upset? Does it really matter now?
  • What is your happiest childhood memory? What makes it so special?
  • At what time in your recent past have you felt most passionate and alive?
  • If not now, then when?
  • If you haven’t achieved it yet, what do you have to lose?
  • Have you ever been with someone, said nothing, and walked away feeling like you just had the best conversation ever?
  • Why do religions that support love cause so many wars?
  • Is it possible to know, without a doubt, what is good and what is evil?
  • If you just won a million dollars, would you quit your job?
  • Would you rather have less work to do, or more work you actually enjoy doing?
  • Do you feel like you’ve lived this day a hundred times before?
  • When was the last time you marched into the dark with only the soft glow of an idea you strongly believed in?
  • If you knew that everyone you know was going to die tomorrow, who would you visit today?
  • Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?
  • What is the difference between being alive and truly living?
  • When is it time to stop calculating risk and rewards, and just go ahead and do what you know is right?
  • If we learn from our mistakes, why are we always so afraid to make a mistake?
  • What would you do differently if you knew nobody would judge you?
  • When was the last time you noticed the sound of your own breathing?
  • What do you love? Have any of your recent actions openly expressed this love?
  • In 5 years from now, will you remember what you did yesterday? What about the day before that?  Or the day before that?
  • Decisions are being made right now. The question is:  Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you?
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Tony Robbins questions

  • What am I most happy about in my life now? What about that makes me happy? How does that make me feel?
  • What am I most excited about in my life now? What about that makes me excited? How does that make me feel?
  • What am I most proud about in my life now? What about that makes me proud? How does that make me feel?
  • What am I most grateful about in my life now? What about that makes me grateful? How does that make me feel?
  • What am I enjoying most in my life right now? What about that do I enjoy? How does that make me feel?
  • What am I committed to in my life right now? What about that makes me committed? How does that make me feel?
  • Who do I love? Who loves me? What about that makes me loving? How does that make me feel?
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