6 questions to help you do some innerwork
Does something just feels off? Do you know you have to change something, but aren’t really sure what. Nor where to start re-examining your life.
Socrates once said: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living’. Strong words, but in essence still very true, even after 2500 years.
Although few these days sit down to philosophise, his learning called the Socratic Dialogue serves everybody well. It’s an exercise of short questions and answers to discuss a moral or philosophical dilemma, but can very well be used with the goal to examine and learn from previous experiences.
And you might actually do this in your life already, as you could describe this exercise as journaling. Many evaluate their business day on a regular basis. Many also journal to stay present, express thoughts and feelings or keep a gratitude log. Some journal while travelling or to keep track of what needs to be done. The list of topics you can journal about is endless, and all are good topics.
The quality of the journaling and the possible impact on your life is not in the topic. It’s in the questions.
Yes, the power is in the questions you ask yourself and sometimes especially in the questions you allow others to ask you.
Let me give you six questions you can ask yourself if something just feels off, if you need to find a new pathway or you’re looking for that spark in life again.
Take your time for this exercise and read the questions out loud for yourself. Sit down with pen and paper and make sure you don’t have anything scheduled that can rush you.
SPOILER → these aren’t easy questions to answer
Is my average day worth living again? Pick one word to describe your mood or feeling listening to and answering this question.
What did I learn from my experiences? Examine the past 6-12 months to answer this question. Don’t shy away from discussing the negatives too.
Is my outer day-to-day life in balance with my inner-self or inner-values? This is the moment that you write down what is important to you in life & what it means to you to be a good human being
Do I practise “Integritas? Integritas is Latin for unified or whole and gave us the word integrity. Examine with which elements of question 3 you live out of sync.
What do I want for the future? Set a timeline of 12 months into the future and envision where you are, what you do and how you behave. Be brave in envisioning your new you!
Create your new pathway forwards. Bring all the above answers together.. Describe what you need to do to reach your goal, which lessons you take on board, what actions you need to take, but also 2-3 things you need to stop doing in the future.
Asking yourself these really relevant and sometimes difficult questions can be very hard. And that’s totally normal. Our brain is designed to keep us safe and that comes with avoiding big changes, touch decisions and difficult innerwork questions.
But a coach can help here. I too find it sometimes easier to sit down with a cup of tea and discuss these questions and answers with somebody. Somebody who is there to just listen and give me the opportunity to form the answers myself, to find the solutions myself, to just be there and guide me.
This is an example of the mindset work I do in my GESHMAK Program in combination with making a real vision board based on the answers to question 6. If you feel like you could do with some more help from me and the power of learning from others in the program, I invite you to send me a DM with your story and we can chat about your pathway forwards.
Love Émely