Latest / Impact Ready / 161. 7 Life Altering Questions

Transcript

161. 7 Life Altering Questions · Impact Ready

• 0:02
  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
• 0:06
  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
• 0:09
  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
• 0:12
  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
• 0:15
  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
• 0:22
  Hello team. Happy Monday.
• 0:24
  Hope you had an awesome weekend today.
• 0:26
  In this episode, I actually wanted to stray from the normal
• 0:30
  episode format and just ask you some questions.
• 0:35
  These are 7 questions that I came across a long time ago and
• 0:40
  I've kind of used off and on throughout my coaching practice
• 0:44
  in different settings and workshops and working one-on-one
• 0:47
  with clients. And I found them to actually be
• 0:50
  really powerful and very impactful when it comes to
• 0:53
  helping people kind of hone in on what's really important to
• 0:57
  them. I don't actually know the
• 0:59
  original author of these questions.
• 1:01
  I think when I found them, they came from percentbetter.com.
• 1:05
  So I want to give credit where credit is due, but they might
• 1:09
  not be the original author. So I just want to get that
• 1:12
  caveat here. But the reason I wanted to ask
• 1:16
  questions is because during this holiday season, things can get,
• 1:21
  you know, a little hectic in a positive way.
• 1:23
  And, and then also sometimes it can feel a little heavy for
• 1:25
  people. So sometimes it's just kind of
• 1:28
  fun to ground ourselves with a few things that make us sit and
• 1:32
  think and be introspective and just take some time to kind of
• 1:36
  tune into our own intuition and our own knowing because we don't
• 1:40
  listen to ourselves enough. I think we could all tune in a
• 1:43
  little bit more to our own inner voice and that would be a really
• 1:46
  good thing. So 7 questions to be thinking
• 1:49
  about for the last month of the year.
• 1:53
  Today is December 1st. We have one more month of 2025.
• 1:58
  Absolutely insane if you ask me, but here we are.
• 2:02
  OK so the first of the seven life altering questions is am I
• 2:09
  climbing the right mountain? Am I climbing the right
• 2:11
  mountain? This one is about putting your
• 2:13
  energy in the right place. Where focus goes, energy flows.
• 2:17
  So are you focused on the right thing for yourself?
• 2:21
  This is very personal. This question is very personal
• 2:24
  to you. Nobody can really tell you
• 2:25
  what's right or wrong for this. And I think that's why it makes
• 2:28
  such a difference for people. It might actually take some time
• 2:32
  to answer, but I always think it's better to ask this question
• 2:35
  now rather than 10 years from now and realize, Oh my God, I
• 2:38
  just spent the last 10 years climbing the wrong mountain.
• 2:42
  And when I've asked myself this question before, I have had
• 2:47
  times in my life where I answered yes.
• 2:50
  And then I've also had times in my life where I've answered no.
• 2:54
  And it did inform some of the big decisions that I've made in
• 2:57
  my life, especially in the last five years.
• 2:59
  Am I climbing the right mountain?
• 3:02
  The second life altering question.
• 3:05
  What am I avoiding simply because I know the answer is
• 3:08
  painful? The moves that we are most
• 3:11
  scared to make are usually the ones that are going to make the
• 3:14
  most difference. And I know that sounds cliche,
• 3:16
  but it's just true. It actually just plays out to be
• 3:19
  true. They move the needle the most.
• 3:23
  And when my clients are feeling stuck, like they're not seeing
• 3:26
  the change in their life that they want to see, I asked them
• 3:29
  to make a list of the things that scare them the most.
• 3:33
  And nine times out of 10, those are the things that they find
• 3:36
  that they actually need to be doing.
• 3:39
  So do you want your health to be different?
• 3:41
  Do the thing that scares you the most when it comes to that
• 3:44
  health stuff. Do you want your job to be
• 3:46
  different? Do the thing that scares you the
• 3:49
  most? Do you want your relationship to
• 3:51
  be different? Do the thing that scares you the
• 3:53
  most. And oftentimes it's I'm scared
• 3:55
  to have this conversation or I'm scared to give myself permission
• 3:59
  to think about changing careers, or I'm scared to go out and do
• 4:05
  four or five workouts a week, whatever it might be.
• 4:09
  The thing that feels the scariest or the hardest or like
• 4:13
  it, there's the most resistance around it.
• 4:15
  That's usually the thing that needs to be done.
• 4:19
  And I know that kind of sucks to hear sometimes because we're
• 4:22
  like, oh man, why can't it be easier?
• 4:25
  Trust me, everything is some kind of hard.
• 4:27
  So we should at least just choose the hard that takes us to
• 4:29
  where we want our life to go. The third question, what beliefs
• 4:35
  about myself have expired? And this one is just logical
• 4:39
  because as we get older and we gain experience and wisdom, some
• 4:43
  of our beliefs become very outdated.
• 4:46
  I think the majority of our negative limiting beliefs, our
• 4:50
  saboteurs, are severely outdated because they are often created
• 4:54
  when we are young, in our adolescence, in our teenage
• 4:58
  years. And so many people are running
• 5:01
  around life in their 40s and their 50s, even their 60s and
• 5:05
  their saboteurs created as adolescents are running the damn
• 5:09
  show. So yes, our beliefs expire.
• 5:13
  They become very outdated, and it's really important for us to
• 5:16
  hold a flashlight on them so that we can decide if they're
• 5:19
  actually going to serve us anymore.
• 5:22
  It's also good to look at the ones that we hold really tightly
• 5:25
  to and decide if those are the indicators of places where we
• 5:29
  need to grow more. For example, years ago I had
• 5:33
  this belief that I wasn't great with money, like I wasn't smart
• 5:37
  enough or savvy enough around money.
• 5:40
  But the reality was I just didn't have a lot of education
• 5:43
  around finance and money. And I realized that that was my
• 5:47
  call to take it upon myself to learn about finances and money.
• 5:52
  It wasn't a huge lift. I just needed to get into action
• 5:55
  around it. That belief had expired.
• 5:59
  It wasn't going to serve me anymore.
• 6:01
  And it did actually tell me, hey, this is where you need to
• 6:03
  go. It's a great compass.
• 6:05
  It's a amazing personal litmus test. 4th question, Are the
• 6:11
  results I'm expecting in line with my current habits?
• 6:15
  I always tell people you can't get 10 out of 10 results when
• 6:19
  you're putting 4 out of 10 effort in.
• 6:22
  If we could all do a little audit of how much action we're
• 6:26
  really taking that was aligned with what we really wanted, and
• 6:30
  not just action for action's sake, for the busyness of it,
• 6:34
  we'd probably discover some pretty big holes in the bucket,
• 6:37
  some energy leaks. Think about for you, some of
• 6:41
  your biggest desires in your life.
• 6:43
  Do you want to have a great marriage?
• 6:45
  OK, well, how much energy are you putting into having a great
• 6:49
  marriage? How much work are you putting
• 6:51
  in? Do you want to have healthy, fit
• 6:54
  body well? How much energy are you putting
• 6:56
  into the things that will allow you to experience that?
• 7:00
  If we don't take the action, we don't get the transformation.
• 7:03
  And as we talked about so often, consistency is keying here.
• 7:08
  It's really the small things that we do over and over that
• 7:11
  compound and create exponential growth.
• 7:15
  It doesn't have to be this huge life altering effort.
• 7:18
  It's just little things done day after day to get you the results
• 7:23
  that are in line with your current habits.
• 7:26
  OK question #5 if I died 10 years from today, what would I
• 7:31
  regret not doing? I mean, this is the ultimate gut
• 7:37
  check for me. These questions about future
• 7:40
  self, about what I might potentially regret.
• 7:43
  I always feel like those are the greatest revealers for me.
• 7:47
  And I've seen this question change the trajectory of
• 7:51
  somebody's entire life path. I've had it happen to multiple
• 7:55
  coaching clients. If I died 10 years from today,
• 7:58
  what would I regret not doing? Because their answers were so
• 8:01
  clear and so powerful and so visceral, and they could see how
• 8:07
  far away they were from that, that they knew they had to upend
• 8:11
  kind of everything. And they did.
• 8:13
  They ended up changing the trajectory of the things they
• 8:16
  were doing in their life and it changed the game.
• 8:19
  So that question kind of stands on its own.
• 8:22
  Not much explanation needed. 6th question, who brings out the
• 8:28
  best in me and can I find a way to spend more time with them?
• 8:32
  We know that energy is contagious and we are often the
• 8:36
  some of the people we surround ourselves with to some degree.
• 8:39
  Our friends and our family, our peers, our colleagues, they all
• 8:42
  influence our mindset, our health habits, our behaviors,
• 8:46
  our communication, the way we think about life and money and
• 8:50
  and pretty much everything. So wouldn't it make sense to
• 8:54
  intentionally spend time with people who bring out the best
• 8:57
  version of ourselves? I think it does.
• 9:00
  The trouble is that we often get complacent and we just accept
• 9:04
  that the people we are around are the people who are close to
• 9:08
  us in proximity and we just let that be.
• 9:11
  However, we could rethink this a little bit and be a little more
• 9:15
  purposeful so that the people that we're around are actually
• 9:19
  the ones who are helping inspire and bring out the best parts of
• 9:23
  us. Because when the best parts of
• 9:25
  us come out, the more impact we have, the more ripple effects,
• 9:28
  the more exponential growth happens, and the better we can
• 9:34
  create a life that we really want and not just one that we're
• 9:37
  sort of living by default. Finally, the last question, 7th
• 9:41
  question. What would my ideal day look
• 9:44
  like and how far away from that am I today?
• 9:47
  And this is kind of a cool exercise.
• 9:49
  It's similar to a future visioning exercise that clients
• 9:54
  do where they write the future vision for their life in great
• 9:58
  detail. I have them include as much
• 10:01
  sensory information as possible. I have them write it in the
• 10:03
  present tense, include a lot of detail about environment and
• 10:08
  what things smell like and look like and feel like.
• 10:11
  It's a chance for you to design A day that you would love to
• 10:16
  live so that you could then kind of reverse engineer that vision
• 10:19
  for yourself. And again, this one is very
• 10:22
  personal, but that's a good thing because you're really the
• 10:26
  only person who knows what a joyful, fulfilled life looks
• 10:29
  like to you. My version of that and your
• 10:31
  version of that is going to look a little bit different.
• 10:34
  So to be able to describe it and then think about, OK, how far
• 10:38
  away from that am I? That's going to give you a lot
• 10:41
  of information to help move in the direction that you want to
• 10:45
  go. So those are the seven powerful
• 10:48
  life altering questions. I hope that you can write these
• 10:52
  down, just capture them on a piece of paper and spend a
• 10:56
  little bit of time just writing about them.
• 10:58
  When you write hand write things, you start to create
• 11:02
  different neural connections in your brain rather than typing.
• 11:05
  So if you do have the opportunity to actually
• 11:07
  physically put pen to paper, it's really powerful.
• 11:11
  My friend. Trust me, I know that not
• 11:14
  everybody's into journaling, but just consider this like a little
• 11:18
  podcast challenge is to, for 15 to 20 minutes, write about these
• 11:23
  questions and see what comes up. I think it could be really cool.
• 11:26
  And I think it's a powerful way to kick off the last month of
• 11:29
  2025. So thank you for being here and
• 11:33
  for listening. I hope that this episode feels
• 11:35
  fun. I hope you do the challenge and
• 11:37
  send me a message if you find out something cool about
• 11:40
  yourself. I'd love to hear what you
• 11:42
  discover. Thank you for being here
• 11:44
  listening to this show. I appreciate you and thank you
• 11:48
  for always being ready to Impact.
• 11:51
  Thanks for listening to Impact Ready.
• 11:53
  I hope today's episode inspired you to own your impact and
• 11:56
  recognize that you are powerful. By elevating our energy and
• 12:00
  awareness, we can create exponential change in this life.
• 12:04
  If you enjoyed today's insights, share them with a friend and
• 12:06
  subscribe to the show for more. I truly appreciate you.
• 12:09
  Thanks again for being here.