7 Critical Questions for Focus, Direction, and Your Best Life

Okay, welcome back to the Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. I hope you're having a great day. Listen, we're on episode 367. That's a lot of episodes. I hope you've enjoyed some of the content that we've had. And today, I want to follow up on some content we talked about on Monday. But before I do, quote of the day. The quote of the day is by Tony Robbins, and it is, The past does not equal the future. The past does not equal the future. I'll tell you what, so many people I look at and listen to and hear from nowadays, they need to learn to move on. The future is definitely not created with your past. You've got to learn from it. You've got to move on. And the future is also, by the way, not created in the future. You've got to create your life in the present. Listen to that again. Your future is not created in the future. You've got to live in the present. So that's a great quote. Let's go ahead and jump into the seven critical questions because I know we have a lot to cover today. We'll see how much we can get through. The seven questions that I talked about yesterday are critical questions to help you focus and create direction in your life. That direction is going to help make sure you're on the right path because sometimes we just get going so fast that we don't stop and realize that we might be on the wrong path. We might be going the wrong direction. So I'm going to review those real quick with you. The first question is what's on your mind and the second question is what else is on your mind dig a little deeper the third question being what's the most important thing you could be thinking about right now and that leads us to exactly what do you want and how can you obtain help to get what you want and then the last couple of questions we're going to go through is what's the best thing you can do right now the best thing for you that you can do right now and what are you learning by examining your thoughts because let's just remind you, if you didn't pick up the episode, you can go back and listen from Monday, but your thoughts are creating your life. And as a result, you have to take a minute every once in a while and just analyze what you're thinking about because the thoughts that you are thinking about are going to drive your expectations. They're going to drive your activity. They're going to drive everything that you're doing in your life. And so these seven questions, these critical questions, even though they're simple, don't let them fool you. they're designed to help you analyze what your thoughts are focused on and how you can start to direct those thoughts. So let's look at that first question the opening question what's on your mind? I want you to really write down just brainstorm a list of what is on your mind right now what are your dominant thoughts what are you thinking about because if you're thinking about the issues and circumstances and problems and stress and anxiety that you have that's what you're going to attract into your life. You've got to be aware, and that's the key here, awareness of what your thoughts are because what you think about the most is what you will become. So that first question, what's on your mind is very important Don skip over that You got to really go through because sometimes even your dominant thoughts off the top of your head are not really your most common thoughts And once you do that we going to jump into question two which is really this is an expansion question. This is a question that says, what else is on your mind? I want you to drive just a little bit deeper into your thoughts and remember that your thoughts are driving your expectations and actions. And so when I did this exercise, and I do it often, I'll put all the thoughts that I think about a lot, which is work and family and relationships and things that you're working on. But go a little deeper because there's always a level of thoughts that are really kind of driving your subconscious. And you know, it might be a situation or a circumstance or things you dealt with in the past that keeps reoccurring. Why does that thought keep coming up? Because you have to understand your thoughts. You'll probably recognize this phrase. You got to seek first to understand and then you can direct your thoughts because you can't just overwhelm and overpower them because your subconscious is going to be churning the whole time anyway. That's why some nights you go, you finally sleep and you have dreams that you're like, where did that come from? Well, it came from thoughts that you have, you're just not aware of. So I want you to really dig deep into what else is on your mind. And then once you've done that, it's time to kind of focus your thoughts a little more. So what's the most important thing that you could be thinking about right now? What is, as Gary Keller would say in his book, the one thing, what is the big domino in your day, your life, your direction? The one thing that you could be doing such that everything else becomes easier. Are you focused on the thing that's the most important, not just the most urgent? And another key question is this. are you focused on something that's not important to your direction and path? If you're focused on, it's just as important to figure out what you shouldn't be thinking about as to be thinking about what you want your thoughts to be. So what is the one thing, I'm not talking about just activity here, I'm talking about what's the one thing you could be thinking about all the time that will be the most important thing to help you accomplish your life? And write those down. You know, I'm talking about these questions being something you can journal in and really get detail in. And then once you've done that, the fourth critical question is the target question. And you've got to ask yourself something that's been a common theme of this podcast, which is exactly what do you want? Now, I want to expand this thought just a little bit because many times we think what we want are things. you know a great life a great income a good business a successful house or relationship or you know household or relationship or whatever it is but i would argue and so would my partner robert stuberg that what you truly want are the emotions that those things bring you really if you get down to the core what we're really looking for in life is emotions happiness fulfillment recognition, love, encouragement. So how can you feel these emotions right now while continuing to make progress in your life For example is your definition of feeling successful the emotion of success is it when you get to your goal or is it that you're successfully or happily accomplishing your goal? See, there's always ways you can reframe your thoughts to experience those emotions. Tony Robbins does this a lot in his events as well and my partner Robert's done it with me personally when I've had some mentoring And that is, if you want happiness, think of a moment that you've been really happy. Because we've all had those moments at times. And if you close your eyes and you think of all the circumstances that happened in that moment, you can experience that emotion. You don't have to have some future goal to experience the emotions. And so there are ways. How can you reframe and experience the emotions that you want to experience in life right now, but also continue to make progress? So this target question of exactly what do you want really means what kind of emotions do you want to experience and how can you experience those emotions right now while you're continuing to make progress towards your best life and the best version of yourself. Now, the fifth question, that'll then lead you to more of a guidance question, which is how can you get help to obtain what you want? You know, who is the best person that can help you? Sometimes, sometimes it's just an accountability partner or a coach, for example. You know, I have those with working out. Sometimes I just need somebody to help push me along. What is it that you need? How can you clarify and create clarity around what you need? Or is it that you need the skill or you need assistance or you need someone that's more of a mentor? Or do you need a peer group like a mastermind? Do you need a group of people that are doing what you're doing, that are in the trenches? See, there's a big difference between coaching and mentoring and masterminding. But who is the best person? Maybe it's a mentor or maybe it's just a friend. It's a relationship. It's a partner. Who can help you the best? And then how do you clarify and communicate exactly what you need? Because it's very, very important that if you're going to get help, that you're really clear and you communicate exactly the help you need or else you're going to get completely different help. The more clear you can communicate what you need, the more you're going to get what you need. And that's a super important thought for you to keep in mind. So as you're guiding your thoughts and you're going through this process, it's going to lead you to the last couple of questions. The action question and the growth question. The action question is, what is the best thing for you to do right now? What is the most important thing you can do right now? because you can, listen to me carefully on this one, you can only do one thing at a time. That's why it's so hard for us to have so many thoughts because really at the end of the day, there's only one thing you can do at a time. Even if you think you can multitask, you're still only doing one thing in the moment. And so what is that one thing you can do? How can you constantly remind yourself and your thoughts of the most important thing at that moment you can do And I would recommend at this stage of the game and in the thought process that you also decide how can you create daily rituals that'll constantly drive you towards the correct actions. So for example, I know that one of the things I can do in the morning is to work out because it gets my body moving, my mind moving, I feel productive. so how do I create daily rituals to empower me to do that and then what is the most important thing I could do at that time? It's give it everything I've got. So many people are at the gym working out but they're multitasking or they're on their phone or they're trying to meet people or whatever it is. If working out is a goal that you have, you need to be in the moment and do that thing and do it really well but create daily rituals that'll guide you. It might be meditation. It might be certain actions in your day but create daily rituals and then the final question The final question is really a growth question because we're talking about your thoughts and creating your life and creating the best version of yourself. So the growth question is, what are you learning by examining these thoughts and how is it going to help you grow? So we're going through this whole process not just to direct you and clarify what you're doing. We're going through it so that you can create the best version of yourself, right? So what's the biggest takeaway that you can get from going through this exercise. We've gone through it fairly quickly. I want you to spend some time journaling and go through it at a much slower in-depth pace. But at the end of it, I want you to decide how is it or what is it that you've learned that can help you be the best version of yourself and how can you implement ways to do that more effectively? That's the key here. So I have a couple final thoughts for you. I know we're a little bit over what we normally do, but are your thoughts helping you to experience what you want in life? Are your thoughts keeping you consistent or your thoughts distracting you from the life you want to have? Because our thoughts can be a tool or they can be a distraction. Be aware of whether your thoughts are being a tool or a distraction. If they're a distraction, you've got to take the reins back. And then keep in mind one other thing, and you've probably heard this many times, but I'm going to give it to you in conclusion here. What you focus on grows. what your thoughts are focused on grows. Meaning focus your thoughts on what you want and you'll attract those into your life. Be consciously focusing your thoughts on what you want and you will attract more of that into your life. I promise you. I've learned that many, many times. So anyway, please like and subscribe the podcast and share this with somebody you think might benefit from it. And maybe even if you don't think you understand what they're going through, maybe this can help them. So share this podcast with at least one person. It'll mean the world to me. I appreciate you listening, and I look forward to talking with you about some really cool stuff I have for you on Thursday and Friday. So have a great day.