Ask Yourself these 3 Questions to Uncover Your True Desire

Questions have a special power.

Ask the right question and the answer may surprise you. Ask the wrong question and you may be completely thrown off of your efforts.

One way that questions are especially powerful is in helping us figure out what to do with our lives. By asking just the right question, you can gain a level of clarity you’ve never experienced before, sending you off on an adventure that you’ll never forget.

Ask Yourself these 3 Questions to Uncover Your True Desire

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.

– Bono

Questions have held an immense amount of value for me at certain points in my life, from giving me clarity about my direction to helping me make a decision when I’ve felt stuck. This is a collection of some of the most powerful questions I’ve found for gaining clarity about yourself and your direction in life.

1. What are the three things you’d do if you were going to die tomorrow?

If you’ve never done anything like it, this first question can be a doozy.

This question requires that you reflect on your own impermanence. Imagine that you just came back from the doctor having been diagnosed with very late-stage cancer. They’d be surprised if you survived more than another day.

If this was your life (and really take the time to imagine yourself in this situation), what would you do? What immediately comes to mind? Certain things are likely to jump out at you right away, giving you some immediate clarity.

2. If money weren’t an issue, what would you do?

This is a question you may have heard before. That’s because, well...it’s what this is all about. What do you really want to do? What do you have a burning passion for? What would you do if money weren’t an issue?

There’s something important to note about this question: our bullshit meter often goes off and blocks us from getting value from it. The previous question not so much, but we’ve seemed to attach such great value to money that even just imagining that we’re wealthy can be difficult.

What I’ve found helps is thinking up a believable scenario for some sudden influx of wealth (like an inheritance) and then simply reminding yourself that you’re just imagining. I tried this question before to no avail. It wasn’t until I did this that it worked immediately and I received invaluable clarity about what I really wanted to do with my life.

3. Do my actions align with my true desire?

This final question relies on you having effectively answered the first two. This question is about connecting the dots. So, you know what you want to do, what direction you want to take your life in, but is what you’re doing now in line with this?

But wait, this question doesn’t help us uncover our true desire, does it? It’s also helpful in this first stage because by asking this you can find potential conflicts.

The reality is, sometimes, we don’t answer the second question (“If money weren’t an issue, what would you do?”) honestly. That’s because we’ve been so conditioned by society to tell us what we should want that it’s hard to shake. This question helps identify the central conflict and can even bring us additional clarity, on top of identifying what our next steps are for taking action on our true desire.

Questions offer us the ability to gain clarity where there once was none. A well-placed question can help us discover our true desire or realize that we’re on the wrong path. Use these three powerful questions to uncover your true desire and begin living your story.