Find Out Where You Are In Life And Where You Want To Be!
This is a simple, yet thought provoking, set of questions that is aimed at getting to the core of who you are, what you want, and what is stopping you from going out there and getting it. Try to be as honest with yourself as possible when answering these questions.
Basic Daily Life:
1: When you get up in the morning (both weekdays and weekend) do you feel positive or negative about the day ahead?
2: When you go to bed at night are you generally satisfied or unsatisfied with the day?
3: While you are doing your daily job (whatever you do for work each day) is your general feeling positive or negative?
4: While you are with your family and/or friends is your general feeling positive or negative?
5: When you have “You Time” do you come away feeling refreshed or just frustrated that the time is over?
Goals and Dreams:
6: When you were a child you had some idea or vision of what you wanted to be or do as an adult. Is your current situation roughly in line with that vision or not?
If not, is the difference a positive or negative one? (e.g. Did you decide that you’d rather be a journalist instead of a superhero…positive…or did you want to be a journalist as a child but gave up on the idea out of fear, laziness, lack of motivation, etc…negative.)
7: If you could choose any type of work what would it be? List your top 5 choices in descending order.
Is your current position (whatever you do for work each day) in that top 5 list?
If so, what is it ranked?
8: When you take time away from your daily work do you look forward to coming back to it?
9: Are you truly hungry for life? If not, why not? If so, do you feel that you are satisfying that hunger?
10: For the most part, do YOU control your life or does someone else do it for you? (e.g. do you decide when you work, how you work, when you relax and how and so on?)
Now to grade your answers:
Each question has a potential value of 10. You will have to decide for yourself the exact number that most accurately represents that particular question.
-For the +/- questions (yes/no, positive/negative, etc…) (these would be questions 1-6 and 8 ) grade them like this; a positive score would be 6-10 and a negative score would be 5 or less. So if it was just barely positive then give it a 6 but if it was quite positive you could give it an 8 or 9.
-Grade question #7 in a similar way. If your work is not on the top 5 list than give it a 7 or less depending on how far off it is. But if it’s on the list give it an 8 for being #5 or #4, a 9 if it’s a 3 or 2 and a 10 if it’s #1 on the list.
-For question #9 if you are not hungry for life than give it a 5 or less based on how little you hunger. But if you are, then give it a 6 or more depending on how much you satisfy that hunger.
-Finally, for question #10, give yourself a score between 1 and 10 based how how much control you have over your time and your life.
Now add up your score. This number will help show you how close or far you are from living a truly satisfying life. It is not likely that anyone will have a 100 or a 0 for this is near impossible if you answered the questions honestly.
A score of 49 or less should be a HUGE red flag concerning the life you are living. If you are in this boat you need to seriously re-think what you are doing and how you are doing it. You need to act now and start making some drastic changes to get your life back on track to what is should be.
A score of 50 or more means you are either doing just OK or living your life in a more positive way than many. The closer you are to 100 the more you are living your life in line with what your heart desires.
Here is a word association with each grade level:
0-9 = You need serious help!
10-19 = Did I mention that you need some serious help?!
20-29 = You need to make some serious life changes and do it RITH NOW!
30-39 = Things are not looking good and need some serious tweaking.
40-49 = You could be in a worse situation but you need to re-think what and how you’re doing things.
50-59 = Not bad but you have a ways to go.
60-69 = Pretty good. Just a few things need some work.
70-79 = You’re doing quite well. What are the next steps to moving higher?
80-89 = Excellent! Other than a little fine tuning you’re mostly there.
90-99 = Hello life, how have you been?!
100 = You’re there!!!
Do the test over but in light of your situation 5 years ago. Then do it again for 10 years ago.
Now take those and compare them to your current one. Are you progressing, idling or backsliding? If you are progressing, even by a small amount, that’s great. Now just look at the changes you made and see what you can do to enhance and add to them. If you are idling than you know that if you don’t make any changes you will never make any progress. And if you are backsliding you need to see what’s changed that has caused you to go in the wrong direction. Then you need to decide, right away, that it’s time to break away from the things that are keeping you from making progress.
Try to see scores in the lower 50% as in need of recovery and those in the upper 50% as on their way to a better life. So if you scored a 64 than you are moving toward your goals. But if you scored a 34 than you just fighting to stay afloat.
Using myself as an example, my score is about 80% higher now then it was 5 years ago. So what’s the difference between now and then? For my situation, the big change I made was starting my own business. Not just any business, but one that gives me a lot freedom and control over my time and involves something I am good at and enjoy. Oh yeah, it pays pretty well too. But if it were for that alone I would not have such a high score right now. It is the addition of continuing to fine tune my current situation and diversifying my income and work load for a more enjoyable, dependable and satisfying lifestyle.
I just want to make it clear that this is only to help you gauge your current situation, compare it to your past and allow you to decide what needs to change for a better future. I don’t have any intention in unnecessarily making you feel discontent. But I hope that I can help you make the most of what you have and live your life according to your heart’s true desires.
How did you do? Were you able to see some problem areas? Have you made progress from years past? What changes might you make to improve your score and live a better life?