Questions That Will Change Your Life

Eight years ago, I felt quite lost in my career. I had just finished grad school and was unsure where to go with my career now that I moved from Europe to the US. I was torn between many passions and possibilities. Lost.

In one of the many online courses that I was doing at the time, one exercise enabled me to really anchor my career focus. It was simple, yet powerful: What are the 10 most important questions that you are trying to answer in your life?

I spent about an hour thinking about this and created my first draft. I created several iterations, changing and reframing the questions several times. Once I was done, I was shocked by the power of this exercise:

• It made me introspective in a playful way, opening up my creativity.

• It deeply connected with my curiosity, making me feel excited about the potential in front of me - to come up with 10 questions that interested me the most!

• It forced me to prioritize.

• It taught me the importance of the question frame and how to reframe it.

 ✊ Once I had my 10 questions, my career dilemmas were gone.

Curiosity and a sense of opportunity created such excitement that I knew where I needed to go. I saw the pattern: the intersection between politics, activism, technology, leadership development, community building, and creation. That led me to stop looking for a job and start my organization ChangeLab Global - using innovative approaches to leadership development to create more democratic leaders.

🎯 Action Item

Take 15 minutes today and write down your 10 questions. Here are some additional questions that might guide you:

• What are you deeply curious about?

• What do you really want to understand?

• Reflecting on your life choices, which questions have been trying to answer already?  

• What do you do effortlessly? What question is behind that?

Don’t overthink it the first time around; just write down the 10 questions you are most curious about. See what comes out. Then go again and do a second draft.

Check my 10 questions here.

🧠 Remember:

• All 10 must be in question form.

• The questions will evolve over time; they don’t have to be perfect now.

• You may completely change some questions or reframe them. That is okay!

• The frame of the question matters!

  • “How do I become a better leader?” and “How do I reach my full potential?” are very different frames coming from a similar desire.

  • Different frames will give you a slightly different mindset.

📖 Read it every day!

Take 2 minutes every day to read your 10 questions. Start your day this way to anchor yourself.

By framing these questions, you are priming your brain to seek connections, patterns, people, resources, and opportunities to answer them. This will be a new force driving you to focus on what matters to you. You will pay attention to different things, notice different stuff, and hear things differently. It's not magic; it's just how our brains work.

Change your questions to change your life!

Nikola Ilic

Pulse of Change is committed to empowering the next generation of leaders with insights and tools for meaningful change. Share this newsletter with your friends who are on this journey with you, and together, let's shape a future we can all be proud of! New Subscribers Link