 Whenever you're going through a difficult time in life, there are lots of different ways to get the answers that you need for yourself. But in my experience, the best answers that have come to me have been when friends or advisors or someone that's helping coach me asks me powerful questions and then they let me sit and reflect to see what those things are. So in this video, I wanna share five questions you can use to coach yourself that will help you get clarity on how to design your dream life going forward. Hey guys, Alex Hine here over at Modern Health Monk, author of the book on habits, Master Zideh. Now before we jump in, I've put together a free journaling worksheet. It's the first link right below. It goes right along with these five questions you can ask yourself. They are different questions on that free worksheet because it's not related to this specific video, but they are questions that will help you figure out what you wanna do with your life and figure out how to make that happen. Question number one, today is the day you dreamt of five years ago. Is it everything that you wanted? You know, we have this fantasy that when we get to the future, 25, 35, 45, 55, you're just gonna have your goals and life figured out, right? Like I've just been dating people that I don't really care about, but when I'm 32, I'm gonna find my dream girl, I'm gonna wife her up, we're gonna have three kids and be happy. In reality, what happens is people date unconsciously until they're 30 and then they realize, wow, I don't know what I want. I don't know how to find that kind of woman or man. And I'm actually just lost 10 years that I could have spent deliberately dating. Or you know what? By the time I'm 30, I'll be making six figures, I'll be doing work I love, I'll be running that amazing nonprofit, I'll write my first book, I'll build my YouTube channel, whatever it is. And then the sad thing is, it doesn't happen. I mean, one of the things I've seen with people is that we sort of don't understand what it takes to actually make goals happen and we have this fantasy that leads to midlife crises. You know, we think that when I'm 30, I'll just wake up and have a book. Not realizing that the way you have a book is by today, taking one hour of action towards the goal of writing. We have the fantasy that when I'm 35, I'll be making six figures in my business or my YouTube channel, whatever it is. But we don't realize that, how do you do that? By when you're 25, you dedicate an hour a day towards learning how to build a YouTube channel or being a good business owner. You know, we have this fantasy that by 40, I'll be married to my dream woman, have this amazing house, this amazing family, do work I love, and yet we're 30 and we're still doing work we hate because it pays the bills. You know, for five years, since 25, we're complaining I'm gonna quit this stupid job and I'm gonna do something else. But five years have gone by, is today the life you want? If not, that is a gift because it points to a massive fundamental error in the way you're thinking about reaching your goals. So the way you make sure that's true is what habits do I have to start doing daily to make sure the next five on where I wanna be? So the corollary, habit in question number two is what daily habit will produce my long-term goal? You know, if you want to lose 20 pounds to master the day, what daily habit or two or three is most likely to make that happen? Tracking what I eat and eating consciously, going to the gym, and let's say sleeping eight hours. Those three habits, if I track them daily, will result in me mastering the day and eventually losing 20 pounds. What if I wanna save 20K for a down payment on a home? If you said five years ago I was gonna have all this money saved and you have a home and you have $1,000 saved or less and you don't have a home, obviously there's an incongruency with your daily rituals. So if I wanna save 20K one day to get a down payment on a home, what do I need to do to make each day your masterpiece? I need to save. So how much do I need to save every day or every month to reach that goal? Maybe I just save $200 a month and I have a system for doing that. That is aligned to daily action, mastering the day to one day reach the goal. And if I wanna find love, if five years ago I thought I'd be in my dream relationship and I'm not, well, if you didn't find someone, maybe the issue is finding people. So that may mean on a day-to-day basis, yes, even if you're an introvert, even if you don't want to, that may mean what's the daily habit? I need to get out more. I need to ask out one person a week that I find interesting. And if I don't even meet one person a week, I find interesting, then there's my issue. I don't go out at all. I'm just sitting at home playing video games or reading books. So if I just put the note, okay, three events I'm gonna go do this week, that is aligned with reaching that goal. The third question, what is resonant in my life? Have you ever been on a date where you go on a date with someone that's really physically attractive, they may have other traits that you find attractive logically on the piece of paper, your checklist. But when you talk to them, you don't really feel that excited by them. You don't feel that interested. You don't feel intrigued. You don't feel like you just cannot wait to see this person again or you cannot wait to talk all night with them. You just kind of, it's whatever, right? And they may be physically beautiful, attractive, fit, successful, whatever it is for you. And then if you've ever been on a date where you just cannot stop talking to the person, you want it to go all night, you're laughing, you're smiling, you feel an increase in energy, you get off the date, you can't stop talking to your friends, you just can't stop talking about it. That is resonance as I call it. And one thing I found is that if you apply that same filter to everything in your life, you Marie Kondo the shit out of your life. My work is a resonant. Do I feel that date effect? Where I live, my apartment, is that resonant? Do I walk in and even though it may be cheap or all I can afford does it at least feel resonant? It excites me. My friends, are they resonant? Everyone, my spouse, my schedule. If your whole life is resonant, you become a person that is such high energy you can achieve so much. And I found that the key to finding things you love and building the life you love is recognizing what is resonant and doing more of that. Question four, what is my zone of genius? This term comes from a book called The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. And the zone of genius Gay Hendricks describes similar to resonance, where what is something you're both good at and people give you good feedback on your good at. And the reason I say that is because Gay talks about this idea of trying to get 80% of your day in your zone of genius, only doing the things that you want to be doing. And if you can do that, not only will you create amazing work because you're excited by it, but your life and your days are going to be much, much easier than they would otherwise. So trying to find work or a job that is mostly in your zone of genius, it excites you, you're good at it, people tell you that you do great work at it. Trying to find those three things will lead to a lot of resonance and enjoyment in your work. And you're probably gonna do damn good work if that's what you're looking for. The fifth question is what is my perfect day? Now the reason this is so important is because years ago I found myself working really, really hard towards all my goals and dreams. I'd written my first book, I'm uploading YouTube videos, I'm studying how to be a good business owner, all of this nonsense, and it was hard. And eventually what happened was, I was finding I was spending so much time learning how to be in business, to be an entrepreneur. You know, years had went by and I had some of the success I wanted, but I hated every day. I wasn't looking forward to it. So I was one day going for a walk reflecting on the irony of the situation of quitting my job to work for myself, only to do work that was even harder with less financial certainty and at a certain point, I was doing things I hated all the same and I was like, what's the point? Literally, what's the point? I quit my job and now I have a worse job that's even harder and I don't have a guaranteed income. So that was ironic. That was very ironic for me. What happens for a lot of us is that if we aren't thinking about how we wanna spend our days, which is how we spend our lives, we end up doing things we hate to try to reach goals, right? And what happens is you reach your goal and realize you hated the last year of your life and if you keep doing that for your whole life, you're going to build a life that you hate. And I heard this great quote that there's never a happy ending to an unhappy journey that I deeply believe in because if every day you hate the path, the journey, your days, to one day reach a goal, which is first of all, assuming you even reached that goal, either way, you get it, you don't get it, you're gonna realize you hated your life and what's the point if you hate your whole life? There is none. So I hope these five questions can help you reflect on your life to coach yourself. The journaling worksheet below will help you as well, and otherwise, I'll see you soon, guys.