If the quality of our life is determined by the quality of questions we’re asking, and you look around at your life and you don’t like everything that you see. Perhaps you don’t like anything that you see. Maybe it’s time to start asking a better question. Maybe it’s time for a question to know.

I’m Lori A. Harris. I’m an award winning transformational coach, and it’s my great honor and duty to help you live a life that gives you life. Today, we’re going to be talking about three powerful questions that will move your life in a forward direction, that will get you unstuck when you’re feeling stuck, and help you to get more in alignment with a love and a life that you absolutely love living. Let’s get going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

So think about it. Sometimes we find ourselves living lives that are not the ones we planned or dreamed of. Sometimes we live lives for other people. Sometimes we’re living other people’s dreams. Sometimes we simply fall out of touch with ourselves. We have an inner knower. We have an inner winter. But somehow along the way, we lose touch with that part of ourselves that knows exactly what to do and knows exactly what we want.

We turn around and we find ourselves living the same unfulfilling life, day after day, week after week, month after a month. Sometimes it’s not because we want to. Sometimes it’s because we’ve become strongly attached to a particular identity. We can’t imagine ourselves doing anything else.

Sometimes we’re living the dream or the fantasy of someone important in our life. Maybe our mom went off to college and always wanted to be a lawyer but didn’t think she had what it takes to become a lawyer. So she never did. She talked about it all the time in your family of origin, and really encouraged you to go to law school. So you might find yourself practicing law or doing a job that you never really gave a lot of thought to. If you tell yourself the truth, you don’t want to do.

Many people find themselves on that track. My mom was a teacher. My dad was a teacher. My sister is a teacher, and my brother is a teacher. I guess it just makes sense for me to become a teacher. It only makes sense to become a teacher if that’s what you really want to do.

So the very first question is the question what do I want? As we go through these three questions, these three questions will ultimately lead to a final question that you are absolutely able to answer as bonus question, if you will. So the first question is what do I want? What do I want?

Sometimes we get out of the habit of checking in with ourselves and just knowing what we want. We’re unable to make decisions. It’s hard for us even going to a restaurant. We look at the menu and we look at the price before we look at the ingredients. We check with our friends. Well, what are you going to have? We lose our ability to make a decision.

So the first thing is just to spend some time in quietude to determine what is it that I really want. If I could do anything at all in the world with my time and my talent, what would I be doing? What part of my creativity is not yet being expressed that I would love to explore and express? What am I doing with my health and my relationships?

What do I want? Do I want to be a traveler? Do I want to be an adventurer? Do I want to take a class? Do I want to redecorate my house? Do I want a new house? Do I want to move? Do I want to leave California or some other state? Do I want to leave my job? Do I want a new position? Do I want a promotion? Do I want to explore something new? The very first question that you must ask yourself is what do I want?

Now once you’ve given serious consideration, thoughtful consideration to the question of what do you want, and you gain some clarity. You’ve given yourself time to listen to your inner wanter, to listen to your inner knower. Once you’ve done that, I’m gonna recommend invite you to write it down. Because as you write it down, more information will be revealed to you. It can be a journal exercise. What do I really want? If anything was possible and I can be, do, or have anything, what do I want?

Maybe you want a closer relationship with a member of your family. Maybe you want to heal a brokenness that is you’ve experienced between the two of you. Ask yourself the question what do I want even if there’s a part of you that thinks that desire is crazy or that desire is unattainable. At least tell yourself the truth and discover what do I want.

Now, the next thing that you must do in order to have the experience of getting, being, doing what you want. The next thing you need to do is to check in with yourself and look at your life at this particular moment versus the projected, the thing that you want that you don’t yet have in your experience. Look at that then ask yourself what do I need to stop doing or start doing in order to experience that?

So that’s two questions. What do I need to stop doing in order to experience this thing that I’ve discovered that I really want? So stop doing. Sometimes we get into habits. Sometimes we get into routines, and we get stuck in a groove.

We do the same thing over and over and over again without much thought, without giving it any consideration to is this the thing that I want to be doing. Is this the thing that’s going to lead me to greater satisfaction and positivity in my life? Or is it merely a habit? So what do I need to stop doing in order to experience this light that I’ve designed on paper, that I’ve given some thought to and decided yeah, I’d really love that. What do I need to stop doing?

Now one thing that I know about many of my listeners, the people who love to listen to this podcast, and those that are in my coaching community is that you are helpers. You’re givers. You are people who love to be of service. Also your high achievers.

One thing that I’ve noticed about my clients and listeners to the podcast is sometimes it’s difficult to step away from a behavior that has become a habit, that has become comfortable, that has become our go to tool for making things happen in our life. Even if it’s no longer working. Even if it’s not as effective as it might want to have been.

Sometimes we have habits and routines that we are doing, but they no longer serve us. It requires us to give up an element of control. So sometimes we get a little bit controlling, a little bit anxious. We think to ourselves, I can’t do that. Because if I do this, this, this, and this will happen. We snowball a scenario in our minds that has not yet happened. We snowball a catastrophe in our minds that is not a guarantee.

So we hold on tight. Sometimes holding on tight can produce a bit of anxiety. We delude ourselves with having a sense of control when the first thing we often should do and are reluctant to do is to stop doing, to surrender, and to recognize that some things are beyond our control. So what do you need to stop doing?

I’m going to share a story with you about one thing I needed to do when I was at a crossroads in my life. I decided I wanted to be a lawyer when I was 14 years old. I had been hanging out with my aunt. I noticed that she was having an impact in helping a lot of people.

I was with her when she took and passed the bar exam. What I noticed is everybody made a really big deal out of it. I was about 11 or 12 when she took the bar exam. I just noticed how everyone thought it was such a big deal. Oh, she took the bar. She passed the first time. The California bar is so difficult. Good job, good job. I’m so proud of her good job.

Now, my aunt was a person that I had known to be quite bright. So the fact that she took him half the bar exam didn’t really impact me. I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal. But at age 14 when I decided I wanted to be a lawyer, I decided also, not consciously but in the back of my mind, I decided to go ahead and start worrying about the bar exam.

So at age 14, I worried if I became a law student and then took the California bar exam, would I pass? So then with that thought came a lot of concerns. Worries. So if I didn’t pass, well what would it mean about me? If I didn’t pass, what would people think of me? If I didn’t pass, how would I ever survive? So these things were thoughts that were rolling around my head, and it made it very difficult.

So I’m going through high school. I haven’t finished high school, but I’m worried about the bar exam. I’m going through college. I haven’t finished college, but I’m worried about the bar exam. Now, fast forward, I’m actually in law school. I choose a school that’s accredited, and I take the safe route. I do what I think I can do. Then I sit for the bar exam.

I spent a lot of time worrying about the bar exam. Not necessarily studying, but I really spend a lot of time worrying and being concerned about what will people think of me, what will people say about me? So most of my time, effort, and energy went toward creating an outcome that I actually didn’t want. So I failed the bar exam.

Fast forward the next time I was studying for the exam, I had to surrender. I had to give up some things that I had been committed to doing for 14 years, worrying about the bar exam. I had to give that up. I had to stop and put my efforts in to preparing for the bar exam and preparing my mind to pass the bar exam. So rather than playing out scenarios of failure in my mind, I started playing scenarios of success. I began to plan for when I passed the bar exam. No longer if, but when. When I made that shift, I passed the bar exam.

Now one of the things that was interesting to me that I noticed was it came with the surrender. It came with recognizing there’s some things I don’t have control over, but there are some things that I do have control over. So I’m going to do my very best with the things that I have control over and then release the things that I don’t. I surrendered. In surrendering, it gave me more space and more expansion so that I can get to the solutions I needed to creatively think so that I can do what needed to be done.

The bar exam was not about being smart or not being smart. The bar exam is about creating a strategy and following it through. The first thing in any strategy is to believe that it will succeed and look for evidence that it will succeed, and then make decisions based on that evidence.

Now, the next thing that you can do is ask yourself what do I need to start doing in order to succeed? In order for me to get to that clarity, that dream, that desire that I radically told the truth to myself about, what do I need to start doing? So if you decided to spend less time on social media, maybe you can start making tiny moves in the direction of your desire, your dream. Make one small effort every day to make it happen.

I often work with people who have served some time in incarceration. Their steps are very much like our steps, even though we’re not in custody. Because at some point a person who’s incarcerated, they have to accept that there are elements of their life that they don’t have control over. With doing that then they’re able to say well, here I am. I’m in this situation. What will I do with this experience? How will I move forward?

That can be very difficult, particularly for people who don’t have a projected parole date or release date. These people have to decide, the responsible person must decide, what will I do with this one precious life I have? I find myself locked up. How will I behave? So I imagine that there are certain decisions that have to be made.

There are rules within a custodial setting. If one decides to go with the rules, it might reduce the level of violence that you’re exposed to. There are cultural norms within a custodial institution. In order to succeed within this institution, people have to figure out how to walk that line so that they can keep themselves safe and keep themselves out of trouble. So when one is in our custodial situation, much like those of us who are not, there are things that we must decide to stop doing in order to succeed. There are things that we must decide to start doing in order to change the trajectory of our lives.

So the question is, what do I want? What do I want, honestly, and you allow yourself to journal in quietude to discover the things that would light you up. You stop doing things that necessarily no longer serve you. It’s okay to change your mind. It’s okay to be a both and. It’s okay to have more in your life. You don’t have to restrict yourself to certain identities or boxes. So allow yourself to dream. Ask yourself, what do I want? Write it down.

Then we’re gonna go with the next question. What do I need to stop doing in order to move this thing forward? Maybe you need to stop spending so much time on social media. Maybe you need to edit your friends and people who don’t make you feel good. Spend less time with them. Maybe you need to stop watching TV.

Or maybe you need to give up an element of feeling as if you need to control everything and allow yourself to surrender to more ease. What do I need to stop doing in order for me to love this life? What do I need to start doing? What are the things that I think that I would love to be, do, or have? What would I love to experience? What can I do to move that forward?

You don’t have to know all the answers, but you can get started. One thing that’s important for us to realize is how we talk to ourselves makes a huge difference. So building confidence comes from taking action. It’s not from having the perfect solution. It’s not something that we can think our way through.

Building confidence comes from taking action and then learning from those action steps. Sometimes the actions will be the perfect action. It will lead to another action and will move us forward. Sometimes the action that we have chosen to take will be a not yet. We can decide how we want to respond to that.

We could call it a failure. We can say hey, I’m going to fail fast and fail often. Because as I learned what not to do, it gets me closer to the thing I want to do, the thing I need to do. So what meaning are we giving to the things that don’t work out? Confidence comes from action. So we want to ask ourself, what do I need to start doing in order to move this forward?

So we got our three questions. What do I want? What do I need to stop doing to move this thing forward? What do I need to start doing in order to move this thing forward? The bonus question that will come that will tie this all together to our first question is who Am I? Who am I, and what do I want?

I am Lori A Harris. I’m a transformational life coach and lawyer. What I love doing is helping my clients have an experience more freedom. I do that with teaching my clients transformational tools that will help them move their life forward. So with this question tune up, I hope that you had some value from it.

If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Let them know three things they can do to move their life forward. If you really liked it, go to Apple podcasts, rate, follow and review the show. This is the way that we can grow our audience and help even more people. This is episode 51 of the Unlock Your Life podcast. It’s been my great honor and privilege to speak with you this week. I can’t wait to speak to you again. Remember, it’s your life. Make it a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.