Feeling Off Track? These 6 Daily Questions Will Realign Your Energy and Goals

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:01]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 255. The contents of today's episode are going to be helpful to you if you're currently feeling like you're stuck, you're feeling like you don't know which way to turn, where to start, what to do, or you're feeling just in a general funk. I have found that sometimes it just takes a few minutes and asking yourself a few questions to just reroute yourself to get yourself back into a good mood and back into action. Let's listen to that list of six questions together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:47]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:30]:
In a recent session of my membership program, we meet twice a week live. And in a recent session on a Saturday, I asked my members a list of six questions. And they were questions that I had written down for myself, and I just thought I would share them with the group. And I, after receiving their responses to these questions, decided to bring the same list to you on the podcast to see what your reactions are. Because I found that everybody on the call had a different reaction to a different question. So everybody reacted differently to the prompts. And for me that means let's just share this stuff out, because maybe something in this list of questions will help you to think differently, will help you to act differently, will help you to feel like you can keep going even when you're thinking, ugh, I just don't have it in me. Today I'm going to suggest that you ask this list of questions to yourself first thing in the morning, when your brain is actually open for business and when you have the whole beautiful day ahead of you.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:47]:
So the first question that I would have you ask is, what new habit can I make today? This question will prompt you to think, how do I need to behave today? And you might need to behave in a way that you've never behaved before. So maybe it's going to the gym, maybe it's putting on a sharper outfit than you typically put on. Maybe it is getting to work on time. I don't know what it is for you, but you need to challenge yourself first thing in the morning by saying, what can I do differently today? And I use the term habit on purpose, but I don't mean to overwhelm you by using the word. I think in the general parlance, we tend to think of habits as things that are rigid and sticky and maybe hard to change. But I have found in teaching about habits, habit creation, habit deletion, over the years, that habits are really quite fluid and changeable and we can actually decide on any given day. I'm going to start a new habit today. So I'm going to just encourage you to look at your new day as a brand new landscape and look at yourself as a brand new artist of that landscape.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:11]:
You're going to create a piece of work before the end of the day is over and you get to decide how that goes. And generally, we need to behave in an up leveled kind of way to make sure that we reach our goals. We have to make sure we show up. We have to make sure our mindset is positive. We have to make sure we're not holding back with our talents, with our skills, with our opinions. We have to make sure that we're showing up as fully as we can. That is why the first question I have for you is, what new habit can you do today? The second question that I have on the list is, what can you get rid of today? Of course, this can mean, what kind of clutter can you do away with today? Maybe it's one to three items of clutter that you've been meaning to part ways with. But it can also mean a habit.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:06]:
Sometimes when we're building new habits, we have to make room for the new habit by eliminating an old one. So in order to start a new walking practice where you're walking 15 minutes a day, you need to get rid of the practice of saying that you hate walking, for instance, or that your sneakers are too run down to do a proper walk. You need to get rid of the old habits that are blocking you from creating the new energy, the new space, the new habits. The third question that you can ask yourself at the beginning of the day is, how can I express my love today to someone living or to someone who has already passed on? So you get to decide, how do I show generosity, kindness, concern, affection, flirtation? How do I give a compliment today? Any of these actions? And of course, there are many more ways of showing Your love to people. You get to decide at the beginning of the day, what friend can you reach out to, what friend can you reconnect with, what friend can you make that is, of course, an expression of love, is to decide, I'm going to create a new friendship in the world today, so decide to make love one of your daily priorities. That's something that I try to do every single day. It's a great pleasure as a total extrovert and someone who likes to share love with other people to think, what can I do that is nice for someone else today? The fourth question you can ask yourself at the beginning of the day is, what can I create today that is new? So this goes beyond habits. I think this might be some creation from your skill set.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:07]:
It might be a new podcast episode. It might be a new route for your puppy walk. It might be a new way of speaking to someone if you have been having some difficulty with communication with that person. So it is a way to say, again, I can change how things have been going. I can create something new. I can make something or a relationship or a situation or a product of my creation better. I have that right. I have that ability.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:44]:
I have that possibility. The fifth question you can ask yourself is, what do I need to forgive myself for? And I think my voice slowed down when I read that fifth question. And that's because forgiveness of self can be a really strange thing to do if you're not in the habit of. Of doing that. Oftentimes, people who are saddled and burdened by procrastination have more difficulty forgiving themselves. They believe that if they made a mistake or if they underperformed or if they totally forgot to perform in the past, that they have to keep reminding themselves of the error, of the mistake, of the misdeed. And, and I'm here to tell you as a former procrastinator and as your podcast host, that you don't have to do that anymore. It's okay to have made the mistake.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:44]:
Of course you didn't mean to, and you wish you hadn't done that mistake. But just because you have some regret about doing that error does not mean you are now cursed with the responsibility of having to remind yourself of that mistake and of your regret every single day from here on out going forward, you just really don't have to do that. So I'm going to teach you today to make self forgiveness a new habit. You can wake up in the morning and say, oh God, I really have a twinge of recor from yesterday or a twinge of regret from last week or even five years ago. Sometimes these things come back to haunt us, but you can just say, oh, thank you for the reminder. I am at peace with that memory and of my actions way back when. And I make peace with the fact that I am blame free right now. In the current moment.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:45]:
With this beautiful day ahead of me, you can cleanse your slate. You can start anew. You don't have to be working with all the burdens of past mistakes anymore. It's just too hard to work like that. I promise you I've been there and I promise you it's much better when you can see that you can start out every day with a brand new view of what's going to happen. The final question that I have for you that you can ask yourself at the beginning of the day is what do I want to see happen before the end of the year? We are getting really, really close to the end of 2025. It's been quite the year and you can take a look at your personal life, your professional life, your relational life, your energetic life, whatever you want to look at, and you can decide what do I want to accomplish before the end of the year? That question by itself might end up being the energetic boost that you need at the beginning of the day. It will get you thinking that this is my playground.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:56]:
How do I want to play? This is my year. How do I want to end up feeling about it on December 31st? It's about time to start putting that into play. I know it can get a little overwhelming in November and December, but I am sharing this thought with you because we're going to be talking to ourselves every day at the beginning of the day anyway. We might as well make the questions that we're asking ourselves meaningful, motivational, friendly, forgiving, inspiring, and good. And I hope you really enjoyed this list. I'm going to review them quickly now and then I'll share with you how you can get a free worksheet with these questions. On the worksheet, the first question was what new habit can you build or create today? Second question what can you get rid of physically or emotionally today? 3. How can you express your love today? 4.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:03]:
What can you create that is new today? 5. What can you forgive yourself for? 4. 6. What decision or thing do you want to have happen by the end of 2025? Beginning of 2026 to get the free worksheet that comes with this episode, all you need to do is go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/6questions, the number six and the word questions. So again, it's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/6questions. And when you go to that URL, you will just fill out your name and email address and I'll shoot you that free worksheet right away, basically instantaneously. And we'll have a lot of fun with these questions because they're going to stimulate your energy and they're going to get you going at the beginning of the day so you can turn things around if you happen to wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Everyone, thank you for listening to me today and supporting this podcast and for doing the work of thinking about how to make self improvement that last and to make these personal changes without the stress and the drama that you might have been accustomed to.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:33]:
I look forward to teaching you some more in next week's episode. Thanks so much. See you soon.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:39]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website Make Time for Success podcast for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to and let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making Time for Success. Talk to you soon.