020: What questions should I ask myself in this crisis?
1432 days ago I started a little routine: I begin every day by asking myself five essential questions. Answering these five questions creates clarity and vision for my day, before I engage with the daily chaos of my work and life, before I step into action. I actually write down the answers to these five questions, but as I've now done this for almost four years in a row, there's one thing I discovered: It's not always the same questions that matter. The questions that are the most meaningful to me change over time. My life changed, I went through different phases in my life, and some of the questions that were really helpful for me at one point started to become useless. There was no point in asking me those same questions over and over again. And a few weeks ago I noticed that the questions that seemed really meaningful at the beginning of the year now seemed useless. They're no longer relevant to me. So I sat down and started brainstorming questions that would be more impactful to answer during the COVID-19 crisis. Here's what I came up with:
What can I learn right now? How can I grow in this environment? How can I serve people and the world today? Where are hidden opportunities? What is the change that is about to happen? How can I adapt? What are the benefits of these tough times? What would I do if I had opposite beliefs? How can I decrease anxiety in the world? How can I help people cope better? What can I do to make one person's life better in the next hour?
Now I haven't settled on the five questions I'll ask myself daily moving forward yet. But I'd love to hear your thoughts! What do you think are valuable questions we should ask ourselves right now? I'd love to hear from you: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-questions-should-i-ask-myself-crisis-steli-efti/ (Check out the video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/eV8YyvOX8PE )