4 Self-Inventory Questions To Align You With Your Big Dreams & Goals

This week's conversation outlines exactly how to keep tabs on where your energy and focus is going, and how to harness the power of inspired action. 

In this episode, I am giving you a set of 4 simple but incredibly powerful questions that you can ask yourself to take some monthly  (or honestly, whenever you need it!) inventory.

This is an insightful practice designed to align your actions with your big dreams and goals. (Remember - Idenentiy Alignment*) This is a quick but impactful conversation that could shape your perspective on your own self-reflection.

- Discover where your focus lies, whether it's a career milestone, a personal project, or a family transition. 

- Reflect on your achievements and positive habits. Acknowledging your successes not only boosts your morale but also enhances your awareness of the aspects of life you can control.
- Take a moment to identify areas for improvement and change. This question prompts you to confront obstacles and helps you outline actionable steps toward your big dreams.
- Let's figure out where we are actually going. Set a specific, achievable goal for the upcoming month and visualize your progress. Be specific about their expectations and imagine the growth that could come from staying committed to their habits.

Taking your monthly inventory is a simple yet impactful tool for staying connected with yourself and the things you truly want. Whether you're aiming for personal development, health goals, or professional success, these questions are designed to help you gain clarity and empower you to create the life you desire.

Keep this tool handy as a way for you to ensure the actions that you are taking are in line with your big dreams and aspirations. 

This is how we keep the course on our journey towards a healthier, happier lifestyle. 


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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hello, my loves, and welcome to the Purposeful Lifestyle Development Podcast, where we discuss all things thought, work and manifestation, but we use neuroscience and the study of the brain to do so. I'm your host, tessa Spizak. I'm a board-certified practitioner, master, life and health coach and seasoned executive speaker. If you are ready to create your highest value lifestyle and turn your dream life into a reality, you're in the right place. Let's get right into today's episode. Hello, hello my loves, welcome back to another episode here on the Purposeful Lifestyle Development Podcast. Thank you so much for everyone who tunes in weekly. I so appreciate you spending your time here with me and if you're new here, welcome. Don't forget to hit subscribe so that you never miss part of our conversation. And this week's conversation is a bit of a continuation from last week, talking about getting aligned with our big goals and with our big dreams and who we want to be. Taking inventory to stay clear on where we are, where we want to go and allowing for the ebbs and flows in life to come, but without knocking us off of our footing. So today I want to talk about taking some general inventory. This is a great monthly practice, again for that practice of identity alignment. This is great to do quarterly, or if you're something like an entrepreneur where maybe your day-to-day changes a lot, maybe this is even a good quick practice to do weekly. But just know, this is a super simple tool. It won't take you more than a few minutes and it really does not have to be some intense journaling session where we feel all the feelings or some really deep meditation session. I promise it's just four questions, only four, but it will really help make sure that your actions are in line with the things that you actually want for you. So let's just jump right into it super quick and on the money today.

Speaker 1: 2:10

So here are four questions. First, I want you to ask yourself what era am I in right now? What season am I in? Where is the majority of my attention and my energy going at this time? So, if you maybe have a big career event happening right now, or if you're in the middle of moving, or if you have kids who are in some kind of transition in school or what have you, so you're focusing on them through that, maybe you have a big fitness goal that you're working on or you're giving your attention intentionally to your creative things, just check in, kind of ground yourself with what your big right nows are. Like I said earlier on, this can be maybe quarterly, every few months, looking at, okay, what is the last few months been, what is the next few months. This could be monthly that's kind of what I suggest or, again, for some people, maybe weekly, just like a regular thing that we do.

Speaker 1: 3:08

But check in and really ground yourself when asking yourself where are you right now? And this helps you do two things. First, it gives you an opportunity to really give yourself a bit of some honest feedback. Is what you're currently doing working? Does it feel good to you, does it feel successful and kind of like flow? Are there some areas that maybe you'd need to change or address? Maybe you notice that there's something that should be getting a bit more of your attention and focus. But whatever it is, this is really just a really simple way to get an overview picture of where your energy is going and seeing if it's going where you want it to. But also, secondarily, I think it's really important because asking yourself this question and honestly actually finding that answer it gives you an opportunity to remind yourself that if the majority of your energy is going to these certain areas. It's okay if you're not 100% in every single other area, that if one space, one portion of what you're doing of your life right now is getting a lot of focus, it's okay that you're not keen-eyed, super clear, focus on absolutely everything else.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Shonda Rhimes she's an actress and so many other wonderful things gave this really famous and really really powerful commencement speech at Dartmouth and it's referenced all the time where she says in so many, so many beautiful words and lots of examples, but she basically gives the message of if I'm succeeding in one area of my life, this does mean that I'm having to sacrifice in another, and that's true for all of us. We unfortunately haven't made it to superhuman yet, so we may not be able to give 100% of ourselves to every single thing at every single moment. But by doing this and giving yourself this understanding, almost making this declaration of hey, I know what I'm focusing on is here right now it essentially gives yourself the space or it allows yourself to feel safe with your current focus, and I really think this will help in a lot of ways. It'll help you again, not just keep yourself feeling safe with that focus, but it'll help you avoid burnout later on, so that you're not trying to give 1000% of you to everything and really just a whole host of other reasons. But the main point here is, with the first question is that we are anchoring into our decision what season are we? What era is this? Where's our attention and focus? What are the big things?

Speaker 1: 6:03

The next question, once you have a good answer there, that we want to ask ourselves is what is going really well for me right now? Or, more specifically, what am I doing currently that is successfully filling up my cup or helping me get to where I want to go? What habits did I develop or keep up with that have supported me in what I'm doing? What am I proud of myself for in terms of what I'm doing for myself, my health, my goals, my big dreams? What are these things? List amount. This not only gives you the chance to acknowledge and do a good, positive callout of all the things that you're doing and the things that you want to keep your focus on doing, more of which we know, when we do that nice pat on the back, so to speak, the brain gets a nice head of dopamine and it's going to start a nice positivity loop where it wants to continue to do these things, but also it really does help take that inventory and have more awareness of what's going on in your life that you do have control over.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Because also, here's a good point too as you make this list of all the things that you're doing that are great, that you're proud of yourself for whether you're taking your vitamins, you're staying hydrated, you're committing to learning about the thing, whatever that case may be, even if it's as small, as I had this negative thought and I changed it. I've gotten better at talking to myself in this way, something internal that nobody else can even see. As we make this list, there's a good chance that there is a subliminal little list forming of a few things that maybe you wish you had done. Maybe you wish you had committed to these as well or been a little bit better at, especially. If that's the case, here's your question three If you're just on the ball, then maybe there's not much on this list. But, to be fully transparent, when I do this for me even though I'm a coach in this I teach people how to do this I typically have some things on here as well.

Speaker 1: 8:13

But what would you like to see more of or less of from yourself in this upcoming month, week, whatever time frame. What are the things in your current reality that you currently have the ability to change that? If you're being honest, you know that they're getting in your way of the big dreams, the things that you want to achieve for yourself. Maybe we're still doing some action that doesn't exactly fit with what we're working towards. Let's make a note of that here, too. What do we wish we were doing that we weren't yet, the habits that we're trying to anchor in on and maybe they just haven't set forth yet, maybe the things that we're trying to stop doing and that kind of fell through the cracks, maybe picking that back up.

Speaker 1: 8:59

Again, this is a time to be really, really gentle. This is not a space for you to judge yourself. Shaming does nothing positive whatsoever. Again, we're just calling awareness. We're getting this bird's eye view. We're getting the bigger picture. Put it out there so that we know we can see it. Here's the things that maybe aren't serving me right now. Then we can come up with a plan, of course, to add it, take it out if it's something that we don't want anymore and we'll go from there. But again, just seeing that, getting that on paper.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Finally, your last question where do I want to be? Where do I actually see myself in the next month With what I'm doing and with what I expect to happen if I keep it up and this goes as planned? Where do I expect to be? This gives you a little goal to focus on a smaller time frame, something more manageable that you can really really put your attention onto, instead of just having this overall goal of something. Like you know, here's one that we hear a lot. I think, again, we can all pull our own personal thing in here but say it's this overall goal of something that's like I want to get more fit, I want to get stronger. That is commendable, we like that right, but it's also totally open-ended and I'm sure means so many things to you being more fit, being stronger there's a whole host of different things that that could mean. But instead, when we're doing these questions and we're checking in with hey, what do I think that next month is going to look like? What happens if I keep this up? Now the answer is much more detailed. It's something like well, if I keep this up, I'll have a whole month of more consistency. I want to keep improving and working towards heavier weights in this workout and at this time next month, I think I'll be more confident in my time management of my workout routine. I'll feel more disciplined in how many times I show up.

Speaker 1: 11:02

I think the things that feel really difficult to me right now, if I keep doing this, it makes logical sense to say it's going to be a bit easier for me and so I'm going to be excited about that Get specific. Get more specific, then. What do you actually realistically expect to happen if you keep up the habits and routines that you have now the good ones, and maybe not the great ones, right, the ones that we're not so happy about and if this feels too weird I've heard this before sometimes it feels like you just can't do this on yourself objectively Then just imagine you're doing this for someone else, a faceless person, just person A. If person A was to spend their time and energy committed to this thing, disciplined to doing this thing, giving themselves love and filling up their cup in this way, what growth or accomplishment do you expect would happen for them? What makes logical sense there? So, as you can see, these four questions. They are not difficult and you can really knock it out in just a few minutes and that means you can do it regularly.

Speaker 1: 12:12

Again, we're not committing a lot of time. This doesn't even take a lot of energy. This is Bird's eye level question and inventory taking. But I think taking your inventory and checking in is what's so important. You're creating that connection with yourself and what you actually want. Really, taking a moment to set aside any of the distractions that we have throughout the day the limitless distractions and ask yourself some questions that only you know the answer to, making sure that you're happy with the way you're directing your life to go, because we are the directors of our own movie here. Really take that time to appreciate yourself for being self-loving and self-respecting enough and this is self-care really enough to do the things that feel great long term Not just the short term things that feel really good, but the things that long term, get you where you want to go. And it also allows you to catch the stuff that you don't really want to be part of your reality before it becomes so ingrained and so much harder to stop or get rid of.

Speaker 1: 13:22

To do this monthly, that's great or again whenever you really need that check in to just see what the heck is going on. This will help you stop being stuck, stop having the same month over and over, stop ending up with those same frustrations that we talked about in last episode, but really let you have that power over what's going on with you. And I know getting honest and vulnerable with yourself can feel really scary at first, especially if this is something that you're not really used to. It's not really familiar to you. But here's my promise getting a clear enough picture with yourself to actually do the things that move the needle in your life. That's what sets you up for feeling so empowered, so motivated and like you have that total and complete autonomy on your life, which is such an incredible feeling, because you absolutely do. You have autonomy over your life and you have every opportunity to align with who you want to be, with your desired identity and who you know you have the potential to be.

Speaker 1: 14:29

So keep this exercise in your toolbox, save this episode, write it out for when you need it or on a monthly basis, and please don't hesitate to let me know how it helped you, how you got some clarity on the things that you want for you, because one belief I will never, ever, ever let go of is that you absolutely deserve the things that you desire for yourself, and I'm here to help you create the blueprint on how to get it.

Speaker 1: 14:55

If you need more from me or some specific help, you know where to find me. I'm always honored to be part of that journey, on a one-on-one with you or however we connect. Thank you so, so much, and with that, I send you off with all of my love until next time. But all right, my loves, that's where I'll leave us today. I want to thank you so much for joining in on this conversation with me, and each week, every Monday, we're going to be posting a new episode, going a little bit deeper into the conversation, of what you can do to train your brain on purpose to really allow for the lifestyle that you want to live. Until next time, my loves. In the meantime, here's to your health and your happiness.