Debbie Ford - The Right Questions: Ten Essential Questions To Guide You To An Extraordinary Life

E very day, each of us makes a multitude of choices that will impact our lives. Some of these choices are minor and will only impact the next few minutes, hours, or days, while others will completely change the direction of our lives. Some choices are easy to make; some are more difficult. Some will lead us straight to success, while others will bring us face-to-face with failure. Some will seem earthshakingly important, while others will seem completely insignificant. But whats imperative for each of us to know is that, no matter how large or small, easy or difficult, each choice that we make, individually or collectively, alters the direction of our lives. The quality of our choices will dictate whether we will struggle in frustration or live an extraordinary lifethe life of our dreams.

Our ability to make choices implies certain rights and freedoms. If we can choose, then we can determine which decisions we will make about our bodies, our health, our relationships, our finances, our careers, our social lives, and our spiritual beliefs. Choice allows us to pick, to select, to decide between paths. To go right or left. To move forward or backward, be happy or sad, loving or hateful, satisfied or discontent. Choice gives us the power to be successful or unfulfilled, to be good or great, to feel pleasure or pain. We can have chocolate or vanilla; we can work or play, save or spend, be responsible or be a victim. We can keep busy or slow down, be faithful or unfaithful, be disciplined or lazy. We can pursue a path that reflects our highest selves or one that reflects our lowest selves. Ultimately, we are the ones who get to choose.

What makes each of us special and distinguishes us from all other forms of life is our capacity to weigh our options and make conscious, deliberate choices. Choice might just be our most precious gift. When we were younger, we eagerly anticipated the moment when we no longer had to do what others told us. We saw our ability to choose for ourselves as a priceless gift. We anxiously waited for the day when we could get out from under years of our parents rules and finally take control of our lives. We longed for the time when we could step out and become the masters of our own destinies, savoring that defining moment when we could decide when to wake up, when and what to eat, when to go to bedor not. As young adults, the right to choose equaled freedom. Our ability to choose for ourselves unleashed the limitless possibility of creating a future filled with our dreams and desires. Choice offered us hope. It promised us an exciting lifea life where we were free to design and create whatever we pleased. As young adults we made choices because they were exciting, because they felt good, because they held the promise of satisfaction and gratification.

In our youth its easy to say, Ill make my dreams happen later or Next year will be my year. Youth affords us the luxury of believing that one day we will magically arrive at the destination of our dreams. But then something happens. Adulthood catches up with us and a sobering reality sets in: the day weve been waiting for will not magically arrive.

Our todays are based on the choices we made yesterday, and the ones we made three days ago, three months ago, and three years ago. We dont wind up fifty thousand dollars in debt because of one choice. We dont put on thirty unwanted pounds as a result of a couple of poor choices. And our relationships usually dont fall apart overnight because of one bad decision. We are where we are because of repeated unconscious or unhealthy choices that weve made day after day after day that add up to the reality we find ourselves in.

If we want to understand why and how we created our present reality, all we need to do is look at the choices we made in the past. Examining our present circumstances will show us that we got where we are as a result of decisions we made yesterday and the days before that. Likewise, if we want to know what our lives will look like in the future, we have to examine the choices we are making today. Maybe weve never considered our lives in this way. But the fact is that our futures are determined by the choices we are making right in this moment. So why, then, do most of us spend so little time really thinking about our choices? Why do we often fail to look both ways before we forge ahead, never considering all of our options and their consequences? Our lives are not a crapshoot, bad luck, or our parents, husbands, or bosss fault. Inherent in this fact is both good news and bad news. The bad news is that we are solely responsible for the condition of our lives. The very good news is that we and we alone have the power to change our lives, and we can choose to do so at any moment.

Its really quite simple: if we want our lives to be different, all we have to do is make different choices. Most of us continue to make the same choices out of habit, comfort, fear, or laziness and then wonder why we dont get different results. The truth is, were so busy trying to survive life that we dont even realize that our choices and actions arent translating into our hopes and dreams. Were too distracted with the doingness of our daily lives, so we take the easiest, most accustomed route or the path of least resistance, even if it leads us somewhere we dont really want to go. Many of us stumble through each day doing the best we can, without the awareness and the tools we need to change the course of our lives. Then were shocked when we wake up and discover that we have been working toward the same goals and desires for years and still we arent where wed like to be in our lives.

Most of us have lost sight of the relationship between our choices, our actions, and their outcomes. Instead of taking responsibility for our current state of affairs, we become masters at assigning blame, pretending that everything is someone elses fault when our lives turn out not to be the wonderlands we want them to be. We may even point fingers at others instead of looking at the choices weve made that have landed us exactly where we are today. Without bringing conscious awareness to our choices, we cant help but repeat the patterns of our past.

THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

If you are going to reach your goals and create the life you desire, you will have to make new choices that will lead you to new actions. This book is your road map. The ten simple questions you will find within these pageswhat I have chosen to call the Right Questionswill give you the power and inspiration to consciously create a life you feel good about, one choice at a time. They will help you to become aware of the important choices and their consequences. They will guide you and support you in making the right choices. And there you will find the most direct route to your dreams.

The Right Questions consist of ten powerful inquiries designed to reveal what is motivating your actions. The answers to these questions will immediately clarify your thinking and support you in making the choices that are in your highest and best interest. They are deceptively simple but incredibly powerful and can be used in any situation or at any crossroads. Here, then, are the Right Questions: