5 Questions To Ask Yourself

If you had one year to live, what would you do differently?

I do not mean that as a cliché. I mean it as a question you can sit with and answer honestly.

What would you stop doing? What would you start? What would matter less, and what would matter more?

I have been asking myself these questions, and they have helped me understand what I want.

You do not have to act on every answer. The first purpose is self-awareness: telling yourself the truth about the life you want to live.

Create a constraint to see your priorities

When I achieved new financial milestones, I found myself with more options.

I could travel, choose where to live, and consider experiences I might not have considered before.

That freedom was exciting and sometimes overwhelming.

I needed to become clearer about what I actually wanted.

That clarity matters even if you do not have the money or access to do everything you want right now. Limited options can narrow your choices, but they do not remove the importance of understanding your desire.

Imagining one year left creates an arbitrary constraint. It asks your brain to identify what matters most rather than consider every possibility equally.

1. What would I stop doing?

My main answer was that I would stop delaying travel.

I was already traveling around the United States. But I had been finding reasons to postpone longer trips abroad.

I wanted experiences that would challenge my perceptions, biases, and ideas about cultural norms.

Thinking about having only a year helped me notice the excuses I was making.

Many people answer that they would stop working or stop working so hard.

One of the beautiful things I learned was that I would keep working. I love coaching, teaching, helping people, and creating a body of work.

I had asked this question before and already stopped some things because of it, including worrying and people pleasing.

Your answer may be an activity. It may also be something you are doing in your mind.

2. What would I start doing?

I asked what I most loved to do.

Hiking and pickleball came up for me. I wanted more play and enjoyment.

For other people, this question brings up living a dream, saying how they feel, or creating a contribution they have been keeping inside.

Because I had done this work before, some of those answers were already part of my life.

The people I love know how I feel about them. I make an effort to tell them and show them.

I had also started creating my own work and living dreams I cared about.

That left room to see the next thing I wanted: more of the play I genuinely enjoy.

What comes up for you? Let the answer be yours rather than something that sounds impressive to someone else.

3. What would I no longer care about?

My answer was other people's judgments about my life.

It included my own judgment, too.

Imagine how much less energy you might give a small criticism if you knew your time was limited.

Would you keep replaying a stranger being annoyed with you? Would an opinion about how you live deserve the same attention?

I also wanted to trust myself with my financial decisions.

As I made more money, more people offered opinions about what I should do differently. I had experienced the same thing with decisions about my company.

I do not want to look back and wish I had listened to myself more.

That does not mean I am asking you to adopt my answers. I am asking you to discover what you would no longer choose to spend your life caring about.

4. What would I care more about?

This question brought up my work and business.

I wanted the work to be preserved and the company to function without depending on me to manage its daily operations.

I felt good about my children becoming independent. I had faith in the tools they had learned and wanted to keep supporting them.

I also saw the business as something I had helped develop that needed more independence.

I wanted to keep coaching and creating content while making it less dependent on me for management.

If I had only one year, preparing the business and the work to carry on would become more important.

Notice what you would care more about. What deserves more attention than you are currently giving it?

5. Why do my thoughts, feelings, and actions change?

Why does imagining less time change how you think?

Why might you feel more confident? Why might other people's opinions matter less?

Why do dreams and relationships become more important while little annoyances become less important?

I do not have one complete answer. I think the question itself is important.

None of us knows how much time we have.

Yet we often think we will get around to something later, that it does not matter yet, or that it seems too hard right now.

A shorter imagined timeline challenges those thoughts.

It can intensify the desire to be who we truly want to be.

Less time does not have to mean less care

You might assume imagining your last year would make you reckless.

I have seen the opposite.

My mother-in-law had tried to stop smoking for years. When she learned she had cancer, she quit that day and focused on taking care of her health.

She had less time than she had believed the day before, and she wanted to care for herself more.

The thought of limited time can help us cut away things that are not important and focus on what is.

It does not have to be a reason to abandon the things we value.

Consider what you want your money to do

Reading Die With Zero also influenced my thinking about these questions.

The book explores using wealth for experiences and memories during your lifetime rather than only accumulating money you never use.

It also discusses giving to children while you are alive and they can benefit from it.

The context matters: you cannot spend money you do not have. I was considering these ideas as someone who had already created wealth.

What I appreciated was the invitation to think consciously about time, money, experiences, and what I want my life to include.

The questions apply beyond money. They ask you to understand what matters, with whatever circumstances you have.

Tell yourself the truth

Take each question in turn and answer it.

If you had one year left, what would you stop doing? What would you start doing? What would you no longer care about? What would you care more about?

Then look at why your thoughts, feelings, and actions change under that constraint.

Would you make the phone call? Tell someone you love them? Stop holding back in a relationship or in the work you want to offer?

You do not have to know your final timeline to discover something useful now.

For me, the exercise clarified my desire to be the best teacher and coach I can and help as many people as I can while I am here.

I hope it helps you see what you want and how you want to live, too.