Best Year Yet

What question are you asking yourself every day?

You may choose a word for the year. I want you to consider choosing a question.

A question directs your attention. The answers give you thoughts, those thoughts create feelings, and those feelings influence what you do. Your actions then create results.

I have experienced this with questions that kept me stuck and questions that opened up a whole new set of possibilities.

Notice the question you already repeat

I first learned the idea of a primary question from Tony Robbins. He described a major question that keeps running through your mind.

Mine used to be why I could not lose weight.

You can imagine the answers my brain supplied. It offered reasons I was lazy, overeating, or unlikely to succeed. The question kept producing negative thoughts and evidence against me.

Then I changed it. How could I enjoy losing weight? How could this be the last year I ever worried about it?

Those questions led me toward learning about myself, my body, and solutions I had not been considering. The question did not do the work for me. It changed the thinking I brought to the work.

Look at the question you return to. What answers does it invite?

Choose the question for this season

Before the year I discussed in this episode, I asked how I could create the most value I had ever created in a year.

That question felt exciting. Ideas kept coming: new content, ways to help students, improvements to courses, and ways to contribute to the people in my life.

But the same question would not have been right for me a year earlier.

I had been burned out. My team needed space, and I needed to rest and regroup. We focused on delivering quality to existing students rather than pushing so hard for growth.

A more useful question then was how I could recover, reset, and re-energize.

Do not borrow my question just because it works for me now. Pay attention to how it feels for you. A year of rest may be exactly what you want. You get to choose that regardless of other people's opinions.

Let the question lead to specific ideas

When I asked about creating value, I started looking at different groups of students and what would help them.

What could I offer beginner coaches who were just getting started? What would help coaches already earning substantial revenue who wanted to grow? What about people who wanted to learn my tools without taking every part of training?

Those answers became specific projects.

At the time, I was refreshing business courses, reconnecting with alumni, coaching more classes, and creating different training experiences. I felt energized by doing work connected to my mission.

One question produced many ideas. My excitement and motivation helped me take the actions to create them.

That is the connection I want you to see: a question, answers that become thoughts, feelings that move you to act, and results from those actions.

Remember who determines value

When creating something for someone else, value is not determined only by what you think is valuable.

The person receiving it determines whether it is valuable to them.

That matters in business. If you want someone to hire you, you need to consider what they value, rather than simply announce that your work is valuable.

While recreating my business courses, I worked with a focus group of coaches at different stages. Their actual struggles, examples, and successes helped inform what I taught.

My question put me in an offering space: what could I give that would help?

Do not make giving responsible for someone else's happiness

Years earlier, I read Marianne Williamson's work and was moved by the idea that what might be missing from a situation was what I was not giving.

I have adjusted that idea in my own thinking.

In a relationship, you can get into trouble if you keep giving to satisfy someone who is asking you to provide something you cannot provide, such as their happiness or success.

You cannot give enough to do that work for another person.

I still find giving powerful when I feel a sense of lack. Creating and contributing can feel amazing. I want to do it consciously, not from the belief that I must fix another person's internal experience.

Apply the question beyond business

My value question was not limited to my company.

I considered relationships with family, friends, and my partner. I even thought about the value I could bring on the pickleball court.

Your question can focus on whatever matters to you.

How can I love more than ever? How can I pay off my debt this year? How can I start my business? How can I be more seen in a way that feels authentic and enjoyable?

Or how can I give myself the rest and recovery I need?

The right question is not necessarily the one that sounds most ambitious. It is the one that opens useful thinking for the life you want.

Return to it and deliver on the answers

Notice the energy your question creates.

Does it generate ideas and possibility? Does it help you see a path toward what you want? Or does it mostly produce reasons something cannot happen?

You can borrow a question, change one, or create your own. Make sure it is appropriate for this year and this season.

Then keep asking it. Look at the answers, and show up to act on them.

For me, asking about value helped create momentum in my work and life. I was not simply hoping for a better year. I was thinking differently and delivering on those thoughts.

What question will help you create your best year yet?