Remember the analogy you used when we started this quest for self actualization?  We compared it to a journey.  You’ve packed up your tools, assessed your strengths and weakness and gotten to know your traveling companions.  Now take your map out and spread it out on the table in front of you.  It’s time to find your destination.

What do you want out of your life?  What do you want to be, do, have?  What is most important to you?  What would bring you the incredible joy and meaning in your life?This are big questions – the biggest.  They deserve your time and attention.   Just for a change, don’t respond to the following questions with “true,” “false” or “sort of.”  Instead, answer each quickly, make note of your response, and then search your heart more deeply for a more thought out response.  Both responses matter, and will help you to expose your ideal vision of your future and what truly matters to you.

1. Your house is engulfed in flames.  You can save 5 things.  What are they?
2. You discover you have six months to live, but you expect to feel fine until the last day.  You select one major thing to accomplish in each of the months.  What are they?
3. You have one legacy of truth to give to your child.  What is it?
4. A genie appears and offers you a single wish.  What is it?
5. After the end of your life, what five adjectives would you want used most frequently by your grieving loved ones?
6. When someone you know passes away and you reflect on their lives, what moves you to admiration?  What moves you to sympathetic regret?
7. If you were banished from your homeland and forced to start over in a strange place, what people/things would you be unable to leave behind?
8. Think of at least three moments in your life when you felt utter contentment.  What elements made those moments so extraordinary?  If you can’t think of three, what elements do you imagine would combine to put you in a state of contentment?
9. Think of at least three moments in your life when you felt transcendent joy.  What elements made those moments so extraordinary?  If you can’t think of three, what elements do you imagine would combine to put you in a state of contentment?
10. Think back to when you were a teenager.  In fact, if you kept journals or wrote poetry or songs during that time, this is the time to dig them up.  Years and experience change us dramatically after our teen years, and many of the changes are positive – gains in wisdom, understanding, patience and appreciation.  But we may also lose touch with that time when our true selves sparked outward into unbridled passions and uncurbed enthusiasm.  The tenth question is, can you recognize that younger self within your years-tempered modern self?

Journal, talk to a partner or meditate on these responses.  Let them “percolate” in your brain and heart for a while, and tomorrow we’ll talk about what to do with your discoveries and how to use them to move forward your journey into self actualization.

Roger K. Allen, Ph.D. is an expert in personal transformation, leadership, and teams. His tools and methods have helped hundreds of businesses and tens of thousands of people transform the ways they work and live. To learn more, visit www.rogerkallen.com.