Two great questions to ask yourself

I will never forget the day my mentor Jim Rohn asked me these two questions some three years ago.  He said it like this “The question to ask yourself is not what am I getting, the question to ask yourself is what am I becoming.”   

Two very powerful questions to ask your self.  How do you apply these questions:

What are you getting in your current relationships?  Are you getting what you need? Are you giving what the other person needs?  Then say: What am I becoming?  Is this relationship what I want.  Is it making me and us (since it is a relationship) what we want it to be, and taking us where we want to go.

On your job ask yourself the same questions.  What am I getting.  Is it a paycheck, is it security, is it fulfillment, etc.  Then again ask yourself “What am I becoming”.  Are you becoming what you want to become.

As human beings we tend to think about ourselves first, right?  Lets assume you said yes. So we do a pros and cons list and say, I am getting this, this ,this, this, this, this, this.  That is pretty good.  We can rationalize and justify that it is worth it.  But what if we ask ourselves the harder question and say, REALLY.  What am I becoming?

I have talked to many people over the years and when they make a decision to change it is usually because they didn’t like the person they were becoming.  This takes a self-awareness that is really objective.  I have talked to parents who have left jobs because they didn’t get a chance to spend time with their children.  So they were not the parents that they wanted to be. They were not happy with who they were becoming.

I have spoken with people in relationships that for the most part were getting everything they wanted out of the relationship, or what they thought they wanted.  But then they looked up one day and said “What have I become”.  I don’t like this person.  This is not where I expected to be.  I have talked to people who were athletic and active and got into relationships that were exactly the opposite.  They would usually justify and say that the relationship was great and that they love each other, but all the while they were unhappy that they were no longer as active in sports.  So they didn’t like the person they were becoming.

So let me add a third question for you.  What am I getting, What am I becoming, and the third question to ask yourself “Is this acceptable”, “Is this what I want”.

Do an assessment.  Think about all of your current relationships, your job, your friends, your colleagues, etc.  You become what you are around, you become what you are exposed to the most.  Ask your self the two questions and then the final question, “Are you good with what that is?”  The good thing about being human who can think and make decisions, is you have the ability to change your current situation and become anything you want to become.

Brian Willett