The five questions Sumit Arora asks in every Self Clarity session. Simple to read, harder to answer.
Most of the people I work with aren't short of motivation, talent or opportunity. What they're short of is a clear sense of what they actually want, as distinct from what they've absorbed from family, peers and the idea of success around them.
These five questions are how I start to find it with them. They're simple to read and harder to answer. A few suggestions:
Read them through once and notice the one you'd rather skip. Start there.
and write more than feels necessary. The first answer is usually the one you've rehearsed. The second or third is usually closer to the truth.
No one needs to read this but you.
Answers change when you've lived with a question for a few days.
Most decisions are shaped less by what we want than by what we're afraid of losing. Take the risk away for a moment and look at what's left. What remains is usually closer to what you actually want.
Write your first answer. Then ask yourself, "And if that were guaranteed too, then what?" Keep going until an answer surprises you.
Many accomplished people are still answering to someone: a parent, a first boss, a group of peers, who may not even be watching any more. Naming them doesn't make them disappear, but it lets you decide whether they still get a vote.
List the people whose opinion you weigh before a big decision. Next to each name, write whether you would give them that role if you were choosing today.
Somewhere along the way, most of us adjusted what we wanted to fit what seemed possible. Some of those adjustments were wise. Others were made early, in a hurry, and never looked at again.
Go back to a time before your career took shape. What did you want then? Write it down without judging it, then underline the part that still feels true.
"I can't" often means "I won't, because of what it would cost." That cost may well be worth avoiding. But calling it a choice puts the decision back in your hands, which is where it already was.
Write down three things you've told yourself you can't change. Rewrite each as "I'm choosing not to ___ because ___." Notice which of the sentences still sound right to you.
When every week is full, it's easy to postpone what matters. Picturing five more years of exactly this makes the cost of waiting visible, and usually points straight at what you've been postponing.
Describe an ordinary Tuesday five years from now, with nothing changed. Then write one thing you'd want to be different about it, and one small step you could take this month.
Download the printable workbook: all five questions, each on its own page with room to write, plus the notes above. Tell us where to send it and the download starts straight away.
“If one of these stayed with you, that's worth paying attention to. You don't need to act on it today. Just don't lose it.”Sumit AroraI'd like to hear which one it was. Reply to the email the workbook came with and tell me. I read every reply myself.
A weekend away with fourteen to sixteen people, working through questions like these properly, with time and space to answer them.
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For managers, founders and business owners in a period of growth. Online sessions, a retreat in Sintra and one-to-one coaching, with sixteen to twenty people. Applications close on 30 October.
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