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You can get to know yourself the same way you get to know anyone: ask a question and listen to the answer. Pick one question tonight, give it ten quiet minutes, and write the answer down or say it into a voice note. Try asking “what” more than “why”. It may give you somewhere to go next.
For tonight, one good question and a place where nobody is waiting for your answer are enough.
Every question here comes from Lolo Cards - 4,700 conversation cards for iPhone.
Why one question works better than “think about yourself”
“Spend some time on yourself” is too big to start. Your head fills up with the to-do list. A single concrete question gives your attention somewhere to land.
Wording matters too. Organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich studies self-awareness. In an interview she said her research found that “the people who spent the most time thinking about themselves were actually the least self-aware.” Her explanation is that “‘Why’ questions draw us to our limitation; ‘what’ questions help us see our potential.” She also describes how “why” questions can “trap us in our past.” She reports that in her interviews with very self-aware people, “why” came up fewer than 150 times and “what” more than a thousand.
It is one researcher’s work, but the trick is easy to try. If “Why am I like this?” goes in circles, ask “What do I actually need right now?”
Questions about an ordinary day
Start light. These are about what your days feel like, which is often more honest than any big life question.
- What would your perfect ordinary day look like?
- What activity pulls you in so much that you lose track of time?
- What experience do you want to have at least once?
- What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that stuck with you?
Notice where your answer is small and specific. “A slow morning and a walk before anyone texts me” tells you more than “be happy”.
If you want the same kind of prompt aimed at other people, the full set lives on getting to know you questions. Most of them work just as well turned inward.
Questions about what drains you
These questions can be harder. You know you are tired. It is harder to say what kind of tired.
- How do you know you actually need rest, not just a change of pace?
- What inner need of yours most often goes unmet?
- What need of yours do you most often replace with work, entertainment, or other distractions?
Try to answer with an example from this week, not in general. “I scroll after dinner when I really want ten minutes with nobody needing anything” is an answer. “I’m just busy” is a place to start.
Questions about who you’re becoming
Come to these last, once the easy ones have warmed you up.
- Who are you when you don’t need to impress anyone?
- Who don’t you need to become to already feel good enough?
- What part of who you are right now do you hope to be proud of in ten years?
- What would need to disappear from your life for you to feel more like your true self?
- What’s something about the way you think that’s different from most people?
Some of these land hard, so answer one and close the notebook if you need to.
How to actually do it
- Choose one question and read it twice.
- Write for ten minutes, or record a voice note and talk without editing. Writing about what matters to you has been studied for decades. The Greater Good Science Center’s guide says the traditional method is 20 minutes of continuous writing, and that even a few minutes can help.
- Keep going past the first answer. If it feels tidy or automatic, ask yourself “what else?” once or twice.
- Close the notebook when the time is up. You can come back tomorrow.
One honest note from the same guide: writing about hard feelings can leave you sad or anxious right afterward, and it may not help when something painful is very recent or still going on. If a question stirs up more than you can sit with, put it down. If a hard time is lasting, talk to someone you trust.
Making it a habit without making it a project
Pick a time that already exists: the first coffee, the bus ride, the ten minutes after the kids are in bed. Use the same question for a few days and see whether the answer changes. It may.
When a question surprises you, tell someone you trust. Saying one answer out loud to another person shows you what it sounds like.
