To live your best life, you also must become your best self. To become your best self, you have to know yourself thoroughly, inside and out. Many times you get to know your true self through experiences, your reactions to certain events, meditation, etc. But today we are going to play a game to help you become an expert on yourself.

It is time for the game! It is probably a little different from the other games you have played before. For one thing, it is only a one-person game. And secondly, it will probably result in more personal insights than pure entertainment. So let’s play! This game comes from my upcoming book, The Truth About High School, which I wrote for high school students but a lot of its content applies to anyone of any age.

The Question Game:

How to play: Ask yourself and answer as many of the questions as you want to. Answer them in as much detail as you can. (Note: the questions that you do not want to answer might give you some insight into what you are avoiding asking yourself. If you feel that you aren’t answering certain questions because you don’t want to face something, then answering that question is exactly what you need to do.)

How to win: Learn something about yourself that you weren’t consciously aware of beforehand.

Get out a piece of paper and something to write with. You are going to want these answers in writing!

It’s Game time!

Questions:

• On a scale of 1-10 (1 being the least, 10 being the most) how much do you like yourself?
  • Why did you pick that number?
  • What exactly do you like about yourself? What exactly don’t you like about yourself?
  • How can you take what you don’t like about yourself (if anything) and change it into something you do like about yourself? (note: the question game does not take “I can’t” or “that’s impossible” as an answer. If you resort to these answers, you automatically lose… Harsh, I know – but so is an overly pessimistic outlook on life.)
• What are you passionate about?
  • What percentage of your day is spent doing what you are passionate about?
  • How can you do more of your passions and less of what you don’t want to do?
• On a scale of 1-10 how happy are you?
  • Why did you choose that number?
  • What specifically brings you happiness in your life?
  • What specifically brings you unhappiness in your life?
  • What can you do do get rid of or reduce your unhappiness in your life right now (if any)?
  • What would bring more happiness into your life?
• Who do you hang out with?
  • Are they people you enjoy and look up to? Or are they people you actually don’t like very much?
  • What feeling do you get when you are around them? Are you happy, annoyed, bored, excited, angry, uncomfortable, insecure, etc.?
  • Name your top 5 closest friends. Now ask yourself why you hang out with each of them.
  • Are the qualities in your top 5 friends qualities you look up to and want to be like?
    • If not, what qualities do you look up to and want to be like? Do you know anyone who has some of those qualities that you could make friends with?
  • What animal represents you and why?
  • What do you see yourself doing in…
    • …1 year
    • …5 years
    • …10 years
    • Why? Of all the things you can do in your future, why are you doing these?
  • If you had two or three months to do absolutely whatever you wanted, what would you do?
    • How could you make this possible now or sometime in the near future?
    • If you could not do all of those things you see yourself doing in 1-5-10 years in the future, what would you chooses to do instead? In 1 year? In 5 years? In 10 years?
  • Finish these sentences:
    • I am:
    • I need:
    • I want:
    • 5 adjectives that best describe me are:
    • I am proud of:
    • Three of my accomplishments are:
  • What energizes you? In other words, what activities do you do (or want to do) that make you feel excited? What excites you?
    • Pick one from the list you just made. What can you do today to start working toward this goal?
  • What are you really good at? What are your strong points?
    • How can you leverage your talents to make life easier and to use to your advantage?
  • What are you really bad at? What are your weak points?
    • How can you improve? How can you use your strengths to improve on your weaknesses?
  • Have you been putting your energy, effort, and focus into your strengths or your weaknesses in your life?
  • What would you do/be/have if you had $10m in the bank?
  • If you found out that you were going to die in five years what would you do?
    • One year?
    • In a month?
    • Tomorrow?
  • How often do you find yourself following the crowd?
  • How often do you find yourself challenging the status quo, and instead, doing your own thing?
  • what would you be doing if you weren’t always trying to get somewhere or be someone?
  • Who do you look up to?
    • Why?
    • What qualities or skills do they have that you want to be better at?
  • Make up your own questions and answer them! It’s time to think about all of those deep questions that you have avoided answering.

The purpose of this game is to get you thinking about who you really want to be. It will ask you questions about who you believe you are, and then you can determine whether or not you would like to change anything about yourself.  You don’t find yourself, you make yourself up. Therefore, to become your greatest version, it is important to know yourself completely. You can’t live your dream life without knowing your true self. They are a package deal. Without truly knowing yourself, you are not able to live up to your full potential. So stop playing small and cutting yourself short. Life is too quick for that! Stop hiding from yourself. The world needs more people who are willing to step out and share their gifts, instead of shrinking back and pretending that they are not there. Small thinking and small actions lead to small-minded people. You’re better than that! You are reading this right now because you want to live an amazing life. Why should you settle for anything less? But to live that way, you’ve got to be that way first within yourself.

To Becoming your best self,

Alex 🙂