I felt stuck in life until I started asking myself these 5 questions

There was a time when I would wake up, go to work, come home, and repeat—without really knowing why. 

I had a good job on paper. A stable career as a financial analyst, a steady paycheck, and the kind of life that people around me seemed to think was “successful.” But if I’m honest, I felt lost.

Like I was living someone else’s life.

The turning point wasn’t a big dramatic moment. It wasn’t quitting on the spot or moving halfway across the world. It started in a much smaller way—with questions. Questions I hadn’t allowed myself to ask because I was too busy ticking boxes.

Once I started asking, I couldn’t stop. And slowly, the answers gave me a direction I hadn’t felt in years.

Here are the five questions that helped me move from drifting through life to living it with more purpose.

1. What truly energizes me?

For a long time, I confused what I was good at with what I actually enjoyed.

Numbers came easily to me, so I built a career around spreadsheets, reports, and forecasts. But just because you’re skilled at something doesn’t mean it lights you up inside.

The first question I asked myself was simple: What activities make me feel more alive when I’m doing them?

The answer wasn’t sitting in boardrooms. It was writing. It was those quiet mornings when I would scribble ideas in a notebook before heading into the office. It was conversations with friends where I broke down psychological insights and watched the lightbulb moments appear in their eyes.

This ties into the Japanese concept of ikigai—the sweet spot where what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for all intersect. I realized I had been ignoring half of that equation.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who coined the term flow, once said: “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” For me, writing was that flow state.

Once I understood that, I could begin shaping a life where I spent more of my time on things that energized me, not just things I was competent at.

2. What do I want my life to look like five years from now?

I used to think about the future in vague terms.

Retire at some point. Maybe move out of the city. Keep climbing the corporate ladder.

But when I pressed myself to imagine five years ahead in detail, I realized I had never painted that picture.

Did I want to be sitting at the same desk, staring at the same screens? No. I wanted flexibility, creativity, and freedom to pursue work that felt meaningful.

When you get clear about the life you want, even if it feels unrealistic at first, your current choices start to shift. You begin steering—slowly but surely—in that direction.

For me, that meant carving out time for writing on weekends and evenings. It meant saving more intentionally, not for a new car or a bigger apartment, but to give myself a cushion if I decided to make a career change.

I’m not saying the five-year question has to be perfect or even achievable in the exact way you imagine it. But having a vision gives you a compass. Without it, you’re just wandering.

3. What am I willing to struggle for?

This was a tough one.

It’s easy to dream about a better future. But every life path comes with struggles, and pretending otherwise sets you up for disappointment.

Writing sounds romantic until you’re staring at a blank screen, questioning whether anyone will care about what you’re saying. Running a business sounds glamorous until you’re dealing with late invoices or slow months.

So I asked myself: What struggles am I willing to put up with?

As author Mark Manson put it, “The question is not, ‘What do we want to enjoy?’ The question is, ‘What pain do we want to sustain?’”

When I looked at it that way, the late nights editing drafts didn’t feel like suffering. The struggle of rejection letters or articles that flopped still felt worth it.

But the endless corporate meetings, the office politics, the detachment from anything that felt meaningful? That, I realized, wasn’t worth my energy.

This question forced me to separate fantasy from reality—and choose struggles that I was willing to carry.

4. Whose definition of success am I chasing?

For years, I measured success by the markers that were handed to me: job title, salary, promotions, and social approval. I didn’t stop to ask whether those markers were mine or just borrowed from the culture around me.

When I finally did, I felt a strange mix of freedom and fear. Because once you stop chasing someone else’s definition of success, you’re left with a blank canvas.

For me, success started to look less like money and more like autonomy. Less about climbing and more about creating.

I’ll never forget a conversation with a mentor who asked me: “If nobody was watching and nobody cared, what would you still want to do every day?” That one question hit me harder than any performance review ever had.

Maybe you’ve been climbing a ladder that’s leaning against the wrong wall. This question is how you find out.

5. What small step can I take today?

The danger of all these big, life-changing questions is paralysis. You can end up sitting in analysis forever, waiting for clarity to strike like lightning.

But clarity often comes through action, not before it.

So the final question I asked myself was always: What’s one small step I can take today?

For me, it started with publishing short blog posts online. Nothing polished, nothing perfect—just putting my voice out there. Then it was reaching out to editors. Then it was saying yes to freelance work that scared me.

The key was not to overhaul my life overnight but to create momentum. Each small step made the next one a little easier.

I often tell people this: the right question is only powerful if you pair it with action. Otherwise, it’s just another thought bouncing around in your head.

Final thoughts

Looking back, I realize I didn’t need a grand plan to find direction. I just needed better questions. Questions that cut through the noise and forced me to be honest with myself.

Today, I write full-time. My days look nothing like they did when I was an analyst. And while I wouldn’t claim to have everything figured out (who does?), I wake up with a sense of purpose I used to envy in other people.

If you’re feeling stuck or directionless, maybe it’s not about finding the perfect answer right now. Maybe it’s about daring to ask the right questions—and letting those questions guide you where you need to go.

So ask yourself: What energizes me? Where do I want to be in five years? What am I willing to struggle for? Whose success am I chasing? And what small step can I take today?

The answers might just change your life.