Questions to Ask Before You Turn 40

In this first episode of Questions to Ask Podcast, I dive into the questions that everyone should ask before they turn 40 years old.

Of course, these questions can truly be asked at any stage of your life when you feel stuck or not authentically you. But because I turned 39 years old this year, and 40 is right around the corner - literally- I felt I needed some self-reflecting time on where I am at and where should I be going.

I think you can benefit from this as well. 

As promised in the podcast, I created a one-sheet with the questions I went over in this episode. Please click on the picture below. 

To know thyself, is the best gift you can give thyself....

And grab a cup of coffee, a glass of wine or a beer, kick back and start answering.  

If in any event you feel stuck or need to speak to someone regarding these questions, please feel free to email me at clara.jamison1@gmail.com. I'll be more than happy to help you with going through them and answering them. 

And don't forget, if there are any other questions you can think of that someone should be asking themselves before he/she turns 40, please shoot them to us. We'll pick our favorite ones and include them in another session of the podcast.   

We always love to hear from our friends. 

Enjoy!!

XO, 

Clara

Transcription:

Welcome back to Questions To Ask Podcast. I am your host Clara Jamison. And in today's episode, we're going to be focusing on asking the questions before you turn 40. I think that many people, uh, have a lot of questions that tend not to ask. And that is one of the reasons why I wanted to start at the pots cost, because I think that.

A lot of us tend to unfortunately just ask the bare minimum questions and we should really start asking questions way before, or at least based on certain topics and needs to be asked in a different format and asking questions is a good thing. So this will really allow us to expand and because I'm turning 40 soon, I wanted to be able to.

Show you, or at least give you these questions as a gift, as my gift to myself. And, um, and honestly is these questions are really about how and what you should ask yourself to avoid a midlife crisis because many of us are not very happy with ourselves. And I believe that turning 40 is a big milestone and we need to start thinking about.

Not only retirement, but just overall life. I think that we tend to believe that we have to start asking these questions at the age of 50. And for me, at least I was having the hardest issue, not necessarily with turning 40, but the fact that 50 was seeming so realistic and so close. So much more than when I was in my twenties or even thirties when I was in my thirties.

I just thought that 50 was such a far long fetch idea that now turning 40 just basically made me realize that that was set around the corner. And that honestly, I want to avoid any middle of crisis anytime at any place. And I also want to ask these questions before in 50. So that way I know exactly if I'm going in the right direction and if I'm doing the things that I really truly want to do, I think that these questions will definitely help you avoid the scenarios that we often see in later life with a lot of adults.

And I think that it will definitely help you at least, at least. Okay, clear clarity on what exactly you want to do moving forward and how you want to do it. So let's start asking these questions. So, as I mentioned before, I think as I mentioned before, I am going to be turning 40 and it's been a really hard, hard thing to swallow has been so hard that I didn't want to even.

Celebrate it. And I know that, that sounds crazy because you know, now that I think about it, there's many people that would love to turn 40 and they didn't have the chance to do that. And for me, looking back, I've had a really pretty good life. It's been, you know, has, has had is really bad moments, but it has had its really good moments.

And I think that for me is more about, I want to be able to be happier and to be the master of my own domain rather than having somebody else be the master of my domain, which I think that definitely in my thirties it became that. My twenties, not so much because my 20, it was more of me self discovering, having more ownership over myself, really knowing who I was and getting to know what I liked and not liked thirties.

It was eat just a mumble jumble of a era or of time because I got married. I became a mom. I was a mom of four within, by the end of 36. And. I was in this very high demanding job in a fortune 100 company. And needless to say was taking a toll on me and it was taking such a toll. Then, unfortunately for me, I went through a lot of health issues.

That one day I will be able to discuss further, um, with, without being vulnerable or resent anything. Uh, about it, especially the people that I feel contributed to it. And I want to be honest that I, I just, I wanna make sure that it is me making the, the decisions moving forward. Not somebody else. I don't want somebody else's life.

I want my own life. And that's very important to me right now. And it's going to be very important to me moving forward. And that's the reason why I have these questions and how I envision myself at age 60 is that I have no fear at all. I am fashionably loud. I am. Literally with the red lipstick and looking good.

I am loving the world and I, um, enjoy my kids. My what? I've been able to establish my legacy, me helping people. I see myself, me being a proponent to something greater than just making somebody else money. And even myself money. I want to be honest and always be able to ask very hard questions and have the ability to answer them without being afraid of them with courage.

So I think that one of the things.

One thing that I do ask of you is that you are honest and that you actually sit down and you answer the questions. If you can answer all the questions in one setting. And the reason why I say that is because the universe is going to be able to provide you with the information you need at that moment.

At that very instance, Rather than doing it piecemeal where you will have different mindsets or different abilities or different situations going on in your life that may attract different things at different times. And you want to be clear to have clarity over exactly how to move forward. So the first question is when you were 10 years old, what brought you joy?

What do you like doing. What were the things that really brought you the most? Laughter what were the things that brought you the most energy? And the reason why you're going to ask this question is because when you're 10, you live in the present moment. When you're 10, you have no fears when you're 10, you have no one else.

For the world telling you what to do and what not to do at least not yet. And yes, your life may not be perfect at 10 because not everybody has a perfect life, but at 10, we are in our true self, even at seven, even at eight, if you want, it really shows who we truly are because we only have ourselves at that moment.

And our parents. Or our caretakers. And it's very important that we are able to look back and see what were those things that brought you the most? That brought us the most joy. What brought us the most out of our lives during that time, because it will tell you where you should be going. Or where is what your path is, truly

question number two. What is it now that you like about your home life, your relationships, your job, your career, your health, and your spirituality, understanding exactly what it is that you like. About these areas of your life will allow you to understand exactly what to lean into and also make you more appreciative of exactly what you have.

Question number three, what exactly you don't like about those areas in your life? What exactly right? What is it exactly that you don't like about your home life, your relationships. Your job, your career, your health, your spirituality. That way by asking this question, you'll be able to really take those things away, delete them, or even delegate them this way.

You feel more refreshed, more in tune with where you need to go and how you're doing it more in tune with your life. More alive. Question number four. How do you envision yourself at the age of 16? I already talked about my sixties. I already know what my vision is. I mean, I, 80 I'm going to be this fabulous savvy, his grandmother hoof, or was going to be like, grandma, I'm going to be the hip grandmother.

Who's always traveling and enjoying life and bringing joy to them and really caring for them. So what do you. Consider at that age success. How do you envision it? Who are you around with? What are you doing? What are you not doing? Where are you? What are the smells that you actually are able to smell? Are you able to see scenery?

Are you able to see a city? Where are you when you're 60? How do you envision yourself at the age of 60?

This question will be able to really allow you to move in the direction of where you need to go. Meaning the sense of it would. Tell you that there might be, or certain things in your life right now that you may have to be changing due to the way that you want to be the person, the person you want to become the skills you want to learn, the information, the people you want to meet.

Question number five, and this is a green one, but very important. If tomorrow is your last day, will you be content with what you have accomplished thus far? And if not, what is missing? What are the things that top five things top five, and you don't have to have all five, but at least top five things you want to accomplish.

Before your last day, I could tell you that for me, it was becoming an author, which I was I'm hoping, I'm hoping.

Question number six. What will you focus on those 24 hours? What will you focus on those 24 hours? So on your last day, what would you focus on this would allow you to really see if those five top things are really what you will be your most important things and that you're missing. This would allow you to, again, align yourself with what's truly valuable to you, but truly means the world to you and what you want to do during that time period.

And last but not least question number seven or seven, you're doing everything in your power to make yourself happy. What will make you take accountability of your life? What will make you happy? Is it dancing? Is a singing. Is it drawing? Is it working? Is it meaning what's friends? What is it exactly that's going to make you happy that it makes you happy.

And are you basically putting that in your day and in your life every day? And if not, what can you do to put more of that in your life and in your day?

These questions are definitely going to help you understand exactly where you want to go become a master of your life. Determine where exactly what is a path that you want. And it will also help. You will also help, you know, what you need to do today to get where you want to be. At the age of 60, 70, 80, 50, it will realign you to where you need to go.

So I hope you enjoy this. If you have any other questions that you want me to add to this, that every 40 year old should be asking before they turn 40, please send them some of them to comments at resiliency group, llc.com. I cannot wait to hear your thoughts. See ya.