Three Questions To Ask Yourself Every Day

Take two minutes, it's worth it.

A few years ago, I did The Magic by Rhonda Byrnes for the first time. On the second day of the book, she introduces a super simple practice where you think of the best part of your day and you say thank you for that, right before you go to sleep.

More than three years later, I still do this every single night - usually out loud with my partner, but sometimes in my head if we go to bed at different times - but I’ve added two more questions.

Each night, I tell my partner the following things:

Three things I’m grateful for right now

You probably know that practicing gratitude is good for your mental health - it reduces stress, increases resilience and strengthens relationships - but how often do you actually do it?

Listing out 10 things your grateful for would be amazing, but I like to go with three as my minimum as it always feels achievable, even if I’m desperately tired. A little bit is better than none, after all.

Sometimes these will relate to the day, sometimes they’ll be more general. It can be as simple as being grateful for a sunny day, or as profound as expressing gratitude for all the healthy systems in your body that are keeping you alive.

The best thing that happened that day

This is all about gratitude again, but it’s also a nice reminder that no matter how bad you think your day was, there’s almost always at least one little thing that was not so bad.

If you’ve been sick in bed all day, maybe you got to watch some trashy TV or someone brought you a nice hot cup of tea. If you had a stressful meeting, maybe you went for a quick walk outside afterwards to decompress.

Some days, the best part of your day might be something huge like getting a new job, but more often than not, this will teach you to appreciate the simple things like your kid belly laughing when you tickled them, or your favourite song coming on the radio when you got in the car.

What you’re most looking forward to tomorrow

Thinking about what you’re most looking forward to tomorrow helps you to let go of the day that has been and give you a sense of anticipation and purpose. Even if today was not a great day, there’s something worth waking up to tomorrow.

And if there’s not, after a few days of answering this question, you get pretty good at building things into your day.

Almost every week on a Tuesday, my partner looks forward to eating ice cream and watching a show that comes out on Wednesday. It’s not fancy or exciting, but it’s one of our rituals that we get to look forward to every week.

If you’ve got nothing to look forward to tomorrow, you might decide to call a friend to brighten both of your days. Or maybe you’ll wake up early so you’ve got time for a swim or something else you love.

Answering all of those questions takes us about two minutes each, so even if you do this with another person, it’s less than five minutes out of your day.

If you don’t have a significant other, you could do this in a journal or even just in your head. Otherwise you could rope in a family member, house mate or even your pet.

Until next time,

A