5 Tough Questions To Ask Yourself Regularly

It's very easy to get stuck in your day-to-day, or even your week-to-week.

I've always found it helpful to run a "personal offsite" where you sit back and think about the big picture. This applies to your life as a marketer, but also to your life in general.

Here are 5 questions that I ask at these personal offsites. I do them quarterly.

Even though I know what the questions are, they always give me a new perspective:

1) If you quit and were replaced by a better marketer, how would they do your job differently?

This is taking the outside view of your situation. Picturing someone with none of your sunk costs, insecurities or relationship baggage tends to produce ideas you wouldn't have come up with normally.

2) If your CEO doubled your marketing budget or team headcount, what would you do with it?

The wrong answer: "let me think about it." When someone gives you an opportunity, you should always know what you're going to do with it.

3) What industry best practices do you disagree with, and why?

Forces you to evaluate current dogma, flex your critical thinking muscle and develop your own opinions.

4) How do you get promoted? Are you sure?

Another take on the "outside view" question, this time taking into account what your stakeholders need from / are expecting of you.

5) Are you proud of the work you're doing?

Anything other than a "hell yes" should ring alarm bells and lead to introspection. Life is too short and too full of opportunities to do things that don't satisfy us in a meaningful way.