35 Life Coaching Questions in the Spirit of Jordan B. Peterson
PREFACE
These questions are not comfortable. They are not meant to be. Jordan Peterson’s work is grounded in the conviction that the antidote to suffering is not the elimination of difficulty but the voluntary adoption of responsibility. The dragon of chaos does not disappear — you learn to face it. Use these questions as a mirror. Answer them honestly, even when honesty is the last thing you want to offer yourself.
I. Order & Responsibility
Peterson argues that chaos and order are the twin forces of existence. These questions help you examine where you are standing — and whether you are standing upright.
1. What in your life are you pretending not to notice?
2. Where are you tolerating disorder that you could, right now, bring under voluntary control?
3. Are you taking on the right amount of responsibility — or are you using weakness as a shield?
4. What is the single thing, if you fixed it, that would most improve your life?
5. Are you the person your dog thinks you are?
II. Meaning & the Meaningful Life
Meaning is not found in happiness — it is found in bearing a load that is worth carrying. These questions point toward your load.
6. What would you do if you were not afraid — and would that be worth doing?
7. Are you sacrificing what you want now for what you want most?
8. What suffering have you voluntarily taken on that has made you stronger?
9. Are you aiming at something real, or at something that merely sounds impressive?
10. If your life were a story, is it one worth telling — and are you the hero or the victim?
III. Truth & Self-Deception
The lie is the root of all evil, Peterson insists. Not the dramatic lie — the small, daily lie you tell yourself to avoid discomfort.
11. What lie are you telling yourself that you already know is a lie?
12. Where are you substituting resentment for honest reflection?
13. What would you have to change about yourself if you decided to always tell the truth?
14. Is your self-narrative accurate — or is it a story built to protect you from accountability?
15. Who in your life are you blaming for problems that are actually yours to solve?
IV. Discipline & the Long Game
Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. Growth is incremental. It compounds. These questions surface your trajectory.
16. Are you 1% better than you were yesterday — and if not, why not?
17. What habits are you maintaining that your future self will thank you for?
18. What are you putting off that your avoidance is slowly making worse?
19. Are you treating yourself like someone whose flourishing matters — or like someone you resent?
20. What is the next smallest step you could take toward the person you want to become?
V. Shadow & Strength
Peterson draws on Jungian thought: the shadow — the parts of you you suppress — is also the source of power. Integration, not denial, is the goal.
21. What part of yourself are you most ashamed of — and what useful energy does it contain?
22. Where are you being agreeable when you should be honest?
23. What would a braver version of you do in the situation you are currently avoiding?
24. Are you dangerous enough — in the sense of having real capacity you hold in voluntary restraint?
25. What would you dare to say if you knew it needed to be said?
VI. Relationships & Competence
Do not allow people in your life who would not rejoice in your upward movement. These questions examine the relational structures around you.
26. Are the people closest to you lifting you up — or are they comfortable with your stagnation?
27. Are you competing with others or collaborating with them — and which is actually called for?
28. Where in your relationships are you being infantilized, and where are you doing the infantilizing?
29. What would you have to sacrifice in order to be truly useful to those you love?
30. Are you raising the standard around you — or lowering it to feel comfortable?
VII. Vision & the Future Self
You need a vision that is worthy of you. Not comfortable. Worthy. These final questions bring you face to face with your highest possibility.
31. What does the person you could be in ten years look like — and does your current life point toward that?
32. What would you do with your life if you decided to take it seriously?
33. What is your greatest aspiration — and what sacrifice does it actually require?
34. If you could be grateful for the struggle you are in right now in ten years, what would it mean it led to?
35. What is the vision compelling enough to justify the suffering that transformation requires?
“The purpose of life, as far as I can tell… is to find a mode of being that’s so meaningful that the fact that life is suffering is no longer relevant.”
— Jordan B. Peterson
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