As I’ve mentioned often in my writings and interviews, self-awareness is a prerequisite to change. If your life is not what you expected it to be and you don’t know why, self-awareness holds the key. Self-awareness forces you to discover the truth about yourself. Unfortunately, most avoid thinking about why things are as they are. Without self-awareness you will never be able to understand why your life is the way it is. So, I thought I’d put on my muse hat to help you confront the inner demons that are holding you back. I’ve devised 5 questions to ask yourself that will help you better understand why you are where you are in life:

Question #1: Who Are My Mentors?

Mentors put you on the fast track to success. Those who seek out and find mentors to help them learn what to do and what not to do, excel. Those who don’t flounder. Have you ever sought out a mentor? Do you have any mentors right now? Is there any successful people you know who you could ask to be your mentor?

Question #2: Do I Have Toxic Relationships?

Success-minded people lift you up, inspire you, motivate you, encourage you, energize you and help you maintain a positive mental outlook. Successful individuals surround themselves with success-minded individuals. But, more importantly, successful people avoid toxic people like the plague. Toxic people drag you down. They demotivate you, antagonize you, anger you, interrupt your life and add little value to your life. They are typically negative, gossip mongers and naysayers who stop you in your tracks. They distract you from pursuing your dreams and your goals. They consume your limited resources of time and money. The fewer toxic relationships one has in life, the better their life will be. Have you thought about which relationships are toxic? How much time do you spend with those toxic relationships?

Question #3: How Much Self-Study Do I Do Every Day?

Daily self-improvement causes growth. Successful people pursue learning every day in order to grow into the individuals they need to be in order for success to find them. Do you read every day for learning? Do you write down what you learn? Do you have a growth mindset?

Question #4: What Are You Passionate About?

Those who pursue things they are passionate about accumulate the most wealth in life. They are the most successful individuals. What makes your heart sing? Are you pursuing things that you are passionate about? What are your dreams and you stretch goals?

Question #5: How Many Hours Do I Waste Every Day?

The hallmark of successful people is their productive use of time. They devote hours every day to self-study, networking with other success-minded people and pursuing their dreams and the goals behind their dreams. They develop a blueprint for their lives and create habits that function like a GPS, directing them to their destination – the life of their dreams.

Two out of every five minutes of our lives are devoted to habits. This means 40% of the time we are all zombies, unconsciously thinking and acting. This is why when we are confronted with the question who am I, most of us don’t know. How can you peel that onion when 40% of the time we are engaged in unconscious behavior? The key, therefore, to understanding who we are, is to track our habits, our unconscious behaviors.

Habit awareness is the key to answering the question who am I. Our daily habits reveal the answer. We cannot possibly know ourselves until we know our habits. Habit awareness is the lens through which we are able to see our true selves. Our habits reveal who we are. Habit awareness is like pulling the curtain on our otherwise unconscious existence. Only by studying our habits will we be able to truly see, for the first time, the nature of who we are.

Habits define us. They shape our lives. If you want to understand your strengths and weaknesses look at your habits. Some are good habits, which create a life of success and happiness, and some are bad habits, which create a life of misfortune and unhappiness. Our strengths and weaknesses, therefore, are revealed through our daily habits. Make habit awareness a priority in your life. Only through habit awareness will you be able to answer the question who am I.

The subthalamic nucleus is a region in the brain that interrupts our ability to focus on tasks. It is called into action whenever something in our environment catches our attention. Its purpose is to prepare us for fight or flight by clearing out all current thinking so that we can focus on the external stimuli that interrupted our thinking. In the modern age of email notifications, text message notifications, Facebook notifications and phones ringing, the sub thalamic nucleus is perpetually at work, distracting us. As a result, we are constantly preparing for fight or flight. Thus, our focus is constantly shifting from one thing to another. And this is very bad. An overactive subthalamic nucleus means we are constantly distracted at work, decreasing our efficiency, productivity and costing us (if small business) or our employers (if employee) time and money. It’s no wonder so many individuals and companies are struggling financially.

So, what can we do? Daily meditation may be the solution. Like exercising a muscle, daily meditation increases your ability to focus and, through daily practice, when distractions occur, your brain is strong enough to shut down the subthalamic nucleus from pulling you in different directions. A study from Emory University found that 20 minutes a day of meditation is enough to override this region of the brain, allowing you to focus. Also, shutting off notifications limits external distractions from pulling you away from the tasks you are focused on. Lastly, taking a break from a task, every hour or so, helps restore your willpower reserve, enabling you to focus more on those tasks. So, start meditating, shut off notifications and take a short break every hour or so and you will increase your ability to focus, which will improve your efficiency and productivity.

One of the most important Rich Habits is growing relationships with other success-minded individuals. These relationships lift you up in life and open doors that are otherwise closed to you. One of the most common Poor Habits almost everyone has is having long-term relationships with individuals who turn out to be toxic, meaning they drag you down in life: they ask for money, they engage in negative gossip that hurts you or a close family member, they throw you under the bus and damage other relationships you have or they drag you into their problems.

It’s not easy to just turn off a long-term Toxic Relationship because they were very likely forged over many years. There’s just a lot of history there. Consequently, I’m constantly asked the same question, which is:

How do I distance myself from Toxic Relationships?

One common thread with Toxic Relationships is that these individuals eventually cross the line and when that happens there’s always a lull in the relationship following an event. Their M.O. or routine is to try to repair their relationship with you by offering an apology or by doing something nice for you. This lull represents your opportunity to pull back and distance yourself. Your reaction should be to not react when they attempt to repair the relationship. When they attempt to repair the relationship, ignore it, pull back, distance yourself. Then, the next step is to make a habit of limiting your exposure to these Toxic Relationships. Limit your contact with them as much as possible. This sends a message to them that the relationship is not going to continue as it did in the past. Eventually, the Toxic Relationship will weaken. They will shift their focus away from you and onto others who are more tolerable of their transgressions.

Remember, Rich Relationships are the currency of the wealthy. If you are on a path towards success, you need to build up your Rich Relationships and weaken your Toxic Relationships. Toxic Relationships will hamper you on your journey towards success. Avoid them like the plague.

One of the common traits of self-made millionaires is that they are leaders. 91% of the wealthy in my Rich Habits Study held leadership roles either as a small business owner or as a key employee working for a large company.

There are many studies on leadership. In these numerous studies, a common trait often cited among leaders is vision. Leaders have the ability to see things that are invisible to everyone else. They see solutions to problems others can not see. They see opportunities in situations where others only see pitfalls. They see a path towards success where others only see obstacles.

I have seen this trait at work while advising small business owners and senior executives in large organizations. What separates leaders from everyone else is their ability to see through the invisible. When you develop the ability to visualize solutions, opportunities and alternate routes towards success, you are able to pivot and pursue those solutions, opportunities and alternate paths towards success.

Acquiring this trait, however, takes practice. Vision is an acquired habit. And this habit emerges only by developing a positive mental outlook. When you have a positive mental outlook you open up your mind to possibilities. Positivity gives you a superman-type X-Ray vision. Those with a negative mental outlook, on the other hand, are only able to see problems, pitfalls and obstacles. Negativity makes you blind to possibilities. It causes a type of tunnel vision that shuts down your peripheral vision. There’s a lot of science to back this up. Dr. Barbara Frederickson, University of North Carolina, recently published the results of a study she conducted on this very topic. According to her findings, when you are able to adopt habits that shift your thinking from negative to positive, you expand your thinking. An abundance mindset takes hold and you are able to see solutions and opportunities that are all around you. You turn on your entire brain, which then goes to work helping you see solutions, opportunities and alternate paths to take that lead to success.

If you want to succeed you need to lead. Leadership requires a positive mental outlook and a positive mental outlook takes daily practice. You have to practice positivity every day. Gratitude is the gateway to positivity. Gratitude shifts your focus from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. So, the starting point for those desiring to become leaders is to develop an abundance mindset. An abundance mindset enables you to see a garden of flowers. Those with a scarcity mindset see only the weeds. The key to becoming a leader is therefore to become a visionary and this requires a positive mental outlook. It’s a domino effect. Positivity creates an abundance mindset which allows you to see solutions, opportunities and helps you find the yellow brick road that leads to your City of Oz.