You don’t need twelve questions for your walk. You only need one.

Read through the list before you head out and notice which question makes you pause. Maybe it feels immediately relevant. Maybe it makes you a little uncomfortable. Maybe you don’t quite know why you keep coming back to it.

Take that one with you.

You don’t need to think about it the entire time. In fact, don’t. Notice where you’re walking. Listen to what’s around you. Let your attention wander. Your question can disappear for ten minutes and come back when it wants to.

Maybe an answer will show up. Maybe a completely different thought will. Maybe nothing will happen at all.

There’s nothing to finish. Just choose one question and see where the walk takes it.

12 Questions to Take for a Walk

1. What have I been carrying that I don’t need to carry today?

Not everything you’re carrying needs to be solved or permanently put down. Maybe there’s simply something you don’t need to hold for the next hour.

2. What has been taking more from me than I realized?

Think beyond the obvious big stressors. Sometimes it’s the small thing you encounter every day that quietly asks the most of you.

3. What have I been needing more of lately?

Not what you should need. Not what would make you more productive. What have you genuinely been wanting more of?

4. What feels different now than it did six months ago?

You don’t have to decide whether the change is good or bad. Just notice what isn’t quite the same anymore.

5. What am I doing because it still works for me—and what am I doing because I’ve always done it?

Sometimes routines keep supporting us. Sometimes we simply keep supporting the routine.

6. Where have I been asking too much of myself?

There is a difference between challenging yourself and making every ordinary day unnecessarily difficult.

7. What has been surprisingly good lately?

The answer doesn’t have to be important. A conversation. Better sleep. A song you forgot you loved. Ten quiet minutes in the morning. Something can be small and still be worth noticing.

8. What have I been putting off that would actually make life easier?

Not the enormous project you’ve been avoiding. Look for the small thing that keeps following you around asking to be handled.

9. What am I ready to stop proving?

To yourself. To someone else. To people who may not even be paying attention.

10. When have I felt most like myself lately?

Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with—or were you alone? You don’t have to recreate the moment. Just notice what was present.

11. What deserves more of my attention than I’ve been giving it?

Sometimes our attention goes to whatever is loudest rather than whatever matters most.

12. What can stay unfinished for now?

There will always be something else to solve, decide, organize, improve, or understand. What might happen if one thing were simply allowed to remain open a little longer?

Leave the Rest Here

You may have read all twelve and known immediately which one you wanted.

You may have narrowed it down to three.

You may not particularly like any of them today.

That’s okay.

Come back another day and the question that barely registered this time may be the one that stops you next time.

You don’t need to carry twelve questions onto the trail.

Take one. Let the other eleven wait here.