Morning and Evening Questions: A 15-Minute Ritual
A simple 15-minute morning and evening questions ritual from my book The Winning Edge that primes your mind, reviews your day and makes behaviour change stick.
{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","headline":"Morning and Evening Questions: A 15-Minute Ritual","description":"A 15-minute morning and evening questions ritual that primes your mind and reviews your day, adapted from Avinash Chate's book The Winning Edge.","image":"https://avinash-gallery-worker.avinashchate-abc.workers.dev/avinash-1775992444396-nuo3lg.webp","keywords":"morning questions ritual,evening questions,active questions,daily questions scorecard,behaviour change,personal development India","articleSection":"Personal Development, Motivation","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Avinash Chate","jobTitle":"Founder & Director, The Future Corporate","sameAs":["https://www.linkedin.com/in/avinashchate","https://www.youtube.com/@AvinashChate"]},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Avinash Chate","url":"https://avinashchate.com"},"datePublished":"2026-06-28","inLanguage":"en"} Most of us start our day reacting and end it scrolling, and somewhere in between the person we wanted to become quietly slips away. We set goals in January, we attend a workshop in March, we feel inspired for a week, and then old habits pull us right back to where we were. In my book The Winning Edge, The Champion Mindset , I argue that the problem is rarely a lack of motivation. The problem is that nothing in our day asks us, honestly, whether we are actually doing what matters. That is exactly what a small ritual of morning and evening questions fixes. It takes about 15 minutes a day. It does not need an app, a coach or a holiday. It needs a sheet of paper, a pen and the willingness to ask yourself a few uncomfortable questions before you sleep and after you wake. I call these Active Questions, an idea I learned from the behaviour coach Marshall Goldsmith and then adapted for my own life and for the professionals I train across Maharashtra. In this article I will walk you through the exact ritual, the questions I use on my own sheet, and how to make the change stick. Why Questions Beat Resolutions A resolution is a promise you make once. A question is a promise you renew every single day. The difference sounds small, but it is the entire game. When you tell yourself I will be more disciplined this year, there is no daily moment of truth. Nothing checks in on you. But when you ask yourself every evening, Did I do my best to set clear goals today, you create a tiny scorecard that you cannot hide from. The score is honest because the only person reading it is you. The only questions that really matter are the ones you ask yourself. Active voice changes everything Notice that I do not ask Did I have clear goals. I ask Did I do my best to set clear goals. That phrase, did I do my best, is the heart of the method. It moves responsibility from your circumstances to your effort. Traffic, a difficult client, a slow team, none of that can be blamed when the question is about your own best effort. In my workshops, professionals are often startled by how diffe…
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By Avinash Chate — Maharashtra’s #1 Corporate Trainer & Motivational Speaker. .