CHANGE IS EASIER WHEN YOU ASK BETTER QUESTIONS!
Have you ever been uncertain what to do?
Have you ever wanted to make a change in your life?
Do you find it difficult to make changes or to decide what path in life to take?
If you do you’re not alone. Fact is! You’re human
WHERE IS YOUR FOCUS?
You’re faced with a significant decision
Perhaps you’ve already decided to make a change, but you’re not sure how to start
Or you tried to change and failed?
When you’re faced with these types of scenarios, how can you move yourself to a place where it’ll be easier to move forward?
If you’re like me, the chances are that your focus is on the decision, or the change, or the fact that you failed
You can change your focus. Try this
If you wanted to feel proud about something in your life right now, this moment, what would it be?
No, really. Stop. Think. A moment in your life when you felt proud
Passing an exam; helping a stranger; a competition you won; your family? How does it feel when you think about what makes you feel proud?
Do you feel confident, pleased, content?
What if I asked you to think about something that makes you feel gratitude? What would it be?
Think!
Your health; family; the country you live in; access to good water and good food? How do you feel when you feel that gratitude?
Do you feel blessed, relieved, happy?
When you really think, and I mean stop running around, stop all the voices in your head and really take some time to think about the questions above and find answers within yourself, you’ll access emotions within yourself
Why is that important?
Those emotions will affect both you and those around you
How did we manage to manifest those changes in the way we felt, when compared to what we were feeling before we stopped in that moment?
By asking good questions
MONITOR THE QUESTIONS YOU ASK YOURSELF
Let’s say you are considering moving job
Do you even ask a question of yourself in that moment? I’m certain you do, it may be that you’ve never really stopped and considered the question you asked though
What type of questions are you asking yourself?
Why should I move job? Or perhaps: Why shouldn’t I move job?
These questions are likely to leave you indecisive as they are not good questions and your responses are likely to be quick and come easily
Maybe you’d say “I don’t like my boss”, or “I’m bored”
A better question would be “List 3 specific reasons why it would, and 3 why it would not, be a good time to move job?”, but not “List 3 specific reasons why I’m not happy in this job?” as this latter question already assumes that you don’t like the job, thus priming your brain to find answers that confirm the bias you’ve put in the question
When you ask any question, you brain will automatically look for reasons, so the better your question, the more you’re priming your brain to look for better, deeper answers
I find that after I’ve answered the first question, I’ll often immediately have a follow up question, like “Is that really a good reason, or is there a better one?”
Perhaps you want to lose weight?
Maybe you don’t even get to a question; you just say to yourself “I’m going to lose weight”
You’d be much better off asking yourself “What one, specific action could I take tomorrow to start losing weight?”. And once you’ve started with that question and got an answer, more questions you can ask yourself will likely come to mind
Or maybe you failed to lose weight recently and your question to yourself is “Why can’t I lose weight?”
That is not a good question, your brain is likely to just come up with a quick answer such as “You’re too lazy” or “You have no will-power”. Neither of those answers is at all useful to you. Ask a better question of yourself!
Again, you’ll see the value of the more specific question
ASK YOURSELF A BETTER QUESTION
How do you form a better question?
Well, that’s a good question!
Let’s see if I can answer that for you
First, be specific. A general question, is likely to generate a general answer. “Why can’t I exercise more?” is likely to be answered by yourself with a quick and useless answer such as “Because you’re lazy”
This is a non-answer. A better, more specific question would be “How and when can I find 15 minutes in my schedule every week day to go out for a walk?”
Second, be positive. Your brain responds much more proactively to question that are put in the positive and you’re much more likely to seek a better answer. Consider if you’d asked “Why can’t I find 15 minutes in my schedule every week day to go out for a walk?”
Chances are you’d think of a bundle of reasons and none of them would help you find those precious minutes!
Third, be kind to yourself and use empathy. Using positive questions gets you most of the way there. You might also want to start the question by forgiving yourself for previous failures, acknowledging them and then ask yourself the better question you’ve decided upon
If you’re telling yourself “I’ve always been a late riser” or “I can’t get out of bed in the mornings” prior to asking even a good question like “Can you think of 3 great ways you could use an extra 15 minutes when you get up 15 minutes earlier each day?” Well then, by priming yourself with the negatives before you even started with the good question, you’re on a loser, you’re increasing the chances you’ll ignore the answers even if they’re good answers
Instead, tell yourself “I know I’ve found it hard, but I know I can get up earlier if I’m motivated”, use empathy on yourself!
Fourth, be presumptive, by this, I mean the better question will assume success as an integral part of the question
The better question will be telling your brain that this is already a done-deal, all that is needed is a good reason or two or three to get on and make that decision or undertake that change!
When we’re saying “think of 3 great ways” the assumption is that you’ve already got the time, you just need to decide how best to use that newly found time!
Now you might be thinking, if I’m considering changing job and I assume it’s a done-deal, I’m only going to be considering one side. Correct! For a two-way decision like that, you’ll need to ask better questions that frame both sides
If you asked yourself a better question as to why you wanted to leave your job, you also need to ask a better question as to why leaving might be a poorer decision than staying or why you might want to stay
Focus is controlled by the questions you ask yourself, spend a little more time on your questions and you’ll find that quite imperceptibly, you’re much more in control of your life than you were before
CONSIDER THIS!
Remember, you can’t use the above techniques as a one off and have instant results
But you will have lasting results over time by making the asking of better questions a habit. If you want to do it, developing that habit will be worthwhile, and it will become easier with practice!
If you like what you read and you’re ready to put it into practice click here to grab your very own
Going for Gold! Better Questions Assist List!
where I provide a quick and easy checklist for you to keep in mind when you’re ready to find better questions
Remember every week I’ll be putting out more ways to improve your life here
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