Most people don’t realize how powerful questions are.
The amazing thing about questions is that once asked, our minds go to work on them. That is how we are wired.
The problem is that so many of us ask ourselves lousy questions.
We ask ourselves things such as, “Why can’t I lose weight?” Our mind immediately goes to work and comes back with, “Because you’re a pig.” Woohoo…that really helped. Talk about demotivating someone.
If someone wanted to lose weight a better question would be, “What can I do to lose 10 pounds?” See the difference?
One gets us jazzed and puts our mind to work on solving the problem. The “Why can’t I lose weight?” looks for reasons why we can’t achieve our goal. In other words, our excuses.
And unfortunately, our mind can be very convincing.
Ever hear someone say, “I didn’t have the time.” If I had a nickel for every time I’d heard that from my clients, friends and myself, well, you know the expression.
What a load of hogwash. We’re all busy. We all have things to do. It’s remarkable how much time people “find” when they need it in spite of “being busy.”
Just being aware of how our mind works allow us to use questions to our advantage.
I sat down the other day and thought about what questions we should be asking ourselves.
The following list is by no means complete, but I tried to come up with 30 life-changing questions; one per day for a month.
- What do I want to be?
- What do I want to have?
- What do I want to do?
- Where do I want to live?
- Who do I want to spend time with?
- What kind of house do I want to live in?
- How can I be a better person?
- How can I be a better parent? (for those without kids – How can I be a better employee?)
- How can I be a better friend?
- What can I do to help people?
- What should I stop doing that is hurting me?
- What skills do I already have?
- What are the most important skills to succeed in the world today?
- What skill should I add to my list?
- What books should I read to improve myself?
- What excuses do I use regularly?
- How can I make more money? (economics affects all of us)
- What have I already achieved in my life?
- What are my weak points?
- How do I deal with my weak points?
- What mistakes have I made?
- What did I learn from those mistakes? (referring to question #18)
- What do I spend my free time doing?
- What is my life plan?
- What are the 10 best movies I’ve ever seen? (always good when you need cheering up)
- What do I want to be remembered for?
- Why do I want that? (answer to #24)
- What do I want to leave behind?
- How can I accomplish all of my dreams?
- What is preventing me from accomplishing my dreams?
Don’t take these questions lightly. Really take the time to think them through.
My suggestion is that each morning you take a piece of paper, choose one question then write it at the top of the page and throughout the day whenever you have any ideas jot them down.
If you do this exercise for an entire month, you’ll end up with 30 pages of paper that can be used as the blueprint for your life.
It’ll only take 30 days, but the effect could last a life-time.
Most people won’t bother…and of those that start, most will give up. I would hazard a guess that somewhere around 2% of the people that read this post will actually see this exercise through.
Will you be one of them?
Adrian Shepherd