Power Questions

Have you every stopped to consider that the type of questions you ask yourself can have a significant impact on your life?

Your first reaction to this may be that your questions are reserved for other people … but take some time to reflect on this and you might be surprised to realise that you are, in fact continually asking questions of yourself.

Even more surprising might be your realisation of the degree to which the answers to those questions actually disempower you.

[box type=\”shadow\”]“At the end of the day, the questions we ask of ourselves determine the type of people that we will become.”

― Leo Babauta[/box]

Power Questions continued

 

A simple example

A simple example might be:

“Why am I so stupid?”

You know what it’s like. The boss asks you a simple question and you, distracted by something going on in the background, answer without properly thinking it through.

You immediately challenge yourself with the thought: “Why am I so stupid?”

However, the problem with this kind of question is that it is likely to result in an equally negative answer.

You see, when you ask yourself a question your subconscious mind will focus on finding an appropriate answer and that answer could be:

“Because you lack the necessary intellect for this job.”

Negative question, negative answers

A disempowering question is almost always likely to result in one or more disempowering answers. And disempowering answers have the effect of negatively impacting your ability to enjoy life and flourish.

My key question

On the New Insights Advanced Coach Training workshop we do an exercise called ‘My key question’ in which delegates are asked to think about the basic question that they continually ask themselves in important areas of their lives.

I personally found this exercise to be eye opening when I was first exposed to it in my days of corporate life, even before getting involved with New Insights.

I was asked to come up with a question that was frequently at the back of my mind during important times during my working day.

I struggled with this at first but the more I thought about it the more I realised that I had a habit of approaching business meetings called by other people with the same old nagging thought:

“Just how is this relevant to me?”

Asked to reflect on the answers I would most often come up with, I had to admit that most of the time they were disempowering, such as:

“Hardly, it’s just another waste of my time.”

Following on from the conscious realisation that my key question was self-centred and likely to produce a negative response, I worked at formulating a different, more empowering question.

My key question revisited

I came up with this:

“Just how can I best contribute here?”

The change of question, though reasonably subtle, made a huge difference to the answers that my subconscious would formulate and an even more dramatic difference to how I felt about attending  meetings!

In life coaching

In life coaching, we recognise the importance of the questions we regularly ask ourselves for the dramatic effect that they can have on our day to day lives and general level of enjoyment.

That’s why we incorporated something that we call ‘Your Power Questions’ into the New Insights Life Coaching system.

Clients are encouraged to print out and post (in a place where they will be frequently reminded of them each morning) a series of seven empowering questions with which to start their day.

“What am I happy about today?”
“What am I grateful for today?”
“Who do I love?”
“Who loves me?”
“What can I do to make today fantastic?”
“What can I do today that will make a difference?”
“What can I acknowledge within myself today?”

Another that we have recently added is:

“What can I set out to learn today?”

The original inspiration for these ‘Power Questions’ comes from Anthony Robbins who was one of the first to promote the importance of questions in bringing about a change in your life.

By getting into the habit of regularly asking ourselves positive questions, we will programme our subconscious minds to come up with equally positive and empowering answers.

Try it out for yourself

Please do try this exercise for yourself:

• Think of an important area of your life.
• What is the key question you frequently find yourself asking yourself in your thoughts?
• Is it empowering or disempowering?
• How can you change it to become more empowering?
• Now, what is your new key question?

If you have the courage, please consider sharing the results with our readers by leaving a comment below 🙂

 

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