Five lessons I’ve learned from asking myself questions
From mastering the makeup of a great question to regular reflection
Asking ourselves questions is a powerful tool to unlock the answers we hold within. We’re so used to getting caught up in the outside world that it’s easy to forget we have access to this tool whenever we want to use it.
Asking myself questions has been transformative, so here are five lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Lesson 1: Ask enough and you’ll find an answer.
Questions are confronting and the ones you ask yourself are the most difficult you’ll ever face. Harder than any exam question, interview question or the questions to navigate on a first date.
Whenever we see or hear a question, there’s an underlying fear that we won’t know the answer, stirring up feelings of embarrassment, shame, and not feeling good enough or smart enough. But our brains are wired to answer questions. They almost always find an answer. It might not be the one you’re looking for or the one you expected, but there will be one.
Lesson 2: Many of us aren’t lost, we’re overwhelmed.
Have you ever been able to think clearly while feeling overwhelmed? No, me neither. When we’re always switched on, we forget to carve out some time to get in touch with ourselves. Take the time to decompress after a hard day, prime your environment with a nice lamp, a candle, a hot drink if that’s your vibe. This isn’t procrastinating. This is straightening out and priming your setup as a necessary first step to clearing your mind and achieving clarity.
In her book, Power Hour, Adrienne Herbert reminds us that we all need a power hour so that we can get focussed and reclaim our time. She highlights the emphasis on ‘reclaim’ because you’re taking back what was previously yours, what has been lost or stolen. I like to think of my question time a quiet time that I’m reclaiming.
Lesson 3: Mastering the makeup of a great question brings great answers.
I worked as a researcher for eight years on topics ranging from Spanish language, to subtitling, to accessibility for disabled people. Each day I’d write surveys, host interviews and facilitate focus groups. I’ve asked thousands of questions. Over the years I’ve picked up and practised the best ways to get people to dive deeper and to elicit experiences, stories and honesty.
Here are three must-haves for generating great questions:
a. Focus on one single idea or problem. Asking yourself Why do I compare myself to Emily? and How does comparing myself affect my confidence? will give you two carefully thought out answers. If you ask this as a double-barrelled question e.g. Why do I compare myself to Emily and how does it affect my confidence? you’re likely to think about too many things at once because the question is too loaded.
b. Keep questions neutral. Even if you think you know the answer, your question is not the place to make assumptions. What do I enjoy about my awful job? assumes that your job is awful, so you’re more likely to negatively respond to the question. Instead, asking What do I enjoy about my job? followed by What do I not enjoy about my job? will help you find accurate answers.
c. Ask open-ended questions. Open questions cannot be answered with one word, so they prompt deeper thought and allow for detail. There could be an infinite number of answers and each one could help you to learn something you didn’t expect to come up. Asking yourself What do I think about my lifestyle? will elicit a much deeper response than a closed question that can be answered with a simple yes or no, such as Do I like my lifestyle?
Lesson 4: We don’t need to completely shut out external noise.
External noise is everywhere. It’s in conversations with friends, in days spent at the office and in social media posts. The power lies in how you choose to use it.
We’re encouraged to ignore other people’s opinions and to not compare ourselves to others. I agree. But I think we can also use the external chatter as a source of ideas, inspiration, and a starting point for asking ourselves questions. The next time your best friend’s achievement throws you off course and has you wondering whether you’re doing anything right, ask yourself: Do I really want that?
If you fancy reading more, I recently wrote about the topic here:
Lesson 5: Reflection is powerful when practised regularly.
New year’s resolutions and annual performance reviews at work have guided us to believe that reflection is something we do on an annual basis. We often prepare for these milestones a few days in advance, pulling goals and achievements out of thin air hours before we need to talk about them. Reflection does very little when used in this way.
Reflection is supposed to be a powerful exercise to dive into what did or didn’t go well and what you want to do more or less of before moving forward. It allows us to pause and appreciate how far we’ve come, plan our next moves, and prepare for a new start.
When we’re actively working to build or rebuild our lives, we’re in constant motion and rarely stop to look up at what we’re building. I used to set my sights on a goal and then do everything in my power to achieve it. But I didn’t reflect or ask myself questions along the way.
Had I stopped to reflect on a weekly or monthly basis, I would have noticed that I was making decisions based comparison, pleasing others, and an idea of success that wasn’t my own. I would have been able to course correct sooner.
Ask Yourself This –
How can you incorporate regular reflection into your week so that you can ask yourself questions?