As a kid, I suffered from constant bullying, abuse, and feelings of abandonment from a broken home. Heaped on top of my already limping self-esteem, I might as well have been the poster child for a negative mindset.
Questions saved me. I know if they can shift me into a new mindset, if they can empower me when I felt completely powerless, they can also work for others.
In this article, I want to share with you three simple but mind-bending questions to empower yourself.
Here we go.
. . .
How Questions Can Empower Us
The thing I love about questions is that they have this funny way of capturing our whole attention and shifting us into a new mindset. David Hoffeld explains how questions dominate our thinking in his FastCompany article, Want to Know What Your Brain Does When It Hears a Question?:
If questions wield such dominating power, then perhaps you can see how the questions we ask ourselves, and those we entertain from others, often hold space in our minds.
Questions influence our imaginations. According to research in the Current Directions in Psychological Science journal, our imaginations, in turn, fuel our behavior.
Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers. — Tony Robbins
. . .
Mind-Bending Questions to Empower Yourself
I remember reading, Awaken the Giant Within, by Tony Robbins and feeling a rush of optimism. These were practical tools. Tools that worked.
One of my all-time favorite strategies from the book is changing your mindset by changing the questions you ask yourself.
Let’s go through three questions that can change our mindset. Here are the three questions you can use to empower yourself:
- What’s good about this?
- How can I use this?
- What’s another way?
I call these questions “mind-bending” because they twist and reshape our thinking patterns, allowing us to view ourselves and our world in new ways.
Let’s look at the questions one at a time to really see how and why they work.
. . .
What’s Good About This?
The first question that you can use to empower yourself is, “What’s good about this?”
This question reverses our negative thinking patterns. When we are trapped in a disempowering mindset, we tend to ask ourselves questions like:
- What’s wrong with me?
- Why does this always happen?
- What’s going to happen next?
These questions train our minds to focus on what’s wrong with our situation and with us. The third negative question even searches the future for more bad experiences.
Instead of asking these negative questions, we can refocus our mindset in a more positive and empowering direction.
When we ask “What’s good about this?” our mind automatically searches for an answer.
We prime our minds for positivity.
We can either focus on the rain or the rainbow. — Christopher Kokoski
A current real-life example is a delay in my contract writing payments from my biggest client. Payments don’t seem to arrive on any discernable schedule.
That’s a problem for me because it’s a problem for my pocketbook. I could choose to focus on the delay, which would result in feelings of pain and resentment (I’ve already traveled down that road). Or, as I am doing now, I can choose to focus on, “What’s good about this?”
In my case, the delay forces me to budget more aggressively, live more frugally, and invest more resourcefully with my time and money.
Instead of living in anxiety and anger, I choose to focus on the positive skills I’m developing while taking action to respectfully resolve the situation with my client.
. . .
How Can I Use This?
The second question that can help empower you builds on the first. Not only can we find the positive in a circumstance, but we can also leverage our new focus into boots-on-the-ground, practical action.
Again, when we ask, “How can I use this?”, our mind gives us an answer.
In doing so, we transform a potential problem into a platform for personal growth.
Essentially, we move optimism into the realm of action. This is what I did when I took steps to budget and live resourcefully. By reframing problems into promising potential, we harness the momentum of transformation.
It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. — Aristotle Onassis
If you find yourself challenged to answer this second question — How can I use this? — in your own life, consider these variables:
- How can I use it now?
- How can I use it in the future?
- How can I use it for my business?
- How can I use it in a presentation?
- How can I use it for marketing?
- How can I use it as a teachable lesson?
. . .
What’s Another Way?
The third and final question is a question of creativity, alternatives, and ingenuity.
In other words, it’s a question to crack open the hard shell of our past pessimism. When we sink into negativity, we ask self-limiting questions such as, “Why does this always happen?” and cling to the groundless belief that we can’t do it (whatever it is in our lives).
Ah, but when we ask “What’s another way?”, we subtly acknowledge that there are more choices. We break free from our self-imposed prison.
In a word, we offer ourselves hope.
It’s not resources but resourcefulness that ultimately makes the difference. — Tony Robbins
. . .
Final Thoughts
With these three questions, you can develop a new mindset and empower yourself:
- What is good about this?
- How can I use this?
- What’s another way?
Neuroscientist Tara Swart reinforces our capacity to change our brains in her Forbes.com article, The 4 Underlying Principles of Changing Your Brain.
She says:
Even the tiniest deviation from our old mental patterns can start forming a new neuropathway, a new mindset, and a new hope.
You are closer to a breakthrough than you think.
—
This post was previously published on Change Becomes You.
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want a deeper connection with our community, please join us as a Premium Member today.
Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo credit: Unsplash