What color is the shirt you are wearing?
When you read that question, what happened? Did your attention automatically shift to find an answer?
That’s the power of questions.
Every day, you ask yourself many questions. It is often an unconscious process, just like the way you answer those questions. If you’ve never noticed it, this may surprise you.
What also might surprise you is that these questions determine how you feel.
You can instantly change your life when you ask yourself better questions.
Let’s find out why this claim holds some truth.
Questions Determine Your Focus
Have a look around you for 15 seconds and memorize everything with the color blue.
Do it now.
Now close your eyes and name everything that was red.
Did you come up with anything?
Do it again but now memorize everything red around you. After 15 seconds, close your eyes and name everything with the color green.
This simple yet commonly used exercise shows how questions determine your focus.
Let’s take a look at a different scenario to understand the power of questions.
Assume you’re waiting for your bus or train to arrive. Suddenly, you hear someone ask the question: “Do you know what time it is?”
Would you look up to see if you were asked this question?
I think almost everyone would, right?
When a question shows up, it’s a human tendency to respond to it.
Often, this happens many times throughout the day. And this happens unconsciously most of the time. In other words, the questions you ask yourself.
A question can disrupt your focus.
When you improve the quality of your questions, you improve the quality of your focus.
What are Quality Questions?
Take a look at the following two questions:
- Why don’t I like healthy foods?
- In what way can I make eating healthy foods more enjoyable?
When asking yourself these questions, you automatically start to look for answers.
For the first question, your answers likely focus on the negative. The reason is that the question itself focuses on the negative too.
The latter question directs your focus to come up with solutions.
The quality of your question determines the quality of your answers. And the answers you come up with, shape how you think and feel.
Guess what happens if you keep asking yourself disempowering questions?
- Why am I not good enough for success?
- Why will I never enjoy happiness?
- And why don’t I deserve love?
When you ask yourself these questions, your mind will find an answer. And over time, you begin to believe those answers.
But what would happen if you ask yourself the following set of questions instead:
- What is something that I can do today that brings me closer to success?
- What is something I can do today that I will truly enjoy?
- In what way can I love myself today?
Much more empowering, right?
The power of questions is quite extraordinary. More empowering questions can help you to shift your focus and feel more positive.
Benefits of Asking Better Questions
Quality questions give you quality answers. This simple idea can change the course of your life.
But how exactly does it change your life?
Here’s a shortlist of the benefits of the power of high-quality questions:
- Higher awareness. When you ask questions to learn rather than to judge, your awareness expands rapidly. Or like Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Curiosity is the greatest gift”.
- Empowering thoughts. Asking yourself better questions is the fastest way to improve the quality of your thoughts. It enables critical thinking, which is a good skill to have.
- Sparks creativity. High-quality questions direct your focus towards solutions instead of dwelling on the issue. And like we discussed, the questions you ask yourself, you will find an answer for.
- Develops empathy. When you understand the power of questions, you can use this to improve your relationships too. Instead of assuming how other people feel, ask them instead. It then helps you to understand them better and develops empathy.
- Enables growth. Asking better questions helps you to learn and grow faster. After all, there’s so much we don’t know, and we are never too old to learn something new.
And of course, we shouldn’t forget about the most important benefit of all;
Quality questions can shift your attention instantly, which can immediately improve the quality of your life.
Simple Tips to Ask Better Questions
Asking more powerful and empowering questions is something anyone can learn. But it’s not something that you’ll learn overnight. It takes some effort and consistency to build the habit.
The first step is always to become self-aware of the questions that you ask yourself. If you need some help with that, then check out the definitive guide on self-awareness.
Here are the best tips to improve the quality of your questions.
Tip 1: Reframe the Question
To start, take some time to write down some of the questions that seem to appear often. What stuff worries you? What is most often on your mind?
For example, let’s assume that you never seem to get out of bed. The question that you might ponder is something like this: “Why can’t I get out of bed?”.
As we’ve discovered, your brain loves to answer questions. And the answers here are focusing on the reasons why you can’t get out of bed. Not very empowering.
Instead, reframe the question in a way that focuses on solutions.
In this case, “What would excite me to get out of bed right now?”.
It is a simple reframing technique. And with consistent practice, you can train yourself to become better at asking yourself quality questions.
Tip 2: Use Curiosity
Curiosity is a great tip for both self-reflection as well as for social interactions.
Too often, we stop asking questions because we believe we know the answers already. That’s the moment when we start making assumptions based on what we think we know.
However, how often are we wrong about the assumptions we make?
Most of the time, there are many factors that we don’t consider. And consequently, our assumptions are often only half right – at best.
When you raise your curiosity, you naturally ask more questions.
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.
– Albert Einstein
Curiosity might help you to get out of the negative thought loopings that many of us get stuck in.
Here’s an example thought: “I’m not good enough”.
And here’s how you can bring curiosity to that thought: “Why do I believe that I’m not good enough?”.
Start wondering why you believe certain things or feel the way you do. Curiosity helps you to explore your inner world.
Tip 3: Question Outcomes
How much of what you believe to be the truth is also truly the truth?
How would you answer the following question: Is eating meat healthy for us? And is breakfast the most important meal of the day or simply a marketing gimmick?
The reason I choose these questions is that you probably have a strong opinion about them. And the opinions vary quite a bit.
Here’s another example: the 4-minute mile. No human thought it was possible to run a mile under 4 minutes until Roger Bannister broke it.
The point I’m trying to make?
Always stay open and flexible to new ideas, insights, and perhaps even a shift in beliefs.
Seek to learn rather than to confirm. And be okay whenever you are wrong.
Tip 4: Consistent Practice
Anything worth pursuing or developing takes time, consistent effort, and patience. And improving the quality of your questions is no different.
Asking yourself more powerful questions is challenging and takes effort, especially at the beginning. It’s much more comfortable to run the same old script you’ve been running for years.
But if you want to live a happier life, putting effort into asking better questions is worth it.
And with consistent practice, you will develop a new habit over time.
Once that happens, you no longer have to put in the same amount of effort. You will automatically use the power of questions in a much more beneficial way.
And you will enjoy it for the rest of your life.
Powerful Questions to Get Started
Below are some questions to help you get started with the journey of inner exploration. The goal of these questions is to evoke some deep thinking and help you to start wondering.
- What is your definition of success?
- What are the values you want to live by?
- If you had three wishes, what would you wish and why?
- What are the most important things in your life?
- What are the big dreams or desires you want to pursue?
- If you could develop only one skill right now, what would it be and why?
- How can you start developing that one skill?
- What would help you relax in times when you feel stressed out?
- What annoys or frustrates you and why?
- What type of person do you want to become?
In addition, here are a gazillion self-reflection questions to ask yourself!