The questions we ask ourselves can literally transform our lives. So I asked, “What are you asking yourself about this issue?” Her answer? “Why have I never been able to find a job I love?” Could she have asked better questions?
We’ve got to be careful when we ask ourselves “why” questions as our unconscious will obediently seek to answer them. Her answer was (you guessed it) – “Because I have to work to pay my bills” and her other answer, “Because I’ve never known what I really want!” Because of her question, her answers got her nowhere fast. So I dug deep into the questions I learned in NLP and life coaching and I asked her better questions.
Better questions get you a better life.
“If you secretly knew what ‘work’ (career might be too strong a word at this early stage) would make you happy; what would it look like, sound like or feel like?” This at least was a much better question and will lead us into a great space, instead of taking us down.
Her answer didn’t surprise me because she loves helping people. She’s a natural problem solver. She’s a caring and nurturing person and whenever there are issues to be resolved, she’s the one that everyone gravitates to. She said, “I would love to do what you do (Life Coaching).” So I asked, “So what’s stopping you?” and out came her usual bullet point lists and reasons why she thought she couldn’t become a Life Coach. All the usual suspects. The barriers that she had built to keep her safe.
The truth is, my friend was using the wrong brain and asking all the wrong questions. She needed to focus on heart brain (while that might sound cliché – it’s not). She was trying to find a passion using her head brain. This had her overthinking the matter until it became a big problem. Her overthinking had her believing she was doing something about her issue and stopped her from ever taking action or doing anything about it. Does that make sense to you?
Sometimes we think thinking is doing, when it really isn’t.
I said, “What if I could show you how you could learn how to become a Life Coach and keep your job and income until your Life Coach income matched or rose way above your current income? Would you do it?”
Her answer was, “Yes!” Problem gone.
Sometimes we overthink our problems, otherwise known as hurdles to our progress. Overthinking when it leads to taking no action, is procrastination in disguise. While our thoughts around our issues might sound intelligent, it’s often far from it. Dogs and Cats rarely die from stress related illness – I think it’s because when they want to do something, they rarely think about it – they just do it!
Equally consider asking your questions by focusing on your other two brains (your cardiac or heart brain and your enteric or gut brain). As strange as this may sound, you will often get completely different answers.
Go ahead, just do the thing you know you must do and perhaps start by asking yourself better questions…
