How to Empower Yourself with Questions

Self-talk, especially the well-formed questions you ask yourself, can fuel your growth, creation of desirable habits and fulfillment of goals in ways you may not realize. Conversely, poorly worded self questioning, can lead to discouragement and spiraling disbelief in your own abilities, choices and actions.

Let's look closely at some examples I’ve seen in my coaching business. You may recognize some similarities to your own self-talk in the questions I share.

First, let's pay close attention to the type of questions that lead to a self-defeated attitude:

- Why do I end up reading emails all day instead of sticking to my priorities?
- Why don’t I generate as much revenue as my peers?
- What's wrong with me that I can't stay organized and reach my goals?
- Why do I continue to eat the things I shouldn't?
- When will I ever have enough time to do the things I want?

While I’m sure you can come up with more of your own, I encourage you not to dwell there. Instead, how about putting your energy to work in a more affirming way?

Let's look at a few examples of questions you can use to supercharge your winning attitude:

- What one thing can I do right now to move myself closer to my goal?
- How can I change my daily habits to support my desire to [lose weight]?
- What is the opportunity here?
- How will I re-energize my attitude if my optimism begins to lag?
- What are the three most essential things I want to accomplish today and how will I accomplish them?

Do you see the difference? In the first set of questions, you’re leading yourself down the proverbial rabbit hole. All you can see is the same problem and rarely will you find any new solutions there.

With the empowering questions, on the other hand, you are expanding your right brain— calling on your creativity to change the paradigm. Automatically, your mind will begin searching for solutions to these provocative inquiries.

Questions are an important tool to frame and reinforce the beliefs that carry you to your goals with greater self-knowledge and ease. They can help you understand what you do, why you do it and when, all important keys to making conscious future choices.

Let's look closely at one important self-knowledge question:

When are my patterns of defeat triggered, and how can I recognize the signs?

This question can be quite a useful tool to identify self-sabotaging thoughts and to help you separate those triggers from any potential actions you take. Once you recognize the thought-triggers for what they are, you can consciously stop, redirect and choose a desirable substitute for any old pattern of undesirable action. You can use this question to help you redirect:

What winning thoughts will I substitute for the ones that have triggered me?

Empowering questions can help you move beyond any limiting beliefs you may be holding onto, consciously or unconsciously. They can help you reprogram yourself for greater perspective, possibilities and opportunities.

I've heard it said many times:

Questions are the window to the world.

What empowering questions will you ask yourself today to open the window to your own world of choices, goals, opportunities and possibilities? Have fun with this process and please share some of your questions (and your successes) with me!