“When are you going to start living your dreams?,” asks Ryan Bingham (played by George Clooney) in the new movie, “Up in The Air.” Bingham, who is a corporate axe-man, asks the question of a guy he has just fired. The fired executive smiles, knowingly, as he realizes that the time has come — and that, at last, he may have a shot at living the life he had only imagined.
It was the right question, at the right time, asked in the right way.
The right question can make your head hurt. Why is that?
When we ask ourselves questions, we ask the same kind of questions — resulting in the same kind of answers. And , so, we are stuck, and then usually stay stuck — stuck in our old patterns, and our old way of doing things. Stuck in mediocrity. Stuck in the cycle of stuckness. Unless we ask ourselves new kinds of questions, we can’t seem to break the pattern of our responses — and the quicksand thickens.
My coach asks me questions that can leave me dumbstruck, sometimes generating an audible groan or whimper, like that of my dog, Bueller, when he knows he has misbehaved. It is an “oh, I wish you hadn’t asked that” groan, because it is exactly where I need to “go” — it is the unexamined which needs examining. It is the line of questioning destined to uncover my gremlins and fears, my assumptions and limiting beliefs — those thoughts that hold me back.
Albert Einstein said: “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” What this means is that a shift needs to happen. We need to see things from a different perspective.
A coach helps clients see things from a different view to create a necessary shift in order to find the answer or solution. It is a little like rewiring the brain..and our brains often need rewiring. Asking these kinds of questions can also create an energy shift, moving an individual into a higher level of conscious energy and positive possibilities.
So what are the elements of a good question? (now, that is a good question!)
These are questions designed to elicit the other person’s point of view. Open-ended (Who, what, when, where, why and how) questions that genuinely invite open sharing and begin with phrases such as:
How does that affect…?
What did you notice about…?
What were our expectations when…?
Stay away from questions that can be answered “yes” or “no.”
A few examples of a good question:
When are you at your best?
What would you be able to do if you had no fear?
How do you express your gifts?
What is your purpose?
What are your core values?
What would be the best thing that could happen by “saying no?”
Or the question that motivated me to pursue my ambition of starting my own business, “what would your life look like if you stopped playing small?”
So, consider surrounding yourself with people who ask you those open-ended questions, those empowering, powerful questions that get your mind really working. Maybe it is a coach, maybe it is a good friend or another supporter, someone who will suspend judgement and compel you to think in a new way – a way that will create new energy to take different and more positive action.
And try to be that person who asks these kinds of powerful questions – what a gift you can give to others in your life. The gift of curiousity and caring…and empowerment.
And how do we, as listeners, learn to listen between the lines when receiving the answer…well, that will be the subject for some future article.