Questions Lead to Outcomes - Ask Impowering Questions
Posted: October 24, 2022
Questions. They frame the way we think. They can help or hurt us. If you listen to the questions you ask you can learn about how you think and believe. Which shapes the way you act and behave.
Asking quality questions can change your outcome. Make your life better. Help you achieve your goals.
There are empowering questions and disempowering ones.
Examples:
Why do I always screw up?
How come this always happens to me?
Why can't you just stop doing that?
Why did you get another D in math?
Why don’t you like sports?
The problem with these questions is they lead to answers that don’t help you improve and grow. They stick you more where you don’t want to be.
Your mind can’t help but come up with answers. We are hardwired to answer questions.
For example, ‘Why do I always screw up?’, that question only has bad limiting answers. If you ask your child that, do you think he or she is going to say something like, I screwed up because I was not prepared like I should have been, so I am going to study and do better next time. Or do you think they will start coming up with answers to why they are a screw up. Like, I am just not good at math, or I have a learning disability…
If the question was stated like this: I did not do as well as I could of, so what do I have to do right now to make sure I do better next time?
The answers will be more productive.
Questions change the way we think and help us form our attitudes and mindsets. Ask powerful questions and growth-oriented questions. Enlist the help of your friends and family to point out when you do the opposite. This takes a little time but in my opinion, it is one of the best ways to grow and change constantly.
Asking your child what they learned from school and what they liked is 100 X better than asking how school was. Once this becomes a habit, I know you’re going to love the results!
What’s your favorite growth question?
Mine, what did you learn from that? I love learning.
P.S. I have worked with many coaches and mentors and the one thing that set the best apart from the mediocre was the questions they used to get me to grow. The ones that asked me growth, solution-oriented questions taught me how to think and come up with my own answers. But more than that, they helped me shape my mindset for future growth.
