Don’t just think outside the box today…
Think like there is no box.
How?
Start by asking yourself better questions — the kind that open your mind and filter out the excess noise that’s been cluttering your thoughts.
The power of a positive imagination is unleashed by constraining your focus. Constraints drive creativity, openness, and mindful thinking. It may sound counterintuitive at first but, in a backwards way, you break out of the box by stepping into the right shackles.
And that’s exactly what the following questions can help you with — shackling the noise in your head by channeling your focus into meaningful thoughts and moments of self-refection. Let these questions shift your perspective and bring you clarity:
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A slightly deeper dive into self-questioning
As I alluded to in the intro, the questions you ask yourself on a regular basis can be quite influential. Self-questioning, when leveraged effectively and consistently, gradually frees your mind to focus on what matters most. This process is something Angel and I have successfully guided hundreds of coaching clients and live event attendees through over the past 16 years, to help them cope with various debilitating sources of stress.
If you’d like to better cope with the stress in your own life, I’ll give you a few bonus questions to consider. Unlike the questions above, which focus on the big picture of what’s important to you, the following will support you when you’re derailed by the frustrations of life’s smaller everyday encounters. So next time a random life situation starts to get the best of you, pause, take a deep breath, and then ask yourself:
- What’s the story I’m telling myself about this situation?
- Can I be absolutely certain this story is the truth?
- How do I feel and behave when I tell myself this story?
- If I stopped telling myself this story once and for all, what else might I see, feel, or experience?
Give yourself the space to think it through carefully. Mull it over consciously. And see how doing so opens your mind to responding more peacefully and appropriately on the average day.
(Note: Self-questioning and other self-coaching practices are also covered in detail in our New York Times bestselling book, Getting Back to Happy: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Reality, and Turn Your Trials into Triumphs.)
Now it’s your turn…
Above all, what you need to remember is that it’s not the answers you get from others, but the questions you ask yourself that will help you grow stronger. So I challenge you to re-read and reference all the questions above in the days and weeks ahead. And keep in mind that they have no right or wrong answers. Because asking the right questions of yourself, consistently, is the answer.
And before you go, please share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
We’d love to read your response to question #1 above: In one sentence, who are you?
(Also note that many of these photo-illustrated questions were originally created for our sister site, Thought Questions, but since we rarely update that site we decided to share the questions with you here. And finally, many of these questions have also been re-published in the guided journal, “The Good Morning Journal”.)
