Questions to Ask Yourself

Give your brain a better assignment—and see what becomes possible.

By Brooke Hicks · The Life Coach School

Your brain is answering questions all day. The question is whether you like the assignment you’re giving it.

If you keep asking what is wrong with you, your mind will find things to criticize. Ask what you can learn, and you give it something very different to work on.

Questions are some of the most useful tools we have in coaching. They can reveal the thinking behind a problem and open up possibilities we weren’t considering.

Start with what you’re thinking

Before you try to change your life, get interested in what is happening in your mind. Ask yourself: What am I thinking?

Write your answers without stopping to improve them. This is a thought download. You’re getting the sentences out of your head so you can look at them.

You may be surprised by how critical or repetitive some of those sentences are. That discovery is useful. It gives you access to the thinking that has been affecting your experience.

Thoughts create feelings, feelings drive actions, and actions create results. Understanding your thinking helps explain why certain actions feel compelling and others feel difficult.

Ask why you’re choosing a thought

The next question is: Why am I choosing to think this?

You may immediately answer that the thought is true. Stay curious. You may have evidence for an opinion without that opinion being the only possible way to understand your situation.

Suppose you keep thinking that you’re out of control with your eating. You may be referring to previous experiences. But what happens when you keep making that your current identity?

This question invites responsibility. It gives you a chance to decide whether a familiar thought is one you want to continue practicing.

Notice how the thought feels

Ask: How does this thought feel?

Answer with an emotion. Hopeless. Frustrated. Encouraged. Curious. Connect the sentence in your mind with the feeling it produces.

Then notice what you do from that feeling. If a thought makes you feel hopeless and you respond by giving up, it is worth examining how that pattern contributes to your result.

Sometimes you’ll notice the feeling first. In that case, reverse the question: What thought is causing the way I feel right now?

You can begin with either the thought or the feeling. Both can help you understand what is going on.

Replace questions that assume you’re the problem

A question about why you can’t do something may quietly assume you are incapable. A question about how you can do it sends your brain looking for options.

Instead of asking why you always overeat, explore how you can feel your emotions without eating in response to them. Instead of asking when life will finally get better, consider what you can appreciate or change today.

You aren’t ignoring a challenge. You’re choosing a question that makes a useful answer more likely.

When your first answer is that you don’t know, give yourself more time. Don’t use that answer to end the inquiry before you’ve really considered it.

Choose one question to practice

Pick a question that points toward something you want to create. What can I learn here? What can I give? How can I make this more enjoyable?

Write it somewhere you will see it. Return to it throughout the day and notice the answers that appear.

You don’t need an elaborate plan to begin coaching yourself. You can start by paying attention, asking a useful question, and being willing to hear your own answer.