Lisa LeBlancWe ask ourselves so many questions throughout the day. It starts before we even open our eyes in the morning with “Should I get up or press snooze?” and usually ends with “Am I ready to go to sleep?”. The questions aren’t always this obvious though, sometimes they are sneaky thoughts we have that direct our brains to look for answers we didn’t intend to look for. Often, we don’t even realize that we are directing our brains with them. We think we are trying to figure things out with “Why?” questions. However, if we just think “Why…. something?” we aren’t actually answering the real question – our brain is going to tell us the why – which is not what we were looking for in the first place. And if I have totally confused you at this point, then stay with me – this is SO important.
We have over 60,000 thoughts every day…
Our thoughts are ultimately questions like “what do I think about this” and essentially these questions are directives for our brain. They tell our brain what to think about. If we think of our brain as a thinking machine, like the google of our body, then we want to watch the words we put in the search bar. Imagine you planned to cook chicken for dinner and wanted a recipe but you typed “Beef Pot Pie” into a google search. You might wonder where the chicken recipes are until you realize that you typed the wrong words. It’s not as surprising that you didn’t get a list of chicken recipes. Google is NOT intuitive and won’t tell you the answer to the question it thinks you meant to ask. Google gives you results to the exact words entered. Check out the cute video below that illustrates this idea well.
Our brain vs. Google
So, back to our brains. They work the same way as google does– when we ask, “Why can’t I lose weight?” our brain will then remember and tell us about every diet we failed at, and all the times we didn’t exercise or gave up because it felt too hard. Our brain is not going to provide encouragement or direction for how we CAN lose weight because that is not what we asked. We asked, “Why can’t I lose weight?”. When we ask ourselves questions like this and then wonder why we aren’t figuring it out, we get frustrated and unmotivated. If we learn to ask the RIGHT questions then we start to get the RIGHT answers.
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.
Francis Bacon
So often we believe that having thoughts like; What is wrong with me? Why am I not happy? Why am I not motivated? will help us. We think that we are working on figuring out the solution but often we are only directing our brain to bring up the negative proof that these things are true. Then we use this proof against ourselves, as evidence that we can’t figure things out. You will start thinking; here are all the things wrong with me, here are all the reasons I’m not happy, and here is why I am unmotivated.
Asking the right questions, intentionally…
Being intentional with the questions we ask ourselves and the way we direct our thoughts will move us in the direction we want it to go. We want to think, on purpose, about things that will create the life we want. What if we asked – what could I do today to lose weight? This is an example of a question that points our brain in the right direction. Now we are headed towards seeing the doable actions that we can do right now. We are not bringing up and judging our past efforts or results.
Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.
Anthony robbins
Asking the right questions is a great first step to steering our lives in the direction we want. Look at the questions you ask yourself and think about if they are helpful or if they are actually pointing your brain in a direction you didn’t intend for it to go. You will know the difference because you either will or won’t be headed where you want. You will or you won’t be thinking encouraging and motivating thoughts throughout your day.
The way we ask ourselves questions…
Look of the differences in the way we could ask ourselves questions:
- “What do I have to do today?”
What is something I’m looking forward to today? What can I be grateful for today? What will move me toward my goals today?
- “I’m SO tired this morning.”
How do I want to show up today? How do I want to feel today?
- “I should call my sister today.”
Who can I do something nice for today?
The life we want…
For us to live the life we want, we need to choose what that means. Then we need to direct our brain toward that life every day. We create that life with purposeful, directional thoughts.
For more information or clarity about how to use this concept in your own life then book a session with me and let me show you how. I can also send you a list of great questions that you can ask yourself on a daily basis if you email me at [email protected].
Here is the video I mentioned where the dad has his kids create a step-by-step list for how to make a peanut butter sandwich. It is a great analogy of the way our brains work. If we aren’t clear with our intentional thoughts, then our brain can go off on tangents that don’t get us the results we want.
