The Questions We Ask Shape Our Life

The best questions are open, invite exploration, and inspire a positive, appreciative perspective of a situation. They help us tap into our wisdom, expand our understanding and, best of all, place us in the emotion of Curiosity.  Whether you are working on a plan, facilitating a meeting, coaching an associate or client, or supporting a friend, good questions will facilitate a better conversation.

Below I share some of my favorite provocative, positive questions to help you explore the year ahead. Pick just one or several, and make space in your life to sit with the question(s) for awhile.  I promise that a written response to ANY of these will shift you to a different space for 2011.

Awesome Questions to Consider for 2011

Questions to answer one time

• What do I value?
• What do I want to learn this year?
• What promises will I make to myself?
• What does my “wise self” say to start doing a bit more of each day?
• What am I aware of, right now?
• What do I want, right now?
• How do I stop myself from having that, right now?
• Why is that important to me?  (ask this five times, e.g. “and why is THAT important… etc)
• What is missing for me, that I will take care of this year?
• What do I already know, that I’m not using?
• What assumptions am I making about this situation (or person)?
• and What would happen if I dropped those assumptions?
• What must I be doing more often to be comfortable that I am growing?
• Where might I ask for help/support?
• What is missing for me?
• and the companion, What will I do about that in the next year?
• What is a small step I could take – to which I could commit 100%?

Questions to answer 100 times

(write one of these at the top of a page, and keep writing till you’ve answered it at least 100 times.  Prepare to be surprised at what you learn when you get past the predictable and really start pushing yourself!)

• Who am I?
• What do I do?
• What do I offer the world?
• What brings me Joy?
• What makes me laugh?
• What am I putting up with in my work or life (that I’m no longer willing to tolerate)?
• What do I believe to be true?
• What is my passion?
• What am I grateful for? (What are the blessings in my life?)
• What have I accomplished in my life?
• and the flip side, What will I accomplish in my life?

10-Year Questions

(these you can revisit over and again and the answers will continue to shift)

• What do I want to be in the world?
• What sort of leader am I becoming?  (or parent, or person, or…)
• What is my invitation to others?
• Now that <this> has happened, what else is possible for me?
• What will I die for in order to keep alive the things that matter?

What is YOUR most awesome question, the question that really rocks your world and makes you think?  Click here to send me your favorite.

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The 13 Principles of Happiness are really about asking yourself a series of questions, like, “How am I living my Values?”  “How might I build my Reserves?” and “To What am I Paying Attention?”  Visit http://www.theexecutivehappinesscoach.com/happiness/philosophies.cfm, to download a colorful 1-page PDF Poster.  Post it on your workplace wall or your fridge at home, and use it to coach yourself and others to Choose Happiness.

The Point is to Live the Question

At a recent coaching conference, a wise colleague shared a very powerful practice: the 10-Year Question.

In coaching, questions are the primary tool: the probe, the lever, the dynamite that can explode a story, the key to unlocking awareness.  What sort of question, I thought, could take ten years to answer?  That would be a powerful question, indeed!

“So,” we asked eagerly, pencils poised above our notepads and journals, “what is the 10-Year Question?”

Fact is, a question that powerful does not come from the coach, it comes from the client.  Here’s the question I can ask as a coach: “what is a question that is so big that it will take you 10 years — or more — to completely answer it?”

Are you getting it, now?  It’s YOUR question.  It’s the question you have not dared to ask yourself.  It’s the deep question that you’ve probably ignored in the busy-ness of getting things done.  It’s the question that does not have a clear answer.  Indeed, it may not have any answer.

What is point of asking a question that does not have an answer?  Practice. practice holding the question and notice how the question affects everything you do — the decisions you make, the paths you take, the conversations you find most compelling, the things you become curious about, the part of you that choose to explore.

I met a friend for lunch; I gave her the 10-year question as a “gift” and she sent me a lovely magnet with the following quote, which eloquently captures the spirit and power of a 10-year Question:

“I beg you…to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms of books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer…”

~Rainer Maria Rilke (German poet, 1875-1926)

So, what’s YOUR 10-year question?  And what will happen when and if you have the courage to LIVE that question?  I”m still working on mine….