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What If You've Been Asking The Wrong Questions?



Looking out from inside a dark doorway across a prairie with mountains in the background
The doorway to...

What if we aren't asking ourselves the right questions and, as a result, we aren't getting the right answers?

 

Have you ever thought about that? 

 

If we come at them from a different angle and change the way we ask our questions, it can also change the answers that we get.

 

I repeat - the questions we ask can determine the answers we get.

 

Our mind wants to keep us safe and keep us alive.

But it can also interfere with any personal change or improvement.

Our minds will turn every perceived danger;

Every potential risk;

Every probable threat;

Every presumed obstacle;

Every possible unpleasant or unfavorable situation;

Every single uncertainty;

Into something negative if we aren't thoughtful with our thoughts.

 

What makes it even more difficult is when we're afraid to try or to think anything that diverges from what we are familiar and comfortable with,

Either because we don't think we can;

We don't know we can;

We don't know how;

Or because we believe that the way we think is the way we're supposed to think. 

So we become set on not changing our thought processes.

And we keep asking the same old questions and getting the same old answers.

 

We can't achieve anything different unless we think different thoughts.  And it's really hard to think different thoughts without asking different questions.

 

This brings me to the What If questions that we ask ourselves, which I first touched on here.

 

Our What If questions can confine us and even stop us in our tracks, keeping us preoccupied with worries, fears, and self-doubt, or our What If questions can keep us curious and steer us toward exploring what's possible.

 

What if it doesn't work out?

What if something goes wrong?

What if I can't do my best?

What if I can't handle it?

What if it hurts?

What if they don't like me?

What if I make a mistake?

What if I don't succeed?

What if I can't do it?

 

These, and questions similar to these, are our default What If questions.

 

All What If questions are hypothetical questions with hypothetical answers, but these What If questions are rooted in skepticism, as we try to foresee any and every possible adverse scenario that could play out.  These questions - which are the types of questions that we often ask ourselves - tend to have a lot of negativity or doubt attached to them.  Sometimes our What If questions may be outright pointless.  All of this only continues to feed and nourish our stress, our fears, our self doubt, and our anxiety.

 

So what if your "what if" questions aren't helping you? 

What if you've been asking the wrong questions and, as a result, giving yourself the wrong answers?

 

What if you stopped trying to have an answer for everything and just tried to ask different questions instead?

 

What if you confronted the hard questions rather than trying to avoid them or sweep them under the rug?

 

What if you solved your issues, not by the acquiring of new information, but by rearranging the information you already have?

 

What if you focused on curiosity and potential rather than fear or "knowing"?

 

What if you thought in terms of possibilities rather than limitations?

 

What if your past experiences are affecting you more than the current situation?

 

What if there are things holding you back that you consider to be "good" things, and therefore never even regard them as a possible hindrance to getting where you want/need to go?

 

What if you stopped viewing something as a threat or an obstacle and, instead, saw it as an opportunity?

 

What if your current hopes and expectations are based on avoiding your fears?

 

What if fear is just a reaction to not knowing?

 

And what if the way to manage fear is to gradually broaden your comfort zone?

 

What if the uncertainty that you are trying to avoid is where your answers are?

 

What if you eliminated phrases like "I can't", and "I could never do that", from your speech?

 

What if you stopped telling yourself that you can't do something, and started telling yourself that you can do it?  It may not be today or tomorrow or even next week, but as long as you tell yourself that you can't, well…you can't.  Most likely you won't even try, and you will have defeated yourself before you even begin.

At least give yourself a chance!

 

What if you actually tried to do the things that you don't think you can do?

 

What if you don't give up the next time it gets hard and, instead, you keep on going?

 

What if those things that "feel right" really just feel familiar?

 

What if what you do now affects how you see what happens next?

 

What if you didn't settle?

 

What if stress is just pressure that you don't want to deal with?

 

What if you ran towards difficulty instead of running away from it?

 

What if you worked on your limitations instead of working around them?

 

What if avoiding discomfort is actually burying your potential?

 

What if taking on a challenge is just a different way of experiencing yourself?

 

What if you did something out of the ordinary - something outside of your comfort zone - and achieved a dream you didn't even know you had?

 

What if this turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to you?

 

What if you could let go of all the inhibitions and excuses that keep you from doing something?

 

What if you didn't perceive everything that wasn't consistent with your beliefs as wrong?

 

What if you stopped dismissing things just because they didn't make sense to you?

 

What if all of your beliefs, from the most trivial to the most unshakeable, were simply filters through which you viewed the world and yourself?

 

What if you were inspired by your thoughts and not limited by them?


What if you've got it all wrong?

 

What if Life is just trying to take you in another direction?

 

What if the clues have been right in front of you the whole time and you just weren't aware of them?

 

What if you already have the answers, but you just need to rearrange your existing knowledge and reconnect the dots in a different way?

 

What if you can do more and go further?

 

What if you didn't think about what might, what could, or what should, and put everything into the moment that you have right now?


What if you bet on yourself?

 

What if you dug deeper and pulled everything out of yourself that you could?


What if, in order to change the world, you have to dig deep and change yourself?

 

What if, in the process, you redefined what was humanly possible?


What if you talked to yourself about yourself in a more positive and more confident way?

 

What if changing your life was as easy as changing the questions you ask yourself?

 

See, different questions can lead to different answers; 

And different answers can unlock new possibilities.

 

We can't have all the answers if we've never asked all the questions.

 

And if we keep asking the same old questions we'll keep getting the same tired answers.

 

What if we stopped questioning everyone else and we spent that time questioning ourselves?

 

What if we analyzed ourselves with the same conviction and intensity that we analyzed everything else with?

 

Then again, maybe we don't want to know the answers to these kinds of questions because then we'd be responsible for ourselves.  After all, the less we know, the less accountability we have.  Right?

 

Maybe it's not about finding the right answers, maybe it's about asking the right questions.

 

Instead of trying to find answers to the questions you ask, find different questions to ask and watch what happens, because Life can get really interesting when the right questions are asked.

 

But we seem to value answers more than the questions, themselves, and so we usually end up reasoning ourselves into a corner because we only ask questions until we get the answers that we want.  And if we're only looking for specific answers - answers that confirm our personal inclinations - then those are the only answers we will accept.

And the illusion will continue.

 

What if it's not about finding the right answers, but about asking the right questions?

What if we have been asking the wrong "what if " questions all along?

 

You may think that you've been questioning Life this whole time,

But what if Life has been questioning you?









Pic by - Grant Krasner

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