“What is the meaning of life?”
That is just one of many, many questions that have nothing whatsoever to do with this article.
Ok, now how about these questions: “Why can’t I ever get this right?” “Why does this always happen to me?” “Why do I always screw this up?”
Do you know anyone who asks these questions? Or do you maybe even ask them yourself? Be honest. It doesn’t matter if you say them aloud or just think them silently. The effect is the same…
These questions are EVIL! They damage your productivity, your happiness and your success in life. After reading this article, you will know why, and how you can replace them with questions that empower you instead.
Your subconscious mind’s power
When you ask your subconscious mind to look for a creative solution to a problem, it will give you sooo many great answers! It’s amazing! Let’s say you decide to brainstorm ways to stop global warming. Your subconscious mind will probably hand you hundreds of answers, from the obvious (tax on greenhouse gases), to the downright crazy (build a huge reflective surface, then put it on a space ship, shoot it into space and place it between the Sun and the Earth. No more warmth from the Sun!)
Your subconscious mind is a top-grade targeting system. You give it instructions, and it will find anything that matches these instructions. It acts with surgical precision, but beware – It’s also completely cold and impersonal. It will find answers to any questions you ask, whether good for you or bad. Be very careful about what questions you ask.
If you ask “Why can’t I get this right?”, your mind will give you hundreds of reasons why you cannot get it right! That’s going to kill your motivation and chance to succeed right there.
But how about asking “How can I most easily do this right?”. Your mind will suddenly start sorting for all the ways you can accomplish your task. Obstacles will melt right in front of your eyes, and it will become easy.
Here are a couple of questions you want to avoid:
- Why can’t I ever do this?
- Why does this always happen to me?
- Why do I always screw this up?
- Are we there yet?
- Are we there yet?
- Are we th– ouch! What did you do that for?
And some questions you can ask instead
- How can I most easily…?
- What’s the simplest way to…?
- What haven’t I thought of yet?
- If there was a simple and elegant solution to this, what would it be?
These questions are incredibly powerful, because they leverage the basic nature of questions – when you ask any question, there are always some assumptions. For example, if you ask “Why is the sky blue?”, the assumption is “the sky is blue”. Your subconscious mind will never questions these assumptions – so you need to watch for them consciously.
If you ask “Why can’t I get this right”, the assumption is that you can’t get it right. No matter what answers your subconscious comes up with, they will always include that assumption. Uh oh.
But if you ask yourself “How can I most easily do this?”, you assume:
- You can do it
- There are several ways it can be done
- It’s easy
That puts you in one helluva productive frame of mind!
Creativity through questions
“Most people look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not?”
- George Bernard Shaw
The greatest inventors are always asking empowering questions. Everybody used to think that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that other planets travel around it along complicated epicycles attached to circles, and sub-epicycles attached to those, and whatnot. But Kepler looked at the tables of planetary positions and asked himself – “Is there a simple explanation?”. And he found one – Sun is the center of our solar system.
You too can use the same questions to solve your problems! Here’s what you can do right now:
Think of some area of your life where you have a problem to solve. It could be at work, or in arranging work-life balance, or anything else. Now ask yourself the questions:
- How can I most easily solve this?
- What haven’t I thought of yet?
- If there was a simple solution, what would it be?
Your mind will hand you lots of answers. If you don’t like them, keep asking until you’re satisfied. Don’t worry, devils in hell will be ice-skating before your mind runs out of creative solutions.
When you have the solution, write it down. Then, as soon as possible, take the next step – action!
So, what problem can you use this on right now?
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
“build a huge reflective surface, then put it on a space ship, shoot it into space and place it between the Sun and the Earth. No more warmth from the Sun!”
They tried that in an episode of Futurama, a rock colided with the sheild and changed its angel so that it actually increased the suns power
“So, what problem can you use this on right now?”
This question assumes there is a problem, right now!
Don’t you have a better question?
I found this post very helpful. Mostly because I don’t even think people realize they do this! I know I am constantly telling myself how retarded I am…and it’s not that I think I’m retarded or too stupid to do whatever it is i’m trying to do. I think it’s has to do with my nerves or some twisted stress reliever.
After a while (as sad as this is) it just becomes a habit for most. Although sometimes I’ve got to chuckle at myself for this weird habit. I’ve got to say I’ve never found inspiring or creative insight by calling myself a retard….is there a connection?
BTW- I took your advice on the blogging…and although I haven’t found my knack just yet, I am so glad to take that first step and start writing my online journal. Thanks Vlad! U ROCK!
Very good article. This is good, positive verity what you are writing!
“Are we th– ouch! What did you do that for?”
Ah man that brings me back, to child abuse.
It’s interesting that I just read some stuff about information overload and going on an “information diet” (because I just realized that I might be suffering from some sort of infoholicism) and then stumbled across this blog. With the information of the world quite literally “at our fingertips” I think a lot of us go into this mode of “well, the information is out there so I guess I should find it” attitude. I am a student at heart. I love to learn and talk to people but because the internet is such an easy tool to acquire information I have found that I and probably most other people go to it more often to gain information than by simply having conversations with people or reading a book that explores the topic deeper or just getting out of our houses or apartments and taking action. It’s gotten to the point in our society that the quantity of information is more important than the quality.
I guess I kind of went off subject. But my point is that this “low-quality” information that we receive on a daily basis I think comes from questions like “Why can’t I/we/our country ever do this?”, “Why does this always happen to me/us/our country?” , “Why do I/we/Americans always screw this up?”, or “Are we there yet?” and not from questions that will actually produce results.
Great site! Glad I found it. You’re on my blog roll and Technorati favs.
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