Episode 28 Mind Your Language Part 1 - Asking the Right Questions
This is the first of a series of three episodes on how language influences our well-being.
How we talk to ourselves, about ourselves and the world has a massive impact on how we feel, perceive and experience life.
Language matters - massively.
In this first part we’ll look at how to ask questions the right way - in a way that doesn't undermine you, but actually serves you.
You'll learn
which two things you'll always want to avoid when asking yourself questions
how to catch 'bad' questions
how to rewrite them so they work for you rather than against you
Download Transcript
Full Episode Transcript
Episode 28 - Asking yourself the right questions
Welcome to this episode of the managing the smart mind podcast with Master Certified Coach Else Kramer, a.k.a. Coach Kramer.
This is the first of a trilogy on language.
How we talk to ourselves, about ourselves and the world; has a massive impact on how we feel and perceive and experience life.
In other words: language matters - massively.
In this episode we’ll look at how to ask questions the right way. The right way being, of course, a way that serves you.
As some of you already know I studied Analytical Philosophy at King’s College London many years ago, and one of my electives was Philosophy of Language, which turns out to be an incredibly useful foundation for coaching.
I mean, think about it, it’s insane that it even works - that when you say ‘let’s meet at the local library at three pm’ I have a pretty good idea what you mean.
We both understand and agree upon what ‘local library’, ‘meet’ and ‘three pm’ refer to, and what they mean combined like this. It’s pretty mind-blowing when you think about it - but I’ll leave talking about the magic of language for a later episode, because today we’re focusing nog on communication but on asking yourself questions.
Now the way I look at the brain when it comes to question is like a search engine, but in the shape of a dog.
You’ll ask it a question and it will run out, go on a small quest if you like, to find the answer.
What you may not realise is that, whilst doing this, it assumes that what you state in your question is TRUE.
Makes sense, right - if it’s not why even bother looking for an answer?
But now think about the questions we tend to ask ourselves throughout the day - and I mean the non-Googleable ones.
‘Why is this so hard?’
‘Why do I always leave it to the last minute?’
‘Why is it impossible for me to find a job I enjoy?’
‘Why is it so difficult for me to find friends?’
‘Why do I always drink more wine than I want to?’
‘Why can I never remember where I leave my stuff?’
‘Why do I suck at admin?’
These questions aren’t helpful at all, in fact, they hurt you instead of helping you.
If you ask ‘Why is this so hard?’ your brain will run off, like a trusty dog, and go find evidence why the thing you’re trying to do is hard.
Which is the exact opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.
When you ask ‘Why do I suck at admin?’ you reinforce that you suck.
When answereing these types of questions you may think you’re problem-solving, but you’re actually problem-perpetuating.
They undermine your self-confidence and they disempower you.
OK, so are questions you ask yourself now banned?
Not at all. Asking yourself questions is an incredibly powerful tool to direct your mind - as long as you do it in the right way.
The first step is to catch the ‘bad’ questions.
You may have no idea what you’re asking yourself throughout the day - our internal chatter runs at the speed of 4.000 words a minute, which would take you around an hour to say out loud.
The better you get at catching your negative internal monologue, the easier it’s going to be to modify it.
So start noticing how you talk to yourself. What kind of questions you ask.
You can also try using ‘Why..’ as a prompt and write for five minutes to see what questions are lurking in the background.
The second step is to modify them into ‘good’ questions.
There are several ways you can go about this.
You can simply turn them around:
‘Why is this so hard?’ => ‘Why is this so easy?’
But doing it like that just elicits a lot of sarcastic laughter from my smart mind - and it may be the same for you.
What does work? Something less absolute and more believable, like:
‘What could make this easier?’
This sets your brain up to find some really useful ideas (and if the only answer you can come up with is ‘I don’t know’ don’t worry - I’ll cover that in the next episode).
‘Why is it so difficult for me to find friends?’
becomes
‘What steps can I take to start finding friends?’
And yes, we’ve got a bit of a pattern here: it’s usually much more useful to ask ‘what’ or ‘how’ questions than ‘why’ questions. Unless you’re philosophising of course!
‘Why do I suck at admin?’ for me becomes ‘How can I get help with my admin?’
As a guideline, you want to avoid two things when asking yourself questions:
Negative bias
Using absolutes and generalisations (always, none, etc.)
‘Why am I so exhausted after meetings?’ could become:
‘What specific things in meetings cost me a lot of energy - and what measures can I take to counteract those?’
Don’t forget, you’re in charge of this, so play with it a little. Make it fun! See yourself as a word-alchemist, making magic with meaning.
‘Why do I always drink more wine than I want to’
Can become something like:
‘How can I make it a no-brainer to stop drinking after two glasses of white wine?’
Or:
‘How can I remember to say ‘one glass of Champagne is the perfect amount of alcohol for me’ whenever someone offers me more alcohol?
Go play with this.
Find the ‘bad’ questions.
Rewrite them into constructive ones.
Ask those - and listen to the answers your smart mind finds for you.
You can even create a list of your favourite questions.
One of mine is: ‘how is this so much FUN?’ - especially when I’m creating.
Takes me straight out of perfectionism back into the joy of creating.
So good.
Until the next podcast, bye bye,
Else a.k.a. Coach Kramer
Do you want to work with me one-on-one to move past whatever it is that blocks you? DM me on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook to learn how you can work with me, or send me an email via podcast@elsekramer.com.
Thank you for listening to the Managing the Smart Mind Podcast, I love that at the time of recording this there are smart humans listenening in 70 countries! I really appreciate you - do send me any questions or requests for topics you have.