A prudent question is one-half of wisdom. ~ Francis Bacon
Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers. ~ Anthony Robbins
The questions you ask yourself orient you toward all that you do. You wake up and ask, “What’s on my agenda today?” You head to the bathroom and wonder, “What time was my appointment?” Are you really aware of the kinds of questions you ask yourself everyday? Are the questions you ask yourself empowering or disempowering? Are they moving you toward or away from what you desire?
Certain questions are an integral part of your conscious awareness, while others may lie beneath the surface but still maintain great influence upon your life. I have found that maintaining a daily practice of mindfulness meditation serves to heighten your awareness to the kinds of questions you ask yourself. Questions have the power to transform and direct your future – learn to ask the right questions.
Roots Run Deep – Dive into Meditation
Your inner dialogue or self talk can be compulsive and cumulative. Negative self talk can be insidious, habitual and deeply embedded in the subconscious mind. Also, empowering questions that were once useful at a particular stage of your development may no longer be beneficial to you at your current stage of development. Attention to the quality of your questions may reveal insights about their influence on your personal growth.
Here’s a question: “Where do these questions come from?” Throughout your existence, you were subjected to conditioning from your parents, society, the media, your culture and the cumulative experience of your life. Through this perception filter, you have created a belief system based on these perceptions about yourself and the world around you.
Subconscious conditionings also play a role with regard to internal dialogue or messages that affect your outcomes. Simple mindfulness meditation brings to the forefront, deeply-held notions and beliefs, revealing negative or disempowering messages or questions. The mind-quieting technique of mindfulness meditation allows you to clearly see these deep-seated impressions and decide whether to replace or discard them. They simply rise up like bubbles below the surface of a quiet pond. The regular practice of mindfulness meditation neutralizes deeply-embedded impressions and past conditionings and allows for clear, unbounded quality questions.
What Kinds of Questions Do You Ask Yourself?
Have you ever asked the question, “Why me, God?” I bet you have. Is this an empowering question that will move you dynamically and creatively toward your future? Or will this question take you on an endless circular-thinking merry-go-round toward apathy and non-action? Your awareness holds the key. Stop, consider and ask a new quality question. With your newfound awareness through the practice of mindfulness meditation, you can learn to distinguish between empowering and disempowering questions.
Warning! Quality Questions can be Life-Transforming
I encourage you to create your own custom-made quality questions. I have a list of quality questions on my computer desktop and I answer them everyday. One question that I find especially powerful is:
“What is worthy of my attention?”
Here are some quality questions for you to try out. When accompanied by daily positive affirmations, or affirmation music, these tools can propel you into action, inspiration and fulfillment. They are even more powerful after a mindfulness meditation session when the body is relaxed and the mind is fertile, responsive and clear. So try them out and let me know how they change your life.
Quality Questions for a Quality Life
“What can I do today to keep myself mentally and physically healthy”?
“What do I want?”
“What’s most important to me in life?”
“What is time well-spent?”
“What can I do today that will make me feel really alive and that life is worth living?”
“What will get me into a powerful and positive state of mind?”
“What would I do If I had all the money in the world?”
“What can I learn from this?”
“What’s my end game?”
“What else can this mean?”
“What is one action I can do today that will contribute to my worthy goal or objective?”
“What do I have to have, be, or do, to live a ridiculously happy and amazingly fulfilled life?”
“What can I do to make money in ascending order of difficulty and speed of implementation?”
“What can I do today to contribute to others and make my life more fulfilling?”
“What am I passionate about?”
“What am I curious about?”
“What good deed can I do today?”
“What could I get excited about today?”
“What would make me laugh today?”
“What virtues can I embody today?”
“What kind of phone calls or emails do I want to receive today?”
“What is my biggest waste of time?”
“What kind of work do I want to do?”
“When do I feel most productive?”
“What can I learn here?”
“What is the most valuable use of my time right now?”
“How busy am I?”
“What am I busy at?”
“What am I doing that fulfills me?”
“How can I realize more meaning in my life?”
“What can I give today?”
“How can I make a difference today?”
“How can I leave this place more beautiful than I found it?”
“What empowering questions can I ask?”
“How does it get any better than this?”
“Am I ready to receive the gifts of the Universe?”
“How does God see this?”
“What will I try to improve this week?”
“What am I proud of?”
“What have I done to get closer to my life goals this week?”
“If this is the only thing I accomplish today will I be satisfied with my day?”
“Are you inventing the things you do in order to avoid the important?”
“What is the highest and best use for my time?”
“What am I grateful for?”
“Who am I?”
“What would you do if you had $100 million dollars, and even if you were to pay off every single debt for all your family and friends, and buy the home of your dreams, and every stupid luxury you’ve ever dreamed of, you’d still have $85 million left. “What if you really never had to work again? What would you do?” Then, “Imagine you just went to the doctor and were told that you have a serious heart condition, where if you work more than two hours a week you will die. What would you do? What activities would be worth those two hours of your time?” ~ Timothy Ferriss, The 4- Hour Work Week.
The simplest questions are the most profound. Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change. ~ Richard Bach
