Ask Yourself Better Questions

Do you ever talk to yourself?  Of course you do.  I don’t mean the talking out loud like the crazy lady down the street talking to yourself, I mean the normal everyday conversation that goes on inside your head.

Ever notice that most of your thinking is done in the form of asking yourself a question?  It’s true.  Take a moment and listen to your self-talk.  It usually takes the form of asking and answering questions.  We’ll say something to ourselves like, “why can’t I ever get that movement right?”  And since your brain doesn’t want you to lie to yourself it will come up with what seems to be an appropriate answer to the question – “because you’re a screw up.”

But what did we just do?  We’ve created a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Remember, you are what you think.  If you think you’re going to always mess up that movement because you’re a screw up, guess what?  You will.

How about the person who tries to go on a diet but no matter what he does he’s never able to lose weight.  What question and answer process is going on in his head?  Maybe something like – “why the heck can’t I ever lose weight?”  And, his brain comes back with – “because you eat too much, fatty!”  So what happens?  He continues to eat too much and fulfills what he’s told himself over and over again.

We need to start asking ourselves better questions.  The answers are out there.  We can lose weight.  We can exercise consistently.  We can train our martial art every day.  We can be masterful.  We can tap into our own innate greatness.  We can meet the woman/man of our dreams.  It’s not impossible.  It’s not even all that difficult.  We just have to ask ourselves better questions so that our brain gives us more helpful, actionable answers.  We have to understand how to use the human mind to get what we want, not what we don’t want.

Here’s the problem…

How often during the day do you focus and think about the things you don’t want?  You don’t want to be miserable.  You don’t want to be broke.  You don’t want to be depressed.  You don’t want to be fat.  You don’t want to be unmotivated.  You don’t want to be uncreative.  You don’t want… (Fill in the blank.)  But if all we do all day is think about the things, circumstances, ideas, that we DON’T want, and we know that what we focus on grows, for we are what we think, than what is the one thing we can do to change our outcomes?  (c’mon people, don’t make me do all the heavy lifting on this one, say it with me…)

Change our thinking by changing the questions we ask ourselves.  Got it?  Do it.  Ask yourself better, more productive questions so that you get better, more useful answers.  Change your life by changing your process of thinking.

Jon

Jon Haas, "The Warrior Coach" has been training in Bujinkan Budo Taijutsu for more than 25 years and is currently ranked as a Kudan (9th degree black belt) under Jack Hoban Shihan. He has also trained in Okinawan Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Russian Systema, BJJ, Krav Maga, as well as Internal Martial Arts of Yiquan and Aiki.He is a certified Underground Strength Coach-Level 2, a certified Personal Trainer as well as founder of Warrior Fitness Training Systems. In 2008, Jon wrote the book, Warrior Fitness: Conditioning for Martial Arts, and since then has created numerous other online training and coaching programs helping people around the world become the strongest, most capable versions of themselves!

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