Want Better Results? Ask Better Questions.

The nature of the mind is to wander, and the nature of the brain is to answer.

Do you want better results?

Then you must ask better questions. “Ask better questions you must.” You can almost hear Yoda saying that, can’t you?

I mean it though. The brain answers the EXACT question you ask it. It’s like a Google search engine. Ask Google anything, it doesn’t offer a better question. One where the answers don’t depress you or deflate you as much, does it? It answers the exact question you ask. In fact, not only does it answer it, it creates an endless supply of answers. Some of those answers don’t make any sense at all, some scare the crap out of us, and some make sense. Then we filter for the right one.

Your brain works the same way. It answers the exact question you ask. You’d think because it’s your brain, it would be partial to being on your side. But it’s not. It just wants to talk. It doesn’t care who’s side it’s on.

Go ahead, listen in for a minute. (Really, take a quick pause and just listen to your own thoughts for about 30 seconds).

You had quite a few, didn’t you? Approximately 51 in fact (1.7 per second). If you heard that conversation out loud from a guy on the sidewalk walking down the street, you’d probably walk a little faster and try to get away from that crazy person.

Chances are, you heard some random thoughts, conflicting thoughts, nice, mean, excited, and worried thoughts, all in 30 seconds. The nature of the mind is to wander, and the nature of the brain is to answer.

Try this: Ask your brain, “Why can’t I get motivated?” Now listen for the answer.

Your brain answers, doesn’t it? “You’re lazy. You have no willpower. You need accountability. You’re a LOSER and you can’t get motivated to do anything. Here, I’ve got a list. I’ve been keeping track for a while. You forgot your mom’s birthday. You really bombed that work presentation. You STILL haven’t gone to the gym OR prepped your food for the week. Why can’t you get motivated? You have NO motivation, that’s why!”

Sheesh! Meanie.

Want your brain to be nicer to you? Ask it a different question, rather a more USEFUL question. We tend to ask our brains questions like, “Why can’t I…” when we want to make a change, but feel stuck. The problem is that asking in this way creates more stuckness. The words you use both in your head and out loud create the world you experience. (Read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz for more on this.)

Try this question instead: “What are 3 things I could change to feel more motivated?” Now listen for the answer.

Your brain answers again. It doesn’t care that it just answered the opposite question two seconds ago. “Put on music, workout with a friend, place a bet, join a team, set a goal, make it fun!”

We have our own internal and external language patterns. You notice pretty quickly if someone that you’re speaking to is really negative, but most of us are that way in our own heads.

Here’s the last important piece. We don’t actually make decisions based on our thoughts. We think we do. But we actually make decisions based on the immediate, and sometimes subtle, feelings that our thoughts evoke. I call these “thinkfeels.” They’re so subtle, so programmed by repetition, and so automatic that we think we are reacting to the words we said to make a decision… but we aren’t.

Go back to the example of, “Why can’t I get motivated?” All of those nasty answers that your brain spit out probably didn’t make you feel very good, did they? By the time you realized what a loser you were and how often you screw up, you probably felt like crap and thought something like, “Why bother? I won’t keep it up anyway. I’ll just go eat these fries.”

So if you want to change the way you act — your habits and behaviors — you have to change the way you feel. And if you want to change the way you feel, change the thoughts you think.

If you want to change the thoughts you think, ask better questions.

Catch yourself in a negative spiral without having asked a question first? Here’s a quick brain switch:

“What would I have to think about to feel great right now?”