Do your questions help create a positive mindset?
You probably know people who regularly ask themselves questions such as “Why doesn’t my boss appreciate me more? “. “How can our management be so stupid?’’. “What’s wrong with them?”. Or managers who ask their teams “Why can’t you be more proactive?“. “How did I deserve a bad team like this one?’’. “What’s wrong with this company?”. Did you notice how these people develop an increasingly negative mindset?
Now compare that to the people around you who tend to ask questions like “What can I learn from this?”. “What could be good about this?”. “How can we leverage this opportunity?”. “How can we make this work?”. “How can we work better together?”. Did you notice how these people tend to find a positive way forward?
The questions people ask have an enormous influence on our mindset and attitude.
Lousy questions create a lousy mindset and attitude.
Quality questions create a quality mindset and attitude.
You want to create a more positive mindset and attitude in your team? In your family? In yourself?
Ask these empowering questions.
These are some questions you could ask yourselves each day:
- What has been good today?
- What could I be grateful for?
- Where did I interact well with others?
- What did I accomplish? What could I be proud about?
- What did I learn? What was a valuable lesson?
- How can I make tomorrow a great day?
Don’t worry if, at first, it’s difficult to answer such questions. It happens to many people. Be aware that the more you practice, the better you’ll become at answering them. And the more you’ll notice yourself adopt a more positive outlook on life.
Don’t hesitate to also ask empowering questions to family and colleagues. Especially when you notice they need to be uplifted. Here are a couple of examples:
- Looking back at the last year, what could we be proud of?
- What has been good lately? What could be seen as a positive point?
- What progress has been achieved? Is there nothing that has improved? Or is there?
- What can we learn from this?
- What would you like to achieve?
- What would be the best thing we could do now?
Give yourself the gift of asking and answering power questions. It’s a very wise ‘investment’.