- Hello there, in this episode, we will be discussing
some of the questions that you can ask yourself
to coach yourself out of any situation.
I'll get you to question your current state
and hopefully change your state
to something that's positive and progressive.
Now before I share with you these five positive questions,
let me remind you the two fundamentals
that I am going to try and achieve with these questions.
You see, I believe that we are in complete control
of our thoughts and feelings all the time.
We may not be able to control what happens around us
but how we respond to it is completely in our control.
Which is why these questions are designed to either
bring awareness towards what you're thinking
and what you're feeling in the moment,
or for you to be able to take the ownership
towards what you're thinking and feeling in that moment.
Now, the caveat is that sometimes
you want to feel the things that you want to feel.
There is nothing wrong with fully letting the feelings
sink in and experiencing them as they are happening.
But sometimes when you do want to change those feelings,
these questions will help.
So let's get right to it.
One of the common things that happens is often we have goals
that we'd want to achieve in our lives.
But for some reason, we are not able to achieve these goals.
And when we are not able to achieve these goals,
we tend to ask ourselves the question,
why am I not getting blank?
Why am I not losing the weight?
Why am I not getting the money?
Why am I not actually going to work?
Why I'm not asking the person that I love to go out with me?
All of those questions may seem right on the surface.
But the challenge with why am I not blank
is that it doesn't have any action attached to
that particular event not happening in your life.
So when you ask yourself, why am I not losing weight?
You may come up with excuses
of why you're not losing weight.
Where else if you change that question
and what I call positive-fy that question,
you will turn that question of why to how.
You see a why question when not rightly placed,
only asked for reasons why have something not working.
But when you turn the why question to a how question,
you can switch the narrative.
And now you're putting yourself in a state of asking
what is it that I can do to be able to change
that particular state?
So instead of asking, why can't I lose weight,
ask yourself the question, how can I lose weight
while having fun?
Or why can I make as much money that I want to make?
Instead of that, ask the question,
how can I make as much money as I want
while doing the work that I really enjoy?
You see switching that question
changes the energy associated with the question.
A why question is a question
that looks for blame and reasons.
A how question looks for action.
The reason why I asked to add a condition to your how,
by adding the element of while having is because
when you simply ask how you would lose weight,
you would come up with the most generic answers
that you may have read, and you will just regurgitate it
to yourself and eventually
not really take action towards it.
You want to make sure that your how
is associated with something that you truly desire.
You see, you don't only want to lose weight,
you want to have fun losing that weight.
You don't only want to make more money,
but you want to do more meaningful work making that money.
And that is an equally important part of this question,
than the how.
You see how you can make more money will give you an answer.
But while doing work that is meaningful to you,
will give you the right answer for yourself.
The second question more concerns with your feelings.
You see, often we may feel feelings of sadness, joy,
or loneliness, and so forth.
All of these feelings are valid feelings.
And I'm in no way suggesting
that you submerge these feelings.
What I'm going to invite you to do with this set of questions
is to change those feelings around.
The reason why I invite you not to suppress these feelings
or push them under the rug is because if you do that
you are giving power to these feelings
which means one day they're going to come back
with even more force.
You don't want to do that.
If there is a feeling that is prominent right now
in your life, I would invite you to embrace it.
Feel it fully in your body and your soul, through your body.
But when it is time when you fully experience the feelings
and it's time to change those feelings,
here are some guiding questions.
The first question you want to ask yourself
is what am I feeling?
This question brings awareness to your feelings to yourself.
You see, a lot of times we tend to label our feelings
as the same words that be most commonly used
in our vocabulary.
Which means most of the feelings that you may feel
you might label as happy or sad.
But happy and sad is just a surface words as we use them
more frequently and more commonly.
You want to find the real feeling underneath it.
Are you feeling not good enough?
Are you feeling lonely?
Are you feeling underappreciated?
What is it that you're really feeling
under the surface of sadness?
This will bring awareness to words your true feeling
that's happening around you.
And then we can take ownership of that feeling
by switching the question around.
The second question you want to ask yourself
that will help you take ownership of this feeling
is how do I want to feel?
This gives you ownership and control of your feelings.
This allows you to know now make the journey
that you have to make to go from a place where you are
to place where you want to go.
Simply identifying, stating the feelings you have,
and you want to go for will help you chart a path
to go from where you are to where you want to go.
Often we find that life throws curve balls,
which means it throws situations at us
that are rather uncomfortable, rather unheard of,
rather something that we would rather not have in our life.
But they are there and there's nothing much we can do
about the circumstances and situations
that happen around us.
Now while we have very little to no control
around situation that happen around us,
because future rather unpredictable
and we can't really control lives of other people.
What we can do is to control
how we narrate that to ourselves.
And what do we do as a consequence of that situation
that is occurring in front of us?
This is where this question becomes really useful.
When a situation is happening with you, your clients
or your family members,
which looks and feels rather uncomfortable,
instead of helping on the uncomfortable state
of that situation, ask yourself, ask your clients,
ask your family members,
what's the good news in the situation?
While the situation may feel uncomfortable,
it always has an opportunity for us to see
a learning experience, something that we can gain from,
something that can be a reflective exercise
that we can do that will make us a better human being.
So every situation that may feel uncomfortable right now
may have something that is a good news.
The reason why we ask ourselves this question
of what is the good news
in this rather uncomfortable situation
is because it allows us to be able
to find something positive,
find something to be grateful for in the moment
if nothing else for the experience of life
which allows us and helps us to move forward in our lives.
This also brings me to my next question.
The fourth question that also deals with
rather uncomfortable situations that usually
are only lasting a short period of time.
Globally, in 2020, we saw ourselves in a pandemic.
Which meant we all were rather uncomfortable through 2020
trying to figure out our health situation,
our work situation, and so on so forth.
It was an uncomfortable situation.
But it also taught us a lot of things,
which is what brings me to my next question.
How is it that the short term discomfort
supports my long term happiness?
Now I know you might say, Ajit what are you talking about?
We have hundreds of 1000s of people dying,
what it could possibly do that may be good in the future.
I know, I lost somebody that I knew during this pandemic
because of this crisis.
But what I do know is that this has inspired
a lot more people to live a healthier life.
It has inspired a lot more people to ask themselves
the question as to how did they find themselves
in a situation where they were reliant on a job
that could not even support them during crisis.
A lot more people have reorganized their lives,
their family structures to fit a narrative
where they could work from home and spend a lot more time
with their kids and their loved ones.
While this was a really uncomfortable situation
for the world and we lost amazing, beautiful people,
there was a silver lining that humanity learned
from this pandemic.
It is the same that happened in my own life.
I have frequently wondered,
what is this discomfort trying to teach me?
And in the moment, it was always difficult to figure it out.
But while that discomfort was discomfort,
I learned a ton from it.
You see those discomfort taught me lessons
that I use today to live a better life.
So ask yourself, how are these short term discomfort
supporting my long term joy and happiness?
Because it is.
You want to be able to have foresight in the future
so you can realize that the discomfort
that you're experiencing right now, are short lived.
And they're merely lessons that you need to learn
for a greater future.
The last question is inspired by
the model of mental juggernaut that we go through
every single time we are experiencing
or looking at a circumstance in our life.
You see, anytime something happens, an event happens,
somebody say something, we start to create
so many meanings in our mind.
And because we start creating so many meanings in our mind,
because of all the thoughts that we keep feeding ourselves,
what happens is that we start to create a story
that's not even true.
How many times have you found yourself in a situation
where somebody said something, you made a meaning out of it
by thinking about it too much.
And then you build up a story and few years later,
or a few months later you meet the guy or the gal
and you talk to them and you realize
they didn't mean it that way.
That is what our thinking can do to us.
It can come up with a whole story that has no relevance,
no meaning and actually is not even based in reality.
They're merely taught that are getting created
because of our past programming.
Things that we've started to believe
because of how something happened at some point in our life.
Meanings that we made out because that's how we were trying
to make sense of the world.
But If we can catch our thoughts,
if we can catch our thought before they are being formed,
or as they're being formed,
we can change the whole narrative.
We can make it a more empowering narrative
instead of a disempowering narrative.
One thing that I've been doing for the past several years,
is I've been studying people who become highly successful.
And one of the things that I've found is,
these people who are very, very successful
have a unique way of thinking about things.
These successful people don't let thoughts
come to their mind that sabotage their progress.
Their thoughts are designed to empower them,
they check their thoughts, and change them
to give them more empowered vision of the future,
more empowered action items,
more empowered future focused direction.
Which means if we want to be successful,
more successful than we are today,
we want to catch our thought
and turn them around in our favor.
So how do we go about doing that?
Here's what you do, the moment you're able to observe
a thought that is starting to bubble up
like it's starting to creep up a little bit,
and trying to get into your head and trying to come up
with a different meaning
or a meaning that may not be empowered,
catch that thought and ask the question,
where is this thought coming from?
What will I choose to think today?
This question focuses your attention
and brings your awareness to the thought.
It puts this thought into a microscope
and focuses your attention towards it.
So now you can diagnose this talk and change it.
Here's how you go about changing it.
You say, where's this thought coming from?
And once this is identified, or even in the direction
of identification, you say, do I want to choose this thought?
Or I rather choose something different.
You see if the thought is going to disempower you,
irrespective of where it comes from,
you can choose to do something else.
You can choose to believe a different belief.
And that is as true as this belief.
Most of our beliefs are not scientifically proven
except if you're talking about gravity
or something like that.
But if you are thinking about how somebody perceives you
or what somebody believes about you, that is all made up.
You are believing so until the person is actually
factually told you that that's exactly what they believe.
If they haven't factually told you anything,
you made up this belief, so you can make a different belief.
Which means the moment you observe this thought
and you go, oh, this thought is not going to be powerful.
This is not going to lead me to a better future.
You can say, I'm not going to believe this,
I'm going to take ownership and I'm going to say
I'm going to choose this thought instead.
So it's a combination of awareness of spotting the thought,
and taking ownership towards creating a new thought
or suggesting yourself a new thought.
One of the things that very commonly happens
is comparison in our industry.
You may have experienced this, if you're a coach,
you're watching this, you may have experienced yourself
for somebody else comparing one famous person to another,
one trainer to another.
And that happens very frequently also for me.
Often people will walk up to me,
oh yeah, you'll like that person.
Sometimes my friends will say,
oh, that person said it like this.
And I feel like more like that person
or you're more aligned with that person.
And I've realized that that's such a disempowering part
because that part, the moment somebody
tries to implant this part of me,
the moment that part is coming in,
I have already reduced myself to somebody
that I don't even know very often.
Or I may have met once or twice in my life
so I barely know them.
There is no reason for me to compare.
Heck there is no reason for us to compare anyone with anyone
because well, it's futile.
But that thought was getting implanted in me
when I started this journey of discovering myself more
and building my coaching abilities.
And I realized, hey, this thought is very disempowering.
As soon as this part comes, now I can take ownership and say
I am a unique person, there is nothing to compare.
They are equally intelligent, brilliant, smart, capable,
as I am.
On that note, let me remind you the five questions
that I shared with you today that you can use
to be able to work with yourself, coach yourself,
coach a client, coach a family member, coach a friend.
The first question is, instead of asking yourself,
why am I not blank, ask yourself,
how can I blank while having blank?
The second question is when experiencing a feeling.
First identify the feeling by asking
what am I really feeling?
And then ask yourself, how do I really want to feel?
The third question is try to find the good in a situation
by asking yourself, what is the good news in this situation?
The fourth question, how is the short term discomfort
going to contribute and support my long term happiness?
And the fifth question is,
where is this thinking coming from?
And how can I choose differently?
Hey, listen, New Year is just around the corner
and you may be looking for a way
to really map out your entire year.
I prepared a planner specifically
designed for coaches and trainers.
Below this video you'll find a link where you can go
and download that planner.
I hope these five questions
help you navigate life even better.
If you love these five questions, hit that like button,
share with me which question you'd like
in the comment section below, hit subscribe.
Thank you so much for watching.
This is Ajit Nawalkha
and you're watching this on Evercoach.