Going through my journal from Tony Robbins’ week-long “Date with Destiny” seminar. (I filled up an entire journal that week, btw. Amazing stuff…)

Tony likes to say that thinking is really just a series of questions and answers we pose to ourselves.

We’re constantly asking and answering.

Asking and answering. Asking and answering.

Yah?

Now, if we believe that we’re constantly asking and answering questions, it begs the question (pun intended): “What kind of questions are we asking ourselves?!”

Simple examples: You’re having a rough day. Didn’t work out when you said you would. Boss is being a weenie. Traffic sucks. Whatever.

What do you ask yourself?

“Grrrrr…Why can’t I ever do what I say I’m going to do?!?!” or “Hmmm…I wonder, how can I make better commitments and have fun following through with them?!?”

“Why is my boss being such a jack-*ss again?” or “I know I’m always reading that life is our class-room, so…How can I learn from this situation and have fun while I’m doing it?”

“Why is there always soooo much traffic?!?!” or “Wow. I wonder how much conscious breath work I can get done on my way to work today?!? Lucky me. There’s traffic!”

What types of responses will each of those questions generate? One drives you deeper in the wrong direction, the other opens you up to growth and all that goodness.

Simple stuff. (The powerful mojo always is, eh?)

Take a moment to pay attention to the questions you’re asking yourself today.

And, let’s ask better ones. :)

I believe that when we ask ourselves a quality question our inner mind immediately starts to find answers for us. So it behooves us to regularly ask ourselves questions and especially quality positive questions. I think it was Robbins while teaching NLP ideas made it clear that those of us who tried the many methods that NLP offered ought to agree that methods that work for us are valuable and ought to become part of our tools but those that don’t seem to work ought to be simply dropped and we should move on. I think that is a good rule for many of these self-improvement rules too. This one —asking good questions—has worked for me so I plan to keep using it.

Gosh, just having the presence of mind to recognise that there is the Quality of question to consider is a great beginning. Or should I just stop at ‘presence’? But it ties to the question of attitude also, and the very significant idea that harnessing our thoughts and making them work for us is going to make or break us… Something to think about, certainly.