Hi guys!! Welcome to episode 517 of the wildly successful lifestyle podcast. It’s good to be with you. It’s good to be with people who are working to be their best, isn’t it? That’s why I love doing this podcast because it inspires me to be the best that I can be and also to know you’re out there doing the same. We aren’t perfect, but we aren’t striving for perfection, we’re striving for excellence and that’s what we’re heading for.
Ok, Have you ever thought about the amount of times in a day you ask yourself questions? Have you ever considered that the answers to the questions you ask yourself are the reason you feel a certain way or do a certain thing? They are as important as your thoughts in the scheme of how you feel day to day. I was hit with this reality this week.
We live in the south so we don’t get a lot of snow here. We are lucky if we get one nice snow a year. Well we woke up this last Friday to the most beautiful winter wonderland. It was such a treat. As I was sitting just enjoying the view I was just so grateful for the moment and i thought there’s no one but me and this beautiful view and my little fur babies, nothing could ruin this moment. Then because I’m me and I like to be curious about things, I asked wait, could anything ruin this moment? I mean it’s just me and all of this beauty and my little puppies on my lap, no one else. But then as it always will, my mind immediately wanted to answer that question. So of course it started thinking about the people in my life and how that person did that and hasn’t apologized and I I was like yep that would ruin this moment And then I laughed to myself. Because I realized that person hasn’t been around for a while, so it wouldn’t be them ruining the moment now would it. That’s when it dawned on me and it’s not just this moment but it’s pretty much most moments. Nothing could ruin it but me. Had I not asked that question of is there anything that could ruin this moment, I wouldn’t have started thinking about the things that could ruin the moment.
Because of that one little seemingly innocent question, I started thinking about a certain situation with my family and my mind kept bringing one thing after another and I just kept thinking oh yeah that would ruin it too, until I finally said “enough, woah”. It reminded me that we often can and do ruin our best moments by dragging our negative thoughts about ourselves, our situation, our family or friends, our coworkers, we drag those thoughts everywhere we go.
And they’re sneaky too. Because most of the time we don’t even notice them, they’re subconscious. But they are there. I wouldn’t have even thought about all those negative things if I hadn’t come up with that question. “could anything ruin this moment?” To which my brain had to came up with one answer after another. So you see how we have to be so careful about the questions we ask ourselves, even the subtle ones. Because asking the wrong questions will have you ruining many moments. Over the holidays I noticed once I asked myself “why can’t I just completely stop eating sugar?” To which my mind said well grandma loved it and mom and dad too, I guess it’s in my genes. Now, That’s a terrible answer. It could leave me feeling like I had no power over my sugar addiction because well, I guess it runs in the family. When realistically I do have complete power over what I eat, it has nothing to do with what my mom eats, but the question I asked myself didn’t leave any room for that conclusion. Ask terrible questions, get terrible answers. A better question would be “how can I limit my sugar?” Now those answers will give solutions and empower me instead of having me feel powerless which definitely will ruin any moment.
So often the questions we ask ourselves leave no room for feeling empowered because our brain has to answer the questions it’s given. So when you ask “what’s wrong with me?” It’s gonna answer that question. And When you ask “why am I never good enough?” It’s gonna answer that one too. You see, when we ask the wrong questions We leave ourselves no chance to feel empowered, no chance to create a better day and we a lot of times ruin the good moments by dredging up the bad. So let’s say you feel in love, and you ask yourself if it’s gonna last and then your brain reminds you that it never has before so why would this be any different and now you’ve sabotaged that moment too. Instead maybe ask how can I bring my best self to this relationship right now? That is gonna have you leaving love notes and being thoughtful and coming up with all kinds of ways to bring your best instead of sabotaging yet another short lived love affair.
You see a lot of these questions like our thoughts are subtle and sneaky. We may not be able to get rid of them all but what we can do is be intentional about asking better questions. So for me I have two questions that I ask regularly all the time either how is this working in my favor or what good can come from this? Eventually the intentional questions will become as habitual as the ones that are more subtle but negative.
My challenge to you today is to come up with one or two intentional questions that you can use to ask yourself to get better more intentional empowering answers. It’s such a subtle thing but it’s probably one of the best things I’ve done for myself in the last couple of years. You can use mine if you want. How is this working in my favor and what good can come from this…Write them down and put them on your mirror, in your car, on your counter. Anywhere you’ll see them regularly. Share this with 3 people that you would love to see empowered! I love you guys! I’ll talk to you in a few days.
