I once learned from a colleague a very useful and very powerful idea regarding empowering yourself by choosing the right questions. I’m really not sure where the idea originally came from, however it has been a very useful one for me over the years and I’d love to share it here.

Let me start by asking a question of you… If something that you do not like has happened, what is the first question that pops into your head? For most people, the answer is “Why did that happen?” or “Why does this keep happening to me?”, right before they set about answering the question and going around in circles trying to understand it.

If your goal is self-improvement or to learn from such experiences then this question of “Why?” is very unlikely to provide you with opportunities to learn anything about yourself. The answers are likely to lie in the areas where you have no responsibility, such as other people, objects, or simply the whole concept of “fate” or “destiny”.

My colleague presented me with the word “How” and invited me to question such events by asking things like, “How can I learn from this?” or “How can I create a more positive outcome in the future?”. In these types of questions, your answers are likely to fall into the areas where you have all the responsibility – your thoughts, choices, behaviours and actions. Ok, so it is possible to ask the question “How can they improve?” etc, but this hardly serves to empower you.

So to be truly empowering these “How?” questions need to focus on your role in the event or experience and how you can move forward for now or for next time. This has been quite transformational for me and a great way for me to create myself and shape my experiences in the world.

In coaching, the “How?” questions can really help to move a client forward and create awareness – in this case the questions focus on the client’s thoughts, choices, behaviours and actions.

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