Questions—The Ultimate Mind Hack?

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Excerpt: Are you looking to take immediate control over a wondering, unfocused mind? Look no further than to… questions? Read on to see why…

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Questions direct focus; focus directs actions; actions direct life.

The process works like this: A question gets asked, a void is created, and the mind – like a vacuum – works to fill that void with an answer almost instantaneously.  So the opportunity is this:  Start asking yourself better questions and you can immediately start getting better answers.

Ask yourself bad questions; get bad answers; take bad actions (or no actions); have a, well, bad life.

Ask yourself powerful questions; get powerful answers; take powerful actions; have a powerful life!

Lame questions beget lame answers; Extraordinary questions beget extraordinary answers.

Before you dismiss this idea as being all too simple, let’s dig a little deeper.

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How exactly do questions direct focus?  

Think of your mind like a state-of-the-art, brand new, fully loaded computer.

If you don’t know how to ask the computer to do what you want it to do, that high functioning machine is going to be all but useless.

Asking yourself limited and low capacity questions is like watching a technologically illiterate person try to use a computer for the first time – it’s painful!

If you want to access the most valuable files and programs on the computer, you have to know how to ask for them with the proper commands.

Let’s take a look at some examples of how your mind might respond to the following questions:

Why am I such a failure?  Lame question that’s going to direct your focus on all of the reason why you’re a failure.

How did I get so lucky?  Extraordinary question that’s going to direct your focus on all of the things that you are grateful for.

Why does my life have to be so hard?  Lame question that’s going to get you thinking about all of the things that makes your life hard.

What good can come from this?  Extraordinary question that’s going to get you thinking about all of the possibilities from your given circumstances.

Why is the world filled with such terrible people?  Lame question that’s going to get you thinking about (and seeing) all of the terrible things people do in the world.

Who’s making a positive impact on the world that I can team up with?  Extraordinary question that’s going to inspire you to align yourself with like-minded people and to start creating positive change.

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It’s time to take immediate control

As mentioned above, asking the right questions is a powerful tool that can help you take immediate control of your mindset when it’s having a rough patch of thoughts.

The power of this simple mindset hack cannot be overemphasized.

There’s a famous Tony Robbins exercise that illustrates the power of focus and how it can direct your life.  He says:

Stop for a moment and as you look around the room, ask yourself a question: “What in this room is brown?”  Look around and see it: brown, brown, brown.  Now, look back at this screen. Blocking off your peripheral vision, think of everything that’s… green.  If you’re in a room you know very well, you can probably do this easily, but if you’re in a strange room, chances are that you’ll remember a lot more brown than green.  So now look around and notice what’s green:  green, green, green.  Do you see more green this time?  Again, if you’re in an unfamiliar environment, I’m sure your answer is yes.  What does this teach us?  Whatever we look for we’ll find.

The second you realize your mindset is in the gutter – SNAP YOURSELF OUT OF IT – and ask yourself an empowering question that will immediately guide your thoughts to a better state.

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In fact, why not build a set of questions into your daily routine?!

How do you normally start your morning and end your day?  Social Media?  News?  Snooze?  How might those platforms guide your thoughts?

By coming up with a list of a few powerful questions that you can ask yourself on a daily basis, you can start to get immediate, powerful results in your life.

Make it a habit.  You might even try habit stacking your questions into your routine.

I recently bought The 5-Minute Journal which has it all lined out for you and uses the power of questions to guide your mindset towards positive, forward-focused thoughts when you wake up and before bed – and it only takes 5 minutes per session (hence the name).

In the morning it asks you what 3 things are you grateful for, what 3 things would make the day great, and what’s an affirmation that you can focus on for the day – while in the evening it asks you what 3 amazing things happened that day and what could have made the day even better.

My question is, how could you not improve your life when you improve the quality of your thoughts?  To me, it’s an obvious inevitable.

Take control and start asking better questions.

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