What’s more important, the right questions or the right answers?
Do adults ask more questions than teenagers or children?
What is the reason we ask questions in the first place?
Can we learn to ask better questions?
Here are a few answers:
Estimates vary, but on average, children ask 300 questions a day, with four-year-old girls asking the most.
Those questions are usually about the world around them and they often start with the word “why”.
Teenagers ask on average 25-50 questions a day and are usually focused on where they fit in the world.
By the time we reach young adulthood, many of us “think” we have many of the answers.
Of course, some of those answers elude us.
But for the most part, most young adults stop asking a lot of questions because they either believe they have it figured out (overconfidence), think they are too busy starting to make a living and paying the bills, or they suffer from what I call “lazy thinking”, the concept that it is easier to let others do the thinking for us.
Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google, said, “We run this company on questions, not answers.”
What would happen if you, no matter what your age, asked yourself more questions at school, on the playing field, at work, at home, or in family and social gatherings.
What if you started creating different questions looking for your own answers?
Yes, it takes confidence to do this. Do it and I guarantee you, it will change your life.
We often get so focused on getting the “right” answers that we forget to change the questions.
Ok, so you say you’re not a TTWWADI person. (That’s The Way We’ve Always Done It).
Yet look at the typical questions you might be asking yourself on a daily or weekly basis.…
Here are five of the most common questions teens and young adults ask themselves?
1. I wonder what (insert name) thinks about me?
2. Will I even have a career or run a business?
3. Who do I think I am? …Stop fooling myself.
4. Why can’t I be like (insert name), he/she/they are so much smarter than I am, and so much better at (insert skill).
5. Why can’t I catch a break?
Questions like these and many others are designed to retrieve specific answers.
And most of those answers are self-defeating.
But what if you shifted from looking for the same answers to looking for different questions?
What if you had the confidence to ask more REVEALING QUESTIONS?
What might that look like?
Let yourself know that there are no wrong answers. That this is just an experiment to find ways for you to be more confident, happier and successful in your school and personal life.
Be as honest as you can with yourself.
Here are five better questions to ask yourself…
1. If you were the owner and manager of a company, what would you say or do for your employees to build their confidence? Now say or do it for yourself.
2. What is a specific action, process, or habit you are doing that is keeping you from growing your confidence?
3. What are you doing right that you could be doing more of?
4. How can I duplicate the action, process, or habit of (insert name) who’s confidence I both respect and admire?
5. What is a word or phrase I can repeat to myself on a daily basis to increase my confidence?
This is just the first five.
Take the time with yourself to answer these questions and brainstorm five more questions that can drive the results you really want.
As you build your REVEALING QUESTIONS muscle, you’ll notice greater confidence in your self-leadership, productivity and overall mental wellbeing.
When you ask REVEALING QUESTIONS you get REVEALING ANSWERS.
You’re on your way to being your own CONFIDENCE SUPERHERO.