Questioning, as a growth process.

To have anything in life... you must first ask the right questions.

Asking yourself any question over and over and over again will always get you a reciprocal answer. Ask a negative question, get a negative answer. Ask a positive one, get positive results.

Asking "Why am I so fat?" yields...

• Because I eat so much.
• Because I never work out.
• Because I am undisciplined.
• Because I just cant lose weight.
• Because being fat isn't bad enough to make me change right now.
• And so on...

And every time you get the answer "I never work out", guess what, you accept that as true, and then into the future... its even more true that you never work out...

Asking "How can I become skinny?" yields...

• By eating healthier and in less portion.
• By going to the gym and setting a consistent workout plan.
• By making friends that help support and encourage me throughout the skinny-gain process.
• By allotting the amount of money aside that I need to fully achieve my skinny goal.
• By dedicating the time and energy I must spend to obtain a healthy body.
• By having the undying passion and desire to become skinny, which keeps me on the goal.
• And so on...

You're probably already starting to see what I mean about how asking the right questions can really make a big difference in life. Anthony Robbins wasn't lying about it.

A few guidelines to help dodge some common hurdles:

#1 Its OK if you don't have all the answers right now. By asking, you are taking part in a long-term practice that acts as a fountain for the answers you are seeking. Give it time to pick up momentum.

#2 Have what it is you want, right now. If you had what you want already, right now, what would happen next? Daydream about it often! What if I had it already, what would I do??

#3 Ask yourself the right questions constantly, and stop asking the wrong questions completely. This is the way of making habits, stop doing something that doesn't work, and replace it with something that does work. Simple.

#4 Most importantly, be open and ready for the new answers. And be ok with letting go of your old habits and beliefs, so that you really can FULLY integrate the new positive changes.

Soon, or now...
(depending on how ready you are)

You'll begin receiving answers in many different forms. If you haven't trained your 'answer receptors' in a while, you'll probably go without noticing anything for a while... even when its all still happening, just beyond your threshold of awareness. You can thank your subconscious mind for the concept of filters.

And after you thank it, welcome those filters to leave. Its ok right now. Say goodbye to your filters, because the process of growth IS about removing old filters.

All of a sudden, you start noticing and picking up on new patterns that now you just 'get'.

Metaphor to help explain:

Consider this situation... Bob is talking to a female. While he is talking, she is becoming frustrated with him. His unconscious filters are so weakly developed that he cant even notice that she isn't interested in what he is saying. Bob is just talking talking talking, as she gets more frustrated.

Also consider that Bob has noticed a new perspective, probably from a friend shining a new view on his situation. Bob notices his filter, he just doesn't pay her any attention really. He lets that go, and with the new empty space, creates a new habit of paying-more-attention-always.

Bob is talking to a new female. As he talks, he notices she is acting differently all of a sudden. He may even notice her turning her body away slightly, or crossing her legs, or taking deeper breaths... Bob stops himself, and asks her "so whats up?", and watches as her entire posture changes.

Bob has now internalized a new filter.

Psychological perspective of "why":

His filter could've been something like, "Everyone finds me really interesting", or "Everyone always loves listening to me", or even "I'm the most important person, always."

A person can be so completely unaware that they believe something, until a moment of epiphany is sparked by a friend or book that shares a new point-of-view. These kinds of beliefs are usually internalized at a childhood stage in life. Because the belief is never challenged, and is held so deeply to be true, it continues to exist on your map-of-reality into the future. This is what most people call "Thats just who I am." or "Thats in my nature."

And when you age into adulthood, you find that thinking "I'm more important than you" is not such an "OK" thing to believe, if you want friends. There are lots of beliefs we all still have that aren't quite worth keeping anymore.

Back on the main track:

Questioning can be the spark of a new point-of-view, or perspective, into a situation.

Bob is talking to the female, and he asks himself at any moment "Is she listening to me right now?", instead of "What am I going to say next?"

I think you can now see how differently his life can become because of one simple shift in his actions.

Apply this metaphor into any area of life. What are you thinking and asking, around anything?

Here are a few things to start asking yourself new questions about:

• What your goals in life are.
• What you want to do for lunch.
• Money.
• The women, or men, in your life.
• How to be a better questioner.
• How you can better become a better person in life.

ANYTHING.

Remember in the beginning, I mentioned this was a long-term practice. Once you start asking better questions, and getting better answers, you'll begin to fathom the next-level-up questions/answers. You'll then need to reform your questions again and again to get the best results possible.

#5 Dont expect the first, second, or third sets of answers to be THE final answers. You'll find that certain answers work better for certain situations, and rephrasing the question can achieve totally different results.

The evolution of the question-stream:
(may go something like this)

1. Why do I feel so crappy?
2. Why am I so fat?
3. Why is it so hard to be thin?
   
4. Why would I want to be thin?
5. So, what should I stop doing to stop being fat?
6. Wait, what do I do to become thin?
   
7. Where can I go to workout?
8. Who must I get to know to stay thin?
   
9. What are all the ways that I can become most optimally healthy?

You can see the evolution of the questioning process. The person starts by questioning their current feeling, then progressing to a logical deduction of why they feel bad, continuing into frustration of not having it, to even a questioning of if its worth trying for; then a realization comes from the prior question that sparks a question of how to stop whats happening now, which then helps to realize double negatives dont work, and a more progressive question of where to go to start, and further into who to get to know, and finally into a full acceptance of achieving the goal and questioning what all must be done to fully achieve it?

This is just the beginning, of one single question-stream. You'll have multiples going on constantly around all the topics of your life.

This evolving questioning process IS growth itself.
Embrace it, it will be your friend for the rest of your life.

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