Don’t be afraid to ask questions
Especially if you are afraid of the answers
Jim Rohn said “What you get in life will never make you happy. What you become in life will make you very happy, or very sad.”
People in general don’t like uncertainty. We dislike uncertainty so much that we would rather make up stories that are a false-reality than ask the questions that will lead us to truth or hard work. Most of us would rather pretend and avoid than confront.
You are afraid of what you will find when you lift up the rug or look under the couch of your life so you don’t. Especially if you expect that the answers you will find will be different than you expect. You’d rather live in the certainty of not knowing than the certainty of knowing.
I have been working my way through Tony Robbin’s book “Money, Master the game.” It is a hard read. I probably bought the book over a year ago and I’m currently around page 250 with another 300 to go. I’ll bet that I’m one of the few people in the world who actually hung in this far!
Like most of Tony’s work it has as much to do with self-assessment and self-improvement as it does with money. It just so happens that money is one of those areas that people like to avoid. I was working through a chapter this morning where he talks about plugging in your current numbers and comparing the results versus your future goals.
250 pages in this is supposed to be the ‘aha!’ moment in the where you see ‘here’s where you are versus where you want to go’. The answer for some people will be “This is awesome! I’m in much better shape than I thought I was!” The answer for many others will be “Oh crap I’m screwed!”
For those who get a rude surprise they may be depressed, angry or they may be inspired. The important point is that your situation didn’t change, but your understanding of it did. The only difference is that before they went through the exercise they just didn’t know.
It’s not about money. It’s about being aware. It’s about giving yourself a choice. It’s about freedom.
Do you avoid asking the hard questions in your life? Maybe you don’t go to the doctor because you’re afraid of what he or she will tell you? Maybe you don’t ask an important question in a relationship because you are afraid of the answer? You don’t ask the question at work because you’re afraid of the answer?
What is that fear? Fear of finding out the truth? Fear of worry when you do? Fear of having to face up to reality and do some hard work?
You would rather live out of control in this little made up bubble of certainty that is a total illusion.
When you finally drag up the courage and ask the question what are you going to find out? It’s not as bad as you feared or it’s worse than you imagined. Either way you cure yourself of a self-denial fantasy.
Now you can take action. You can ask even better questions about ‘how am I going to start moving in a better direction?’ And the glorious part is that these new questions are based in fact, not hope, not wishes and not fear.
Instead of the comfort of being able to ignore the facts and complain, you can make a decision and take action. Now. You can take control. You can architect, plan and decide what to do next.
It’s never too late. Even if the answer you get is far worse than you imagined. To draw from the money metaphor again, you can use the power of compounding. In finance this means having your money grow over time, exponentially, using the power of compounding interest.
In your life it means small, micro-actions that you take today can have an outsized effect on your life years into the future. Compounding is a life concept.
The key is to take small consistent actions over time. At first you will see no movement, but as the impact of those small consistent actions compounds you will see exponential changes in your life.
What’s a practical example? What do most people care about this time of year? Weight loss? Getting in shape? Writing that book? Reading more? Spending more time with their family?
What are the questions you need to ask to get to the truth of where you are in these areas right now?
What are the questions you need to ask to figure out where you want to be?
Then you can ask…
What is one small, consistent action you can take today, tomorrow, next week that will move you in the direction you want to go?
For example:
What if you were to eat 10 fewer calories of processed crap every day?
What if you were to add one whole fruit or raw vegetable to your day?
What if you were to do one push-up today or one mile and increase that every week?
What if you were to write for 20 minutes non-interrupted every day?
What if you were to read 2 pages every day?
What impact would these small changes have on your life a year from now? 10 years from now?
There is no project so onerous or so distasteful that you can’t find one little chunk to work on.
Do you know the facts, the truth, the data around your important life gardens? Are you afraid to ask those questions because you’re afraid of the answers? That is living an out of control life.
Find out where you stand. Compare that to where you want to be and start by asking better questions and taking small actions in the right direction.