4 Questions That Can Change Your Life!

As I was looking for ideas for this week’s quote, comment and video, I noticed that there was an integral part of my system/philosophy that I have never featured as “the quote.” I have certainly included these four questions in many of my weekly quotes and comments, and I certainly talk about these concepts a LOT when I present my system to organizations and individuals around the world. But, somehow, they have never been the main focus of one of my weekly installments. Therefore, this week, I’m putting them front and center, because I truly believe in their power to help those of us wanting to have more influence in our lives and the lives of others.

So, let’s look at what I call The Four Criteria and see how they can indeed help us create the life we want.

The first question is, “Am I doing/feeling/thinking this on purpose?” This question deals with all of those reactions we have that probably aren’t serving us. In other words, when we ask ourselves “have I chosen to feel stressed, angry, frustrated, depressed,” etc., the answer will almost always be a resounding “No!”

The second question, “How is it working for me?” will also give us clarity, because most people say that they don’t like feeling these ways and the feelings aren’t helping us create the life we want.

Of course, there may be times when we do choose to be angry at someone on purpose because they have done or said something that hurt our feelings. And, we might even vent our anger at them, which, for a moment could even feel good. In these situations, we could actually answer “Yes” to the first two questions. We are doing this on purpose and it works for us because it feels good.

The third question, however, might help us look deeper at this angry reaction and make another choice. If we asked, “Is this the statement I want to make about who I am? or is this how I want to be defined (as someone who lashes out when angry), we might think again. Here is where I encourage those in my seminars to become clear about who is truly in control here. When we find ourselves reacting to difficult people or situations with stress, anger, frustration, etc. we need to ask, “Am I defining who I am or am I being defined by the people and situations around me?” because when we say difficult people make me angry or traffic stresses me out, what we are saying is that the difficult situations in our lives have the power to define us or control us, and chances are, this is not how we want to be defined.

Then there is the fourth question which may be more powerful than all of the first three put together. It says, “Would I teach or recommend this way of being to someone I loved?” As a parent, that certainly bottom lines the issue for me, because I would never teach or recommend someone I love to become stressed, angry, frustrated, etc. And, even when I talk to people who don’t have children, they love this question as well because of the clarity it brings.

So, now we have determined that:

1. We are not responding to difficult situations on purpose.
2. The response is not working for us.
3. It is not how we want to be defined, and
4. No! We would never recommend this way of being to someone that we love.

Which means, we are now in the position to use these same questions to shift from the problem to the solution. In other words, if we asked, “Okay, what if I were responding to this situation on purpose, in a way that I believe would produce the results I want, in a way that does define me the way I want to be defined, and in a way I would teach to someone I love, what would that look like?

Chances are, we would come up with words such as, more patient, confident, empathetic, curious, focused, flexible, authentic, creative, kind, influential, etc. The reasons that these questions tend to trigger these sort of responses is that they engage the more purposeful, solution-focused part of the brain, the neocortex, or what I call the “Top of the Mind.”

In fact, I call these questions, The Four Criteria, because I believe we can use them as a criteria for all decisions. In other words, what if we used these to determine whether we are in the career we should be in, whether our relationship is one we would recommend to those we love, etc.? Of course, sometimes this sort of clarity is challenging because it means we will need to make some changes. However, if we use the Four Criteria to determine what needs to be changed and how, this solution-focused perspective can once again serve us in becoming more influential in our lives and the lives of others. Not a bad way to move forward, don’t you think?