Ask questions that get results 

It seems like a minor thing, but it's actually critically important. Asking questions is one of the skills - and probably the most important one - that I learned in my 20+ years working as a physical therapist. Asking the right questions got me to the right diagnosis, which meant we could implement the right treatment.

The art of knowing which questions to ask and how to ask those questions really allows for the discovery of what the underlying challenges might be or what the true root cause of an issue is.

In this case, I'm referring to the things that need to be changed or require some healing in your life in order to continue making progress.

If you don't ask the right questions, it can be impossible to get the results you want. You can end up confused and lost.

I’ll get into a couple of examples below, but first, let's talk about types of questions we’re asking.

At a very basic level, you have open-ended and closed-ended questions. With open-ended questions, just as it sounds, think of a door being open and leading you to more things.

But, if you have a closed-ended question, it's like you've got a closed door and, that's it, you're not going to get any farther with it.

Parents often ask closed-ended questions when their kids come home from school. For example, they'll ask, “Did you have a good time at school today?” The answer you typically get is a simple “yes” or “no.” (Does this sound familiar?)

Asking how someone’s day was is only slightly better because we usually get short responses such as “fine” and “it was good” or something along those lines, right?

None of those questions give you much of a chance to connect with people or to open up that space for improving your relationships. Instead, you want to ask more open-ended questions that require them to give you a little more information and share more about what they're feeling or have experienced.

For example, you might ask your spouse or your children, “What was the best part about your day today?” or “What are you most grateful for today?”

Just changing that question a little bit completely changes your interaction with the other person.

When you're conversing with someone, or even when you're thinking about yourself and your own goals, pay attention to whether you're asking more open-ended or more closed-ended questions. See how you can change them just a little bit to get more engagement in your conversations.

A second thing to think about ties into the bigger picture of healing in our lives.

Think of yourself as being in the present. You have things that you are moving away from and things that you want to move toward.

Let's start with your habits. Maybe you have particular habits that you want to stop and new habits that you want to create. You might also have goals that you are progressing toward.

At any point in time, we have things that we are trying to release and then we have the things that we're trying to invite into our lives and create as we move forward.

Ask questions about moving away from something. Or, ask about moving toward something.

Here's an example...

A client named Sarah (name changed to respect privacy) recently finished chiropractic school and was preparing to take her boards. She was experiencing high anxiety levels around the time constraints (since you're not given an unlimited amount of time to take the test).

This was making things more difficult and stressful for her, so we have been doing some work to decrease her anxiety and help her feel more at ease when she is taking her exams.

During a recent session, I asked, ”Are there things that we can release that are causing or contributing to the anxiety you are experiencing around test-taking?” And the answer was, “Yes.” So we released a number of things for that and brought some further healing.

Even though there wasn't anything else that we could release, we weren’t finished resolving her issue yet.

Then, I essentially asked the same question, but instead of asking about what she wanted to move away from, I asked what she wanted to move toward.

I wanted to know if there were things that we could release for her so that she could feel calm and at ease while taking her test, and I got another “yes.” We released a completely different set of things from her past that was also contributing to her difficulty with test-taking.

It simply required a different way of thinking about the challenges that she was facing, where she wanted to go and how we might release her blocks to help her get there.

So, in both cases, we essentially cleared out disruptions from her past, not only by asking questions about the past but also about what she wanted to avoid in the future.

We took it a step further by asking a question about what she wanted to embrace (in the present/future).

As you think about your habits, your goals, your daily life and anything that you want to improve for yourself, ask yourself questions related to getting away from one set of feelings or emotions and moving towards another.

We often know what we don't want, but we're usually not quite as clear about what we do what. Make sure you take some time to think about where you want to go, not just what you want to get away from!