Learn to ask great questions and embrace hard

No one knows everything. How often have your heard someone say, "I don't know what I don't know"?

While this statement may be true, the fact is that if we want to know something, we can learn. Many people think that not knowing something is their biggest problem, whereas maybe the bigger problem is that people do not do what they need to do…because it is ‘hard’.

We all get to choose our ‘hard’. Being stuck where we are now can be hard, and creating change in our lives can be hard. Choose your ‘hard’.

Your future is created by what you do today…

Playing life at the hard level is willing to keep showing up, do what others are not willing or interested in doing and go after your goals for where you want to be. Whether you create change or not, the next five years will pass, so if you want things to be different in five years, the change starts today. As Robert Kiyosaki says, "Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow." Tomorrow never comes, so embrace the hard today and every day by asking yourself great questions, challenging your thinking, and creating great habits that will create your future.

The idea that it is hard must be understood when it comes to work. To achieve what we want in life, hard work is essential. However, working hard is about more than the length of time we spend working, it is about the energy that goes into what we are doing and the quality of time we spend doing it.

Tim Denning recently wrote in an article, "the framework of choose-your-hard is simple. Once you understand that hard mode is the only way to live, everything you consider is hard. It just comes down to what type of hard you want to choose to do."

One of the ways to embrace hard is to challenge yourself to ask great questions and find the ones that will force you to think differently. In his book 'The Road Less Stupid', Keith J. Cunningham highlights "Having the right answer is smart. Having the right question is genius". Cunningham also highlights that great questions always have three characteristics:

1. It provides insights on what the actual problem is that needs to be addressed.

2. It simplifies the problem and makes it solvable.

3. It expands the number of possibilities available to solve the problem or improve the situation.

When you can do the hard work to develop the ability to learn what great questions are and do the hard work of allowing time to think about the answers to those questions, the solutions for the future you are looking for will be created. This is what hard work is!

Ask yourself these questions to get started:

1. What decisions have I been postponing in the hope that the problem will resolve itself?

2. What is the decision I know I need to make?

3. What am I tolerating in my business that is sabotaging my results?

4. Where am I stuck?

5. What do I know I should be doing but must implement more consistently?

6. What can I do today to improve my situation?

7. Where have I allowed the need for perfection to prevent me from achieving what is possible?

8. What do I need to learn to be able to achieve the result I want?

9. What do I already know but need to act on?

10. What am I procrastinating on because I am looking for an easier answer instead of doing what I know?

11. What shortcuts am I attempting to take that are just a cover-up for laziness or impatience?

12. Where do I need to pick up the intensity level in how I play the game?

13. How much additional time and practice is required to achieve my outcomes?

14. Who can I hire as a coach or mentor to help guide me and hold me accountable?

15. Where do I need to practice improving my game and, as a result, deserve the success I want?

Try this. Allocate at least once a week, for 30 to 40 minutes, to sit quietly and ask yourself one of these questions. Let your mind wander while focused solely on the question you choose and see what answers you come up with. Have a thinking notebook specifically for this purpose, and write down whatever comes to mind. Try not to overthink or analyse your answers because anything you come up with will be valuable in some way. If not for this question, for one, you will ask yourself in the future. Building this as a weekly habit may be so powerful that you will want to do it more than once a week. Now give yourself some thinking time!

If you want support to ask great questions and develop good habits for thinking, book a Free Strategy Session with a lead coach at Leaders Network.