Ask yourself a different question
Are you stuck on something?
Anything.
Your job?
Your business?
A relationship?
Where you live?
Where to travel?
What to wear?
Who to invite?
What to say?
What to order?
How to start?
When to leave?
One of the fastest ways to get unstuck—on any topic, in any area of your life—is to ask a different question.
When trying to make decisions, most of us recycle the same internal dialog. We ask ourselves the same questions over and over, expecting to arrive at a new conclusion.
This pattern becomes especially persistent when we feel stuck.
If you catch yourself in this, play around with asking yourself some different questions about the decision you’re trying to make or the problem you’re trying to solve.
Here are some examples:
Instead of, How can I make more money in 2025?
Try, How can this be the last year I worry about security?
Instead of, How can I get in shape?
Try, How do the healthiest people I know start their days?
Instead of, What else can I DO?
Try, How can I BE different?
And my personal favorite, because it can help blunt the relentless self-criticism many of us engage in when we feel stuck:
Instead of, Am I good enough?
Try, Am I making progress?
Those are just a few examples of different questions. There’s no scenario where you can’t apply this tool.
We are constantly engaging in Q&A with ourselves when trying to make decisions. This mostly happens unconsciously but you can bring a higher level of awareness and consciousness to the process.
Here’s how:
Pick any topic or area of your life where you’re not progressing in the way you’d like or having the experience you desire.
Notice the questions you’re asking yourself in an attempt to solve your dilemma.
Once you identify a question you’re asking, replace it with a different question.
Repeat.
Don’t worry about whether your new questions are any better than your old ones. The goal is not perfection, it’s to regain control of your internal conversation so you can approach your decision from a new vantage point.
Experimentation is the process and any change is progress.