Hello,
Welcome.
My name is Lou Redmond and I am so appreciative to get to share with you today.
Kids love asking questions.
If you spend any amount of time with a five-year-old,
You will be asked everything from how are clouds made to why do Tommy's parents sleep in different rooms?
Children are naturally and uninhibitedly curious.
Yet as adults,
We become rigid and closed off.
We need to have the answers and feel embarrassed to ask questions.
But good questions are essential to growth.
Tony Robbins says,
The quality of your life reflects the quality of your questions.
Most ask disempowering questions like,
Why does this always happen to me?
What is wrong with this person?
Why do things have to be so difficult?
The power of the subconscious is that it works to find solutions to our prompts.
So when we ask disempowering questions,
We get disempowering answers.
Why does this always happen to me?
Because I must be flawed.
I know something's wrong with me.
This wouldn't happen to anyone else.
Our mind looks for reasons to confirm our victim story.
Be cautious of the questions you ask yourself.
It's either an empowering or a vicious self-fulfilling cycle.
The power of good questions is that they enable us to organize our thinking around what we don't know.
Great questions guide us toward what we don't know we don't know.
Powerful questions open the mind to new possibilities.
They break us free from habitual thinking and open a channel for something new to emerge.
Good life coaching is about asking powerful questions that allow for such generative insight.
Here are three questions you can use to help coach yourself in the new year.
And before I say the questions,
I want to share the levels that these questions work at so you can understand where a question might be appropriate.
And so the way that I coach the three levels are first vision coaching.
This helps create action and forward momentum.
This is about future vision and planning.
The next is mindset coaching.
This helps to shift perspective and induces empowering narratives and stories that support that growth.
And then the third is depth coaching.
And this is the work of the emotional and energetic piece.
This is how we heal from the inside out,
Clearing the way for deeper self-connection.
The first question I'm going to offer you is in the realm of vision coaching.
The question is,
What would it look like if it were easy?
We love to make mountains out of molehills.
The uncertainty of a new project leads to procrastination,
Making a task much more significant in our minds.
Have you ever put off doing something for days because it felt like a lot of work and then when you finally did it,
It took like five minutes?
Here's a secret.
Life doesn't always have to be hard.
And I have a post on here recently around paradox of doing hard things makes life easy.
So I get that this is a posing view,
But hear me out.
Life doesn't always have to be hard.
That's what makes things paradoxical.
What happens is we make things more complicated than they need to be.
Let's say you want to start a YouTube channel.
You think you need to first get a good camera,
Learn editing software,
Buy fancy lights,
Learn Photoshop for thumbnails,
Study all the best practices,
Take public speaking lessons,
Wait until the right time.
Then in eight months,
Once you're ready,
You can begin.
All these things may be helpful,
But they have little to do with starting a YouTube channel.
Instead,
They are forms of procrastination and an example of how we make things harder than needed.
What would it look like if it were easy?
You pull out your phone,
Hit record,
Start talking,
Hit end and upload it to YouTube.
Boom.
The best way to get better at anything is through experience.
Record another video,
Make it 1% better.
Over time,
The quality will compound.
I now have fancy equipment for recording meditations and pay freelancers for editing,
But when I started,
I would just hit record on my lav mic and I published.
Some of my unedited meditations are still my most popular.
There's a great quote from Marcus Aurelius,
You can be good today,
But instead you choose tomorrow.
The number one thing that gets in people's way is not starting.
Once they start,
The energy of momentum takes over.
In entrepreneurship,
There's a term called minimum viable product.
It means the minimum they can do to get a working product out into the market.
They know they'll receive invaluable feedback on how to improve it,
So why waste time making it better than it needs to be when they'll likely change it.
The same applies to however you feel called to put yourself out there.
You don't need to make the perfect video.
Make a bad video and get better.
What is most important is what we most resist doing.
What are the important things you're putting off?
Ask,
What would they look like if it were easy?
This question applies to more than just projects.
Any problem you have,
What would it look like if it were easy?
The question helps give your mind alternative avenues than the most challenging ones we tend to create.
Number two,
What if the opposite were true?
This is mindset coaching.
People love to argue for their limitations.
I can't because I'm too old.
I don't have the experience.
I'm not qualified.
I don't have the time.
It's not the right time.
The excuses are endless.
I'm sure you know a few more.
We get so entrained in these negative thought loops that it helps to invert the thinking to find a new solution.
Let's use time as an example as many people have this excuse in some way.
Someone says it's not the right time.
What if it was the opposite were true?
What if it was the perfect time?
Can you find evidence to support that?
And they might say,
Well,
If I start now,
Even with all that I have going on,
I'll show myself that I can handle this any time of year.
Also,
I'll set myself up for the person I want to be in six months.
Now it shifts to it's the right time.
And from there,
I might ask if this is the perfect time,
How does this change how you're looking at X issue?
In exploring this question,
You shift your perspective to see that you have the power to make a new and empowering narrative.
Another example,
I gave a talk at a high school and was speaking to the woman who had me in.
She explained how she teaches public speaking and is thinking about her next steps.
I offered that she might start her own business and do what I do,
Which is speaking and teaching.
And she responded,
I could never do that.
I'm not good at admin.
Now,
I might ask her what it would look like if admin were easy,
But since we're on number two,
I may also ask what if the opposite were true?
What if you were great at admin?
She can then start explaining ways in the past where she figured things out or plan to set the time to take a course or hire out the places she thought she was lacking.
Instead of admin being a limitation,
It becomes the path forward.
The obstacle is again the way.
Take a story you tell yourself and try it out.
You don't have to live in the box you're making.
What if the opposite were true?
Before I go on to the next question,
I have to say that when she asked me that question,
I was laughing because I feel like I'm just winging it together.
Admin is definitely not my strong suit.
So if you have some kind of gift and you're letting the tech or the admin get in your way,
Please,
Please,
I beg you that you'll figure it out as you go along.
I'm figuring it out.
Okay,
Coming back.
Number three.
Last question that I'm going to offer for you today is around depth coaching.
The question is,
What if nothing is missing?
When doing depth coaching with clients,
I like to ask what is missing?
This inquiry may be when a strong emotion gets stirred.
Underneath the strong reaction may be an unmet need.
Asking what is missing helps someone recognize the need and build new awareness around it.
What often happens is the person realizes they have the resources to give that need to themselves and no longer require to seek it from the outside.
In essence,
They understand that nothing was ultimately missing.
Since I can't go back and forth with you right now,
Like I would on a coaching call,
I found a question that will cut to the heart of your issue.
What if nothing is missing?
I learned this question from Steve March,
Founder of Aletheia Coaching.
People get into inner work because they feel like there is lack.
A tenant I hold is you are already whole,
Perfect,
And complete.
As a coach,
I help you get out of your own way so your wholeness and inner healer can take over.
Instead of thinking you need to do,
Get,
Or be something or someone,
What if nothing is missing?
Feel into this question.
Let it work on you.
If you do so long enough,
You may find the answers surprising.
Here's a quick recap.
To create a plan and take action in your life,
Ask what would it look like if it were easy?
To shift from a limiting belief,
Ask what if the opposite were true?
To work through discontentment or distraughtness,
Ask what if nothing is missing?
What question applies to you right now?
I'd love to hear your feedback.
I hope these questions are helpful for you as you do your own work and set yourself up for the year ahead,
The month ahead,
However you want to set up your days.
I also want to give credit where credit's due because I don't think I mentioned it,
But I learned the what would it look like if it were easy from Tim Ferriss,
And I believe he also has some YouTube videos that explore that question further.
So feel free to look that up and check it out if that resonates for you.
And of course,
I do work one-on-one in a coaching container,
And if that ever felt like a calling to you to step into a different space of growth and do some more intimate work,
Please feel free to reach out and I'd love to explore that conversation with you.
Thank you so much for listening,
And I send you lots of love.
If you want to stay connected to me here on Insight Timer,
You can find my circle,
Lew's Circle,
And it's a place where I share new content and updates that come across,
And I'd love to see you there.
