In the coaching world, questions are often seen as a hallmark of a healthy, inquisitive mind. Questions that stem from curiosity and interest are the way we navigate coaching relationships with our clients and even with our self-coaching.
So, if you are a person who has lots of questions, you may see yourself as someone who is curious, loves to learn and figure things out. Questions in these circumstances are leading you to a destination, knowledge and understanding.
But sometimes having lots of questions is leading us to a completely different destination, or maybe even keeping us stuck. That was the case when I showed up for a session with my coach a few months ago.
I Have Questions
As we do, this session began with my coach asking me what I wanted coaching on. Basically, tell me your story of what’s bothering you today. I honestly don’t even remember the topic right now, but the bulk of my story was question after question after question.
I paused to take a breath and my coach paused to consider the salvo of queries I had just lobbed at her through the Zoom screen.
“I’ve noticed what you shared was mostly questions. Would that be a fair assessment?”
“Yes, I have SO many questions and no answers. I think that’s my real issue today.”
“In cases like these I have a process I use to sort through the questions. I have to warn you though, the process involves three more questions, but I promise there’s a good reason.”
“Sure, let’s do it.”
A Questionable Experiment
“OK, here are the three questions. And what we will do with these is apply these questions to your questions to sort them.”
“Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Question #1 is: Can this be answered yet?”
“#2 is: Is this a useless question?”
“#3 is: Is this a useful question?”
“Question #3 is kind of a gimme because if you will already have your answer based on your response to #2.”
“Ready to start running through your list of questions?”
“Ready.”
Thankfully my coach had taken great notes and captured each of my questions, despite the speed and ferocity with which I had fired them off at her.
We spent the next few minutes going through each of my questions and when we were finished we had separated them into three categories:
- Can’t be answered yet.
- Useless
- Useful
What’s Left?
As you may suspect, I had a LOT of questions in the Can’t be answered yet and Useless categories. These were questions that were not driven from a sense of curiosity and interest. But rather, these questions stemmed from qualities such as fear, dread, impatience, worry and anxiety.
I did have one or two in the Useful category, which was of some comfort.
“Now”, my coach said, “Look at each list and tell me how you want to think about each one, now that you have more awareness of where they are coming from.”
“Well, the Can’t be answered yet questions are good questions, but it’s not helpful for me to think about them right now. So, I’d like to just file those away for future reference I guess.”
“All right. How about the Useless category?”
“I can see how these questions are not only useless, but causing me to feel a lot of negative emotions. Really stressing me out for no reason. I think I just want to let these go altogether.”
Well, that’s Helpful
“Now we have the Useful category. These are questions that could actually help you move the needle in this particular situation. So, what do you think we should do with these questions?”
“Answer them?”
“Yes! Let’s do it.”
And so, we did. I answered the useful questions and we spent the rest of the session focused on those. This was such a powerful exercise because I noticed that times in my life when I am feeling stuck or overwhelmed, I am drowning in questions. When I rage about injustices from my past or worry about the future, I feel pummeled by question after question after question. Almost exclusively the useless kind.
Now when I am feeling weighed down by questions, I can run this sort on the fly. Whether it’s a dozen questions or just one. I can ask the three questions, sort my categories and focus on the useful questions.
What a Tool
Merriam Webster defines the word useful as “capable of being put to use and serviceable for an end purpose”.
The useful questions represent things that are helpful and within my control. They are questions which, if answered, can become a tool to guide my next steps.
I may not see a clear endpoint to this path right now, maybe not even until I am poised to take the final step. But as long as there are questions, I can continue to cull out, answer and put the useful ones into service along the way.
Do you feel like you have more questions than answers lately? Do your questions create an openness and curiosity or are they more likely to weigh you down with stress and anxiety?
You CAN use your questions to help move you forward in life, and I can help.
Every coaching relationship with me begins with a complimentary session where we discuss your goals, your struggles, and how coaching may benefit you. There is absolutely no pressure to sign up, this is simply an opportunity to get to know each other better and decide whether working together would be a good fit for each of us.
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