Speak Life: Transform Your Questions to Transform Your Results
0Top o' the Mornin' to Ya!
TLDR: Discover how the questions you ask yourself and others either drain life or create it. Learn to replace defeatist "why" questions with life-giving "what does it take" and "how can I" questions that spark creativity, solutions, and positive momentum in your leadership and relationships.
What?
I just got done listening to Toby Mac's "Speak Life" - what a great song. It got me thinking about the questions we ask that are just draining, debilitating, removing life, excitement and happiness from those around us. Questions like "Why didn't you get your homework done? Why can't you get good grades? Why isn't the trash taken out?" Those are just draining questions.
But what if we go a step further - you're asking these questions to yourself? You're draining yourself. You're committing suicide by the words and phrases that you use. "Why did I gain a pound? Why did I sleep in? How come I'm so fat? How come I can't do that? How come I'm so weak? How come I ate that sugar?" Those are all defeatist, draining questions - words of death, words of suicide that set our brain on a trajectory of creation of negativity.
Instead of asking "Why can't you get the trash out?" what if we asked "What does it take to get the trash out?" That creates creativity, imagination, a question that has an answer that creates life. Our brain automatically starts creating whatever we ask it. The "why" question sets the mind to work to create excuses and reasons we don't get things done. The "what does it take" question triggers thinking about solutions - I could set an alarm, a timer, put it on my watch, on the calendar, on a mirror. All of a sudden we're creating all the possibilities for getting the result we're looking for.
Why?
I share this because you are the most damaging part of you - or you can be the most creative part of you. The questions we ask ourselves internally determine whether we speak life or death into our own hearts. As Kingdom Family Leaders, we're called to be creators, made in God's image to speak words of life and grow in creativity and abundance for ourselves and others.
When we ask defeatist questions, we're not just hurting ourselves - we're modeling this pattern for our wives, kids, family, colleagues, and team. But when we learn to speak life with our questions, especially when we talk to ourselves, we create positive synergy with the Holy Spirit and the people around us.
Lesson
The fundamental principle is that our brain automatically starts creating whatever we ask it. "Why" questions focus on problems, excuses, and limitations. They activate our reticular activating system (RAS) to find evidence of our failures and shortcomings. Life-giving questions like "What does it take?" "How can I?" and "What would it mean?" focus our creative faculties on solutions, possibilities, and growth. Does that same but creates more meaningful results.
This isn't just positive thinking - it's biblical stewardship of our minds and words. We're called to bless ourselves first by talking to ourselves in ways that create life, then extend that same life-giving communication to everyone in our circles of influence. When we replace death-dealing questions with life-creating ones, we shift from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset, from problem-focused to solution-focused thinking.
Apply
For the next seven days, catch yourself every time you ask a "why" question - either to yourself or others. Immediately reframe it as a "what does it take" or "how can I" question. Instead of "Why did I eat that?" ask "What does it take for me to make better food choices?" Instead of "Why didn't you clean your room?" ask your child "What does it take to keep your room organized?"
Write down three areas where you consistently ask yourself deflating questions. Transform each one into a life-giving question and spend five minutes brainstorming creative solutions. Notice how this simple shift changes your energy, creativity, and the responses you get from others.
You be blessed!
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If you're stuck in this rut of speaking death and draining life around you and in you, let's talk. Let's get into mastermind or coaching together and find a better way to break through that past, change your mindset, transform your position, and speak life: https://brian.chat/
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