4 Questions to Create Forward Focus
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
- Aristole Onasis
Each year, I am blessed to share my message of Black Belt Leadership and its Mind of a Champion principles with several groups across the country.
During many of these sessions, I discuss how the negative stories we create in our minds about our lives can dis-empower us and keep us from experiencing the happiness and success we desire.
In contrast, I also share how Forward Focused thinking, can be used to overcome our perceived obstacles, and also re-frame our challenges as blessings in our lives when we really look at them with an open mind and heart.
To explore this, I have participants in many of my sessions share with a partner a challenge they are currently experiencing in their lives.
In sharing this challenge, participants are asked to communicate the details surrounding these obstacles as expressively as they can.
They are encouraged to channel their inner Tom Hanks and/or Meryl Streep and demonstrate all of the pain, frustration and anger that this event has caused them, as if they were looking to win an academy award for best dramatic performance.
Once they begin, the room is abuzz with raised voices, flailing limbs and contorted faces as participants play full out in expressing their life's difficulties, mishaps and obstacles.
Once the venting is completed and all emotions are spent, they were then asked to answer the following questions about their same situation.
1) What is REALLY is really happening here? – For this question, participants explain the challenge occurring in their lives WITHOUT the story.
For example, "My boss asked me at 5 pm on a Friday evening to have a report completed by Monday at 8 am" VERSUS…
"My boss is so inconsiderate! He always asks me to do things at the last minute because he is so disorganized and now, I will have to work all weekend and all of my plans are ruined. He's such a jerk!"
While getting angry is totally appropriate and healthy, many of us stay in our “stories” about events that have upset us, rather than having the feeling, expressing it and letting it go. We recycle our stories for days, weeks and yes, sometimes even years.
At some point, we need to let our stories go and deal with what is REALLY happening to not only bring peace to our lives, but to effectively deal with the challenges at hand.
2) What are the POSITIVES from this situation? – Yes, even the most “negative” of experiences have a kernel or positivity in them. What positive awarenesses or circumstances revealed themselves to you as a result of this situation?
I'm sure you can find at least one.
Maybe losing that job you so coveted lead you to a change of career that you never thought possible and now really love.
Maybe that loss of relationship led you to grow as a person in ways you didn’t know possible.
And maybe, that illness you endured and overcame, taught you the power of courage and persistence and has led you to having a much greater appreciation of your life and those you love.
3) What is a SOLUTION to this circumstance?
It has been said that the quality of our life experience is in direct proportion to the quality of questions we ask ourselves.
For example, when a challenge occurs that brings us upset, rather than asking, “Why does this type of thing always happen to me?”, perhaps you could ask yourself, “What is my next right move in finding a solution to this situation?”
Our minds give us what we focus on. If we focus on just the problem and all the negative aspects that go with it, I can guarantee you that you will see more problems emerge.
On the other hand, if you focus on finding solutions to the challenges, you will begin to see more and more possible answers present themselves in your mind or in your world.
This is the key distinction between being “problem-based” in our thinking versus being “solution-based”.
Please note, this does not mean that we ignore problems. Rather, it suggests that once we have identified the challenges before us, we then get to work on solving the issue, rather than staying stuck in the worry, frustration and anger that comes forward when a challenge first confronts us.
And finally.......
4) What can YOU do to make it happen?
I actually believe that we are most happy as human beings when we are dealing with challenges and looking to solve them.
Name a project that you are currently working on that brings you joy, and you mostly likely will find that it is the challenge that excites you. If it were too easy to accomplish, you would find it boring.
I also believe that we feel most empowered when we know that there is an action, we can take to make something happen.
Playing the “victim” role and feeling there is nothing we can do to remedy a situation can bring much pain and frustration. Conversely, give us a challenge, no matter how big, that we can take action against and we feel empowered and excited to dive in (even if it takes some courage to get started).
To say this was initially an easy exercise for the majority of the group would be inaccurate. Most caught themselves "in story" as they shared what really had occurred or couldn't differentiate how their "story" could be extracted from explaining their challenges.
Once again, I am not advocating we never "vent" about our problems or challenges. On the contrary, when we avoid sharing our initial frustrations in a healthy way, it can often lead to repression of anger and resentment which usually leads to greater upset and difficulty in the future.
The key is not to stay in the story.
In focusing on what is really occurring and the solution to the challenge, we actually take back our power from the challenging situation. It is from this place we can tap into our personal creativity and the immense reservoir of ideas that exists within each of us that can be used to overcome any difficult scenario.
Where can you Forward Focus your thinking today?
Chris Natzke
Black Belt Leadership Speaking & Coaching