As we celebrate this New Year and the new beginnings it brings we can’t help but to think of what we plan to accomplish in these next 12 months.
Nearly one-half of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, but just 8% follow-through and accomplish their goals. Why is this statistic of success so small? Well, the unfortunate truth is that change, all change, entails some degree of emotional friction. Friction which in turn generates a “heated state” that we call stress. Whether you’re feeling anxious, depressed, frustrated, fatigued, or simply bored, stress becomes the fuel of failure.
A New Challenge For This Year
To do something a bit different when it comes to your New Year’s Resolution. Something that may enable you to create real results. Turn Resolutions Into Questions. Per Forbes research, answering questions instead of making statements is a much more effective method for sticking to your promises.
Affectionately coined “Questolution,” solution-oriented inquiries have been shown to produce consistent, significant changes in a variety of contexts from exercise and eating healthier to business growth. Asking ambitious, yet actionable, questions can shift the way you think and can serve as a change catalyst.
Questolutions: How They Can Help You
For example, if your goal is to get back in shape your Questolution may be, “How might I fit exercise into my day?” By asking a specific question you now have a clearer path to achieve your answer and therefore success. You may then answer your Questolution by looking at your weekly schedule and finding a half hour three times that week for you to block out for time at the gym or a quick run around your neighborhood. Think actionable, not hypothetical.
There are many obvious reasons why this may work but on a more subconscious level. Questolutions are very much like puzzles, they prompt psychological responses. Your mind almost can’t help but try to solve or answer a question or puzzle once its been presented. By posing your resolution in the form of a question, or a small series of questions, rather than a statement, you begin to engage with it. Your brain goes to work breaking down the problem, sequencing next steps and creating a path to success. Questions spark creative, flexible thinking instead of a stressed heated state that result from the overwhelming traditional New Year’s Resolution.
So, go ahead, put your thinking caps on and ask yourself how you will resolve to be a better you in 2017.
