You Don't Know If You Don't Ask

You Don't Know if You Don't Ask

"What if?"

That is a pretty powerful two-word question. But this is the type of question that we can learn how to ask again from the teachings of Anthony Robbins. In fact, the art of asking questions is at the heart of the Robbins message. But the questioning talents that we can learn from a seminar or book by Anthony Robbins are just that - skills. They are questions that are carefully designed to help us turn around the way we think and the way we react to life so we turn ourselves into winners who are on an upward path toward success.

Using this technique of employing questions will empower you in how you react to what life dishes out. It is both a different way of reacting to daily occurrences and a discipline that will cause a remarkable change in how you think and even in how you behave. That is because the kinds of questions you learn to pose to yourself are questions that challenge you to bigger and better things. And when those questions replace negative statements, you are laying a path to success.

An example will go a long way. Suppose you want to get into a certain school which will enable you to achieve a dream job of yours. After sending off for the application materials, you get back the package from the school and there are a lot of requirements of you to even qualify to get into the school. And by the nature of the entrance requirements, you suspect that you might have a hard time being a success once you got accepted to attend the school.

There is a natural reaction you might have which is to make a decisive statement to yourself like, "I will never be able to qualify to even start going to the school". But that is a negative declarative statement that we sometimes use to prepare ourselves to accept defeat. The Anthony Robbins method would have us turn that around and replace that negative declarative statement with one or two questions such as…

"What do I have to do to get started on the application process?"
"How great would it be to even complete the application requirements?"
"What is to stop me from getting started?"

You can see from these questions that they are enabling questions. These questions take you an opposite direction from the negative self-talk you naturally are inclined to use which give you permission to not try and by not trying, to fail. These questions open the door for success. They both ask that age old question of "why not?" and they put a challenge at your feet to at least take the first step on that long road to success.

You can see the genius that Robbins has built into this kind of self enabling question asking. This is a middle ground between simple positive thinking and negative self-talk that is so paralyzing. Positive thinking would have you make a positive affirmation like "I can get into that school if I can visualize myself getting in." But even if you discover sufficient faith inside yourself to believe positive affirmations, simple positive affirmations miss the boat in one important way. They do not empower you to take action and begin the path to success one step at a time.

Positive questions like in our example are grounded in the firm belief that you can succeed at the goal that is ahead of you. But they go to the next level of challenging yourself to discover how to be a success. By turning each negative statement you might feel into a positive question, you enable your own active participation in your success. You are not just going to hold your breathe and believe in "The Secret" or any other external force that is working on your behalf. While those forces are at work, you are doing the best thing you can do to empower the law of the universe to work for you. You are taking action by empowering yourself with action questions that say…

"How hard is it to get started?" and
"Why can't I do the first step right now?"

In that way you are off and running on the path of success before you know it. And once you get some of the work of achieving that success behind you, your momentum will make you unstoppable.