When Life Hits An Impasse !

source: www.goodtherapy.org

When our life is brought to a screeching halt and we are thrown in a tizzy, all we wonder is "What now?" . What had so far been a smooth cruise now appears to be a tricky and bumpy ride. Looking further ahead, we see our life engulfed in a cloud of confusion and chaos. This is when the reality hits us that our life has hit an impasse !

The "cul-de-sac" that stares at us in our face and leave us completely blank is in fact a manifestation of our ill-conceived goals and ill-directed actions. Now, when all our goals seem out of sight no clarity of direction, the only way forward is to do course correction.

Hitting a dead-end in life is not the end of the road for us. A little bit of self-probing and self-reflection could help us get our life back on track again. This is the right time to dig deep and identify what's holding us back.

The following could help us explore the root cause:

• Do i feel motivated (at this moment) to pursue the goal ?
• Am i pursuing my existing goals of my own free will ?
• Do i feel overwhelmed/ underwhelmed with my goal(s) ?
• Do i need to rework on my goals - maybe establish a different goal altogether or rework on the existing one ?
• Do i need to establish few mini-goals that will help me be motivated ?
• Are my action items in place ?
• Have i set my priorities right ?
• Have i built the necessary discipline in my daily routine for the tasks that needs to be executed? 
• Have i built a closure (timeline/ deadline) for the tasks identified by me? 
• Have i identified all the available options ?
• Do i have a mechanism in place for feedback ?

Pondering over the above questions could help us pin point where exactly the problem lies - whether in our goals, action items or time. Once the root cause is identified then its not difficult to do the necessary course correction and go beyond the impasse !

When Questions Become the Answers!

The Art of Self-Questioning 

Questioning has always been a powerful tool for humans to delve deep into our personality and gain insight and understanding of human behavior and growth. Socrates, the great philosopher used the power of questioning to great effect and demonstrated how effective questioning could yield the desirable results aligned well with our defined objectives.  “Socratic Questioning” is still used as a powerful technique for building critical thinking.

Life is a continuous pursuance of our dreams and desires with no in-built checks or auto-correction in place. To keep progressing in life, it’s essential that we regularly stop, step back, reflect, correct and then again move forward with better clarity and renewed energy.  There can’t be any better way for doing this than “Self-Questioning”.  When we perfect the art of “self-questioning”, our questions become the answers to whatever holds us back. Let’s dive a little into what makes the process of “self-questioning” more effective and useful

Why is Self-Questioning important?

Growth, Progression and Achievement are 3 cornerstone of a successful life. Questioning helps identify the strengths and barriers and the act of questioning to self creates alignment with our Purpose, Goals and Actions. From thereon, the self-questioning process helps us reflect, review, make necessary correction and restart.

Self-Questioning is the most important form of self-talk that we do. It establishes a connect with our inner self to bring out the powers and resources lying latent in us.

Framing Questions

When Question itself becomes the Answer, then it becomes crucial to develop a robust framework that generates the appropriate questions that we should be asking yourself. When indulging in self-questioning, we should frame questions starting with the following:

•          Where do I stand now? (Status quo)
•          What do I want to achieve in life? (Purpose and Goals)
•          Why do I want to achieve the above Purpose and Goals? (Rationale)
•          How do I plan to achieve your goals? (Strategy)
•          (By) When do I want to achieve them? (Deadline)

To sum it up, a robust framework of self-questioning is built by seamlessly integrating self-coaching principles in the entire process!