What's Your Primary Question?

I was listening to Michael Smoak’s Higher Up Wellness podcast and he introduced a really powerful concept that he calls ‘Your Primary Question’. 

Life is going to throw a lot at us. At times it’s going to give us hope and strip it away, demand we work hard and deliver no result, get us excited about a new opportunity only to pull the rug at the last minute, and otherwise spoil plans. It’s in these moments that we apply the ‘Primary Question’.

Essentially, in the face of life adversity Michael recommends you commit a question to memory that reframes your thinking. So that no matter how bad you feel, embarrassed you are, or discouraged you get… You can ask yourself an empowering question to force your thinking. 

Questions like:

-Why might this be the best thing that could have happened to me?

-How is this part of God’s plan for my life?

-What about this makes for a great success story?

-How is this a blessing in disguise?

-How is this pulling me toward my mission?

Because our natural response to life adversity is the opposite. That it’s a bad thing to have happened, that this destroyed our plans and is pulling us away from our mission. But when you ask one good question, your mind quickly changes gears and gets to answering it. Tony Robbins often says “The quality of your life directly reflects the quality of the questions you ask yourself.”

This goes perfectly with one of my favorite frameworks, Jack Canfield’s E + R = O…. Event + Response = Outcome.

When you choose the question you ask about a situation, you determine the nature of the response. This means that for any life event you can control your perception of the outcome, and shape it such that it’s more empowering, supportive, and contributing to what you’re hoping to accomplish.

I want to put more thought into it, but the first draft of my ‘Primary Question’ is: How might this be exactly what needed to happen?

It’s a practice that’s easier said than done, especially when you think about how you need to use it in the face of disappointment. But keep it in your back pocket and it can become a superpower.

‍