Right now, remind yourself of the truth.

Remind yourself that the New Year means nothing if your mind is still boxed up in its comfort zone.

Don’t fool yourself into living the same year 90 times and calling it a life.

And don’t just think outside the box in 2020…

Think like there is no box.

Open your mind!

How?

Start by asking yourself better questions.

Questions that break you away from all the comfortable distractions in your life, so you can refocus your thinking on what matters most…

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A Slightly Deeper Dive into Self-Questioning

(And what should everyone be able to say before the end of 2020?)

As I alluded to in the intro, the questions you ask yourself on a regular basis can determine the type of person you become. Self-questioning, when leveraged effectively and consistently, gradually frees your mind to focus on what matters most. This process is something Marc and I have successfully guided hundreds of our coaching clients and course students through over the past decade, to help them cope with the various debilitating sources of stress that were holding them back.

If you’d like to better cope with the stress in your own life in 2020, I’ll give you a few bonus questions to consider. Unlike the questions above, which focus on the big picture of what’s important to you, the following will support you when you’re derailed by the frustrations of life’s smaller everyday encounters. The key to using these questions is embracing the fact that most of the frustrations and stress in your daily life could be avoided if you would simply take the time to ask, “What else could this mean?”

So next time a random life situation starts to get the best of you, pause, take a deep breath, and then ask yourself:

What’s the story I’m telling myself about this situation?

Can I be absolutely certain this story is the truth?

How do I feel and behave when I tell myself this story?

If I stopped telling myself this story once and for all, what else might I see, feel, or experience?

Give yourself the space to think it through carefully. Mull it over consciously. And see how doing so opens your mind to respond more peacefully and appropriately in the year ahead.

(Note: Self-questioning and other self-coaching practices are also covered in detail in our New York Times bestselling book, Getting Back to Happy: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Reality, and Turn Your Trials into Triumphs.)

Now, it’s your turn…

Above all, what you need to remember is that it’s not the answers you get from others, but the questions you ask yourself that will help you grow stronger.

So I challenge you to re-read and reference all the questions above throughout the year. And keep in mind that they have no right or wrong answers. Because asking the right questions of yourself, regularly, is the answer.

And before you go, please share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

We’d love to read your response to question #3 above: What’s the #1 change you need to make in your life in 2020?



Also, we recently released our NEW podcast, THINK BETTER, LIVE BETTER (yes, it shares the title of our annual live event). You can listen to the first 10 episodes on your favorite podcast player right now (M&A on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts).

Finally, our next annual Think Better, Live Better conference is taking place February 8-9, 2020 in San Diego. We just released 5 more discounted early bird tickets that are still available right now (while they last).