When times are tough, which way do you go? part 2

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Step 2: Ask the Right Questions

After taking a break to calm down in a moment of crisis, the next step is to start asking the RIGHT questions. Many people ask so many counterproductive questions like, ‘Why is life treating me like this?’, ‘What kind of life is this?’ or ‘How come I never succeed at anything I do?’ This is not the way to go.

If you have been living with negative questions and attitude, you are like a man who keeps digging down a ditch and hoping to come out of it someday. In other words, questions like this would only prolong the time of your misery and frustration. Solution to problems don’t answer to good intentions. They answer to your ability to ask the right questions while seeking for honest answers. Asking the right questions helps you to locate the real issues in your challenges. Here are some appropriate questions you must ask:

What exactly is my challenge?

You can’t solve a problem you haven’t identified. The first significant step towards the solution to a challenge is to identify what exactly it is. Don’t assume. Name the challenge.

What is the root cause of my challenge?

Ask yourself how you got into that situation. Was it because you made some wrong choices or was it as a result of unforeseen circumstances you were not adequately prepared for? Could it be as a result of a wrong person who came into your life or an uninformed choice deliberately made by you?

How big is the challenge?

Put the challenge in perspective. Ask yourself, ‘Is this challenge really as big as it looks’. In most cases the answer is ‘No’. I have heard a young graduate say, ‘There are no jobs in Nigeria. I can’t start a business because I don’t have money. I am just helpless’. But this isn’t true. Yes, there are big and difficult challenges but there are no insurmountable challenges. I know a number of millionaires today who were poor, impoverished, homeless and not-too-educated just a few years ago. What was their secret? Here is it: they took advantage of hidden assets such as passion, skills, mentoring, determination, courage and willingness to learn.

There’s no challenge you are facing now that someone else hasn’t gone through. If a problem seems to be so big, you can ask yourself if you could divide it into smaller solvable parts. Someone says, ‘the way to eat an elephant is bit-by-bit’. Yes, it works for solving problems as much as it does for elephants! If yours is rejection in relationships, just write out three new things you can start doing daily to surmount the challenge.
For instance,
(1) showing love to everyone you meet.
(2) Learning to use expressions like, ‘I’m sorry’, ‘Thank you’, ‘Please’ and so on, and (3) spending more time in the right environment with the right people.

It’s all about attitudinal change, believe me.

What should I do about the things I can no longer change?

There are things you cannot change in your life. For instance, you cannot go back into the womb to be born of billionaire parents. You cannot undo the pregnancy that produced your first baby out of wedlock. But you can change the way you see your situation. Many times the issue is not what happened but how we see what happened to us. You can turn a test into a testimony, a mirage into a miracle, a disaster into a new design, a scar into a star and a prison into a palace. It’s all about the way you view the future. No matter how fast you go on the wrong road you’ll never get to the right destination.

Just like a fiction writer, you can choose to rewrite your own story. If you don’t like the trend of a story, all you need is to rewrite it. This is possible in almost any situation because we were created with the unlimited capacity to turn difficult challenges into landslide victories. Just be ready to do some real serious and honest thinking- by asking the right questions. And with the above questions you could dig up new ideas, great discoveries and most importantly hope. Just remember that the right answers only shows up when you ask the right questions.

Cheer up, and get ready to start wining again!