| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Stuck | Questions that narrow to one next thing |
| Heavy | Questions that ask for facts, not conclusions |
| Deciding | Questions that surface the cost you are hiding |
| Fine | The ones nobody asks, and the most useful |
| Rule | No question starts with "why" |
When you are stuck
Stuck is usually not a shortage of options. It is too many, held at once, none of them examined. These narrow:
- What is the smallest version of this you could start today?
- What would you do if you only had two hours to spend on it?
- What are you waiting for, and is it actually coming?
- What would have to be true for this to be easy?
- Who has done this, and what could you ask them?
- What are you doing instead of this, and what is that about?
That last one is the highest-yield question in the set, because avoidance almost always has a shape and the shape is informative.
When it is heavy
The stuck questions are built for a different day. They ask you to plan, and planning is not available. These ask for description instead:
- What is the most honest thing you can say about right now?
- What did not go wrong today?
- What do you need that you have not asked for?
- What would you say to someone else feeling exactly this?
- What kind of rest do you need that is not sleep?
- What is one thing you did anyway?
Notice that none of them requires an insight. A heavy day does not owe you a conclusion, and demanding one is how reflection turns into the thing it should not be.
If the heaviness is specifically about not being able to feel anything, what to write when you feel nothing is built for that and asks even less.
When you cannot decide
Decisions stall because a cost is being kept out of view. These surface it:
- What are you pretending not to know?
- What would you choose if nobody would be disappointed?
- What is the worst realistic outcome, and could you live with it?
- Which option are you defending rather than choosing?
- What will this look like in a year? In five?
- If you had already decided, which one would you be relieved about?
Ask these in the second person. Kross and colleagues found that using your own name or "you" instead of "I" reduced anxiety and improved performance under stress, and decisions are exactly where that distance pays. What would you regret is a different question from what would I regret, and it takes no longer to write.
When you are fine
The group nobody uses, and the one with the best return. A record made of only bad days cannot tell you what a good one is made of.
- What went better than expected, and what made the difference?
- What is working right now that you are not paying attention to?
- Who made this week easier?
- What would you like more of, specifically?
- What did you do this month that you would have found hard a year ago?
When it is the end of something
A week, a project, a year:
- What is different about you compared with a year ago?
- What did you get wrong, and what did it teach you?
- What did you carry that was not yours?
- Whose opinion have you been holding that you could put down?
- What would you like to be true in a year, and what is the first step?
The rule underneath all of them
None of these starts with why, and that is the whole design.
Trapnell and Campbell separated self-attention into two things: reflection, driven by curiosity, and rumination, driven by threat. They look identical from outside and they go in opposite directions, and the question you start with does much of the deciding. Why am I like this opens a search with no bottom. What is going on here opens one that ends.
The full argument, and why asking why about a specific feeling today is the one safe exception, is in self-reflection questions.
The practical test, whichever question you use: after a few minutes, has any new information arrived? If not, stop. More time past that point is not reflection.
How oléyoga asks
Fifteen questions in the app, arriving one at a time rather than as a list you scroll, and weighted towards the evening for the reason this article is organised the way it is: the question that fits depends on the day you actually had, and in the evening you know what that was.
Rendered in English:
"What takes up too much space in your mind and deserves less attention?"
"What would you do differently if fear were not deciding for you?"
"What are you doing today out of habit that no longer represents you?"
All three are what questions, and all fifteen are — that is checkable by opening the app, and it is the same constraint this article applies to its own lists.
If what you need first is a word for the state rather than a question about it, the check-in is the other door: five states, fourteen words, and it ends in a practice rather than a prompt.
Quick questions
How many should I answer at once?
One. A list is for choosing from, not for working through.
Should I write the answers down?
Yes. Thinking a question through circles by default; writing forces a sequence and leaves something to re-read. How to journal covers the habit.
What if the same question keeps coming up?
Then it is the real one. A question that will not go away has usually not been answered, only considered.
How long until this does anything?
The clarity is same-session or not at all. What accumulates over months is the record, and re-reading it is where most people notice the change.
Are there questions to avoid?
Any that ask why you are the way you are, and any that need a conclusion on a day that cannot produce one. Both are in the sections above.
oléyoga asks one at a time, in the evening, when you know what kind of day it was.
