Questions I’ve been asking myself almost killed me.

Blaming the world for my failures was easier than taking responsibility.

That dampened my creativity because I only asked questions to pity myself, never to look for a solution to my problems.

Now, I query my brain like I query ChatGPT.

Questions free your creativity.

And creativity means more than art or writing — it’s all about living. If you’re alive, you’re creative.

Use that feature by crafting questions that’ll lead you to your goals.

Here is how to know which ones are helpful and which ones are not.

What to Avoid

Let’s start with what we don’t want.

Clearly, no negative self-talk.

It’s old and useless. By negative self-talk, I mean all that “why me” stuff. It doesn’t matter why you. What matters is what you can learn from what happened to minimize the chances of that happening again.

Another one to watch out for is forcing limiting self-beliefs.

We all have that small demon telling us we’re worthless, even in our glory days. But that’s one thing. Another thing is feeding the demon with questions that remind you about those limits.

The last one is the fixed mindset.

It’s crippling. When you start learning a new skill, you’re not good at it. You don’t know how to do it. Questions focusing on why it’ll stay that way are blocking you from changing. It’s okay to start and learn along the way.