EP19 (Final) - From Lost to Locked In: Get Clarity and Direction with Better Questions
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[00:00:00] So.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Starlit Success podcast. I am your host, as always, Jessica Gaines. And today is one of those episodes that I just love because. I have a whole list of ideas that come to me and then I just, like, I make a list and then as I feel inspired, I just kind of work on them further.
But this is one that wasn't even in my list. I sat down and planned something completely different and this one just like popped in my head. So then I started working on this one, and then I was like trying to shift my focus back to the initial one, and this one just kept drawing me back in. so I felt like, you know what?
The universe wants me to talk about this. So here we are. Here we are. so I have a question for you. I like to start these out with questions now because I think it gets your noodle going. What if you found out that you [00:01:00] had a tool in your back pocket, or you've had this tool in your back pocket, your entire life, it was there to help you.
It was there to make your life easier, make it more clear, guide you, and you didn't even know it was there. Or maybe you knew it was there, but you didn't really know how to use it. So maybe you were using it, but you weren't really using it the way it was designed. So therefore, you know, maybe things were a little bit harder, things took a little bit longer, things didn't flow as easy
because you weren't using it in the right way.
And today I wanna talk about, we all have this tool. We have all had this tool our entire lives. It is one of the most underrated yet simplest tools that we could use. And that is just asking questions, just getting curious.
And it's not just about asking any questions or just asking anything that you're curious about, because I would be here all day. It's about asking questions that are really meaningful thought provoking questions like quality questions, [00:02:00] powerful questions, questions that are going to really open up your mind to what's possible for you
I believe asking questions is literally one of the simplest ways to just completely uplevel your life and change the way you look at things and change the way that you actually go about things. asking questions was always something that just came naturally to me.
So I was this person that had this tool in my back pocket my whole life. I knew it was there, but I never really understood the power that it held. I always just looked at asking questions as just gathering information and trying to understand something a little better, get clear on something, understand the full context, understand different perspectives.
I never thought of it as a tool to actually change my life or better myself.
I think part of that is because this is something that I've always done. I've always been a very curious person ever since I was really small, and I know I used to really annoy my mom as a kid, always asking her question after question after question. as a mom, I mean, if you have kids, you know how [00:03:00] annoying that can be over time.
So it was to the point where I, I felt like I was annoying her. So sometimes I would stop or I would just go ask my dad. And even now, when I'm with my friends, I ask a lot of questions. Like if someone's telling me a story or telling me that something that happened,
I'm like, but what about this? And did they do that? It's something we've kind of laughed off.
It's like, oh, here's Jessi with the questions, because that's just who I am. That's my personality.
But I started to get a different perspective on the whole asking questions thing when it comes to people I work with, I was recently told, well, within the last year or two by someone that I work with that. I asked the best questions of anyone that they've ever worked with, and initially I was just like,, I didn't realize that that was a skill and I didn't realize it was something that people actually valued because I've always been met with kind of like this annoyance when it comes to me and asking questions.
I never really realized that. Some people find it very valuable, and I think it's because you're showing interest. If you're [00:04:00] thoughtful enough, then the questions are gonna come to you because
you're trying to get a little deeper.
But once I started realizing that this was a skill that was valued. I realized that this is actually, I think this is one of my superpowers. Because I'm so curious. That's what led me here. If I didn't get curious, if I didn't start asking myself some questions, I wouldn't be here right now.
I would just be dealing with everything that I've been dealing with and never questioning anything.
And I feel like so many of us are always just focused on what's in front of us. We're always just focused on the next thing and reacting to things rather than looking at the bigger picture.
And one thing I noticed was that I was always really curious in everything else. Like I was always wanting to understand other people, the environment. , I wanted to ask questions that probably didn't even matter, right? Why does it work like that? How did this change?
I don't know why. I just wanna know everything. [00:05:00] Whether I retain it or not is a completely different story,
but I think about it and it's like if I would've gotten more curious about myself and where I wanted to go in life, and if I would've started asking some bigger questions maybe 10, 20 years ago, the questions that I'm asking myself now, how would my life look different?
You know, what changes would I have made had I gotten curious about myself? And then I was thinking about it. I'm like, that tool, you know, that tool that we've been using wrong, or the tool that we didn't even know was there. I was kind of like, what does that even look like? And I, I pictured myself using like a hand mixer, if you've ever used a hand mixer to bake, I don't know, brownies or I use it for making dips or whatnot, just to get all the clumps out.
So I was picturing myself using this hand mixer, but never plugging in, never turning on the power. So, I mean, technically you can still mix with it. I mean, it's got the little beaters on there and you're moving it around. And I'm just picturing myself using questions my whole life without putting the [00:06:00] power on, without asking the deeper, the bigger questions that would've made it go so much faster and made things so much smoother along the way.
But once I started really diving deep into this personal growth and personal development world, I realized how powerful questions really are and how not only are they powerful, but they're necessary. Like you have to get curious about your life in order to make any changes.
But I also believe that questions kind of some times have a negative connotation to them. There's this saying, curiosity killed the cat, , why do we say that? What? Because if you get too curious about something, if you ask too many questions, you might lead yourself to danger.
You might get into some trouble or like, you know, what are, what Are you the cops? Why are you asking so many questions? Are you the feds?
Sometimes people feel like maybe you're being nosy or being intrusive.
But when it comes to asking questions yourself, that's not nosy. Like, who [00:07:00] cares? You're, you're asking yourself questions, so it shouldn't matter.
It is kind of funny 'cause when I started planning this episode, I was all over the place because I am such a curious person, and questions have been such a big part of my life for so long that I know in what areas of my life, it's really helped. And it can help you in relationships, it can help you in your career.
It can help you just with your own personal growth. It can help you in so many different ways. So I started planning , all the different questions that you should ask, I was thinking of, how it benefits different areas of your life, like how it would benefit your relationship.
Or how it would benefit your career if you ask these questions. But then I'm like, what am I doing? . I was all over the place planning it. My notes were everywhere. It was such a cluster and I started to get really overwhelmed and you know what I did?
I asked myself a question. I'm like, what do I want people to get from this? what is the ultimate message here? [00:08:00] And I realized while asking questions in every area of your life will benefit you. Your external reality, your life is just a reflection of you anyway. As within, so without.
So the best place to start, and really what I teach is your personal growth. So you need to start asking questions within yourself.
So I wanna talk about what is getting in our way, what happens as a result. And how asking good questions can completely change your life.
And I think one of the biggest mistakes that we make is not asking any questions, we're not getting curious about where we are, where we wanna go. We're just kind of going through life and just reacting to the circumstances. And I think this kind of ties back to my episode on drifting.
You're just kind of going through the motions. You're not really wanting to know where am I going, what is my destination? Where am I right now?
To know how to get somewhere, you have [00:09:00] to know where you are to start. And if you're not asking yourself anything about where you are, how you feel, or how things are going, or where you can improve, you're not gonna have that focus to know what to do.
I think so many of us just kind of accept whatever comes our way and we deal with it, but we don't ever challenge the meaning. We don't question how it could really be helping us.
in my situation, me feeling unfulfilled at the last few jobs,
if I never asked myself, what do I want? What does this mean? What can I do about it? I wouldn't have changed anything. Maybe I would've just gotten another job and just kind of started that whole hamster wheel all over again.
But that's the biggest thing is just paying attention, just having awareness. If you're not asking any questions, you're not really bringing any awareness to your situation, you're just kind of going through life as that, that day to day just it is what it is. That autopilot mentality, and you just keep going through the motions.
But even if your life is fine, let's say everything is [00:10:00] totally cool, you're happy with every aspect of your life, your friendships, your relationships, your career, everything is just smooth sailing. Even then, I still think it's important to ask questions because
if you're not asking questions, you're not making any real intention to get better I feel like there's always room for improvement no matter what you're doing, no matter where you are in life.
Maybe you don't wanna ask the questions. Maybe one of the issues that you have is with yourself, maybe like me, you're feeling unfulfilled. Maybe you have some limiting beliefs about yourself and what you're truly capable of. Maybe you're scared about what the answers are. Maybe you know that if by asking these questions, it's kind of, kind of shine a light on that ugly monster in the closet. , You don't wanna see it. So you're just like, I'm not, not even gonna ask.
I'm gonna pretend like it's not even there.
I get it. I think we avoid it because we know that if we ask those questions, we have to come up with a solution. We have to come up with an answer. Then, your brain, when you ask yourself a question or when anyone [00:11:00] asks you a question, that's what your brain does. It automatically is looking for a solution.
It's looking for an answer. So you know, if you ask that question, you gotta come up with something. So it's easier to just avoid it.
And change can be scary. Change scares the hell outta some people. But what happens? Nothing changes. If nothing changes.
And you know what I always say, growth always happens. When you're uncomfortable, you gotta get uncomfortable. You gotta get comfortable being uncomfortable. It's the only way that you're gonna change and evolve and grow.
another mistake that we make is we only ask questions. When there's some kind of obstacle or something's not going as we expected, there's a problem. , Then we wanna contemplate. Then we wanna be like, okay, how do I fix this? What do I need to do?
I only started asking these questions when there was a problem, when I felt like there was something wrong with my life. Then I started to get curious. Before that,
I wasn't asking myself any [00:12:00] like forward thinking, thought provoking, future clarifying questions.
If I would've asked some of these questions 10, 20 years ago, like, what do I want? Why do I want it? What do I see my future as? What does my ideal life look like? Where would I be now if I really would've put some focus on that a long time ago?
How would my life be different? But that's the thing about life. You know, your life is like, it's like a moving target. It's always changing. The person I was 10, 20 years ago was not the person I am today. So your questions are gonna be a lot different. My questions 10 years ago probably would've been very survival based
the questions I ask now are very, very deep, very meaningful, focused on expansion. Focused on creation.
But the problem is like, when you're only asking yourself questions, when there's a problem, you're always gonna be problem focused. You're only gonna be fixing something that's wrong rather than thinking about [00:13:00] how you can create something, how you can make something happen in the way that you want it to happen.
Like myself, what do I need to do to get out of feeling unfulfilled?
Instead of asking where do I wanna be? Or how do I want my life to look?
You're more focused on waiting for a fire and then putting it out rather than just preventing them all together, which is a total waste of energy, in my opinion.
Another mistake we make is not asking good questions, not asking quality questions, or, or asking the wrong questions. And you're probably like, what do you, what do you mean by a wrong question? A wrong question would be something like when you ask a question that really is like an assumption or like a judgment.
So if you're asking yourself like, why do bad things always happen to me? Or like, why is my life such a mess think about those questions. Why is my life such a mess? When you're [00:14:00] saying that you're literally reaffirming that your life is a mess? Because if you're saying, why is it you're saying it is, it's a mess.
Or why do bad things always happen to me? You are reaffirming that bad things always happen to you
when you ask yourself why something isn't working, your brain is just gonna respond with all of the reasons why it's not working. Because you're focused on the problem. You're not basing your question on a solution,
and remember what I said about your subconscious, your subconscious is always there to serve you. If that's the direction that you're giving it,. You wanna know why your life is such a mess. You wanna know why there's so many problems.
Here's all the reasons why it's a mess. Here's all the reasons why you have so many problems, because you're not focusing on the actual question that you should be asking is like, what should I do about this? How can I improve it?
So if you don't know, I live in Wisconsin, southeastern Wisconsin. So the Milwaukee Bucks are our team. So if you know Giannis Santa Depo, oh, I said his name. All right. Gana Santa Depo. I [00:15:00] did that. All right. Two times in a row. , So he did this interview a while back. You know, they have to do their media or whatnot after a game.
It was some playoff game that they lost. And one of the reporters asked him, I don't remember exactly the question, but in so many words, he asked him, do you feel like this season was a failure?
And that pissed Giannis off so bad, like he was so mad at that question. And if you think about that question, do you think this season was a failure? You're focusing on the season being a failure. Giannis was like instantly wrong question. He's like, why would you ask me that question? That's the wrong question.
He's like, you have a job every year that you work. , The goal of you having a job is to elevate and to get promoted. He's like, so every year that work your job and you don't get promoted, is that a failure? And the reporter was like, well, no. He's like, that's the wrong question. He's like, so Michael Jordan played, I don't know how many years and won how many championships.
So he is like, all the years that he didn't get a [00:16:00] championship, were those a failure? He's like, no, that's, that's the wrong question. Why are you even asking me that question? And I'm like, oh, I love, I love that interview so much because I'm like, yeah, he's right. The better question would have been, what have you learned from this season?
What are you gonna take with you from this season into next season? How is it gonna help you?
Because your questions direct the focus of the answer. So if you're focusing on the negative, you're gonna get all the negative
where attention goes, energy flows.
You're just gonna continue feeding that story.
And it wasn't until I started asking myself some of these really deep growth-based, future-based questions, that my life started to shift.
If I would've never stopped to get curious. I would've just stayed stuck on that hamster wheel and kept reacting to everything that came to me.
And if you think about it this way, think about running like a detailed report or , like a detailed search whatever you put in to the query. So whatever [00:17:00] your input is will determine your output. So I, I tend to think of that whole garbage in, garbage out.
You know, I worked at a software company for years and, and , one of the pieces of software that we had, I remember we always had issues with the searches. We always had customers needing help on how to build their searches because they weren't getting the results that they were looking for.
Because our searches, that software was super overly detailed where , you could get almost too detailed where it became cumbersome, and that was actually the word a lot of the customers used was cumbersome. But if you are putting in the wrong input, if you're not asking at the right questions, your report is gonna give you the wrong results.
If you don't have the right criteria, if you don't know the right criteria to put in, then you're not gonna get what you're looking for. And if you think about it like this is why businesses run reports, this is how they stay ahead of things.
They wanna stay in business, they wanna make money, they wanna be profitable.
It helps businesses identify, you know, what needs attention? Where do we need to focus our energy next year? [00:18:00] How do we plan our budget? How are we doing right now? You need this information. Like I said, in order to know where you're going, you need to know where you are. You need to know where the starting line is.
You need that, that bigger picture of how you're doing, and you can't improve what you don't measure. And in my mind, when you start asking questions, that's a good way of measuring where you are.
And I love this saying. , The quality of your life depends on the quality of questions that you ask. And I love that because all of this ties into it. If you're not asking any questions, you're not gonna really have any clarity. You're not gonna have any direction. If you're asking the wrong questions, then you're gonna be problem focused.
If you are only asking questions every time there's a problem, you're always gonna be in this, this reaction mode, this damage control.
So just start to get curious. Just start by having some awareness.
What areas of your life do you wanna improve? What areas of your life need some attention? And if you're not really sure, just what about yourself? Can you start asking some questions?
But you have to be [00:19:00] solution based instead of problem focused. You have to make sure that the question is directing that focus to where you wanna put your attention.
Make it a habit. A monthly habit, a weekly habit, a yearly habit, a quarterly habit. Make it something that you're proactively doing. So you're always looking towards the future, but the future starts with where you are today. Your future starts with all of those little daily habits that you do every single day.
But be intentional. stop just reacting to things. Start thinking about like , where do I see things in a year from now? Where do I see my relationship? Where do I see my, my career? Where do I see my fulfillment, my happiness?
And like I've said many times when you do this by asking yourself questions, that is going to direct your focus, that is gonna bring clarity to what you actually need to put your energy into.
When things are unclear, when things are fuzzy, it's hard to know what to do about it. It's hard to know where to start. So like I had mentioned, even just planning this episode [00:20:00] when I wasn't clear on the direction that I wanted to take this when I was all over the place and it was really fuzzy, it was hard for me to know where to put my energy, what I needed to focus on.
What questions do I need to ask? What clarity am I trying to give? I didn't know.
When things are unclear , it's hard to know what direction to take. So think about if you were driving or even even walking or running or whatever, moving. If you have glasses on that are really foggy or your windshield is full of snow or ice or whatnot, you're going to be really hesitant.
You might not move at all. You might be like, I'm not going anywhere 'cause I can't see where I'm going. But asking your questions gives yourself that clarity in that direction.
And when you ask questions, you, you just start to think bigger. You start to be more intentional. You start to get more creative. When I started asking myself these questions about just kind of like where I am in life and what do I want, my mind started to open up like, [00:21:00] what do I want? And then why do I want it?
How could I improve myself? How could I make this better? And then you start to think of like, Hmm, ? What are some options for me? Like what else is out there?
And by asking yourself these questions and becoming more intentional, you remind yourself that I actually have control here. You stop living in that survival mode,
you remember that? You can do something about it. You can make a change if you really want to.
And the biggest benefit of asking yourself some questions as you stop drifting. You stop drifting. You're like, wait. It's like you're on that boat that I talked about in my drifting episode, and let's say you have been drifting for a while. You're on this boat, you're drifting, and you're like, wait a minute.
Where are we? Excuse me. Someone can, can you tell me where, where are we? Where's our next stop? What is the ultimate destination of this boat? How many stops are along the way? And what are those places? And can you tell me [00:22:00] more about those places? Now you're like, oh, okay. I don't just have to stop wherever they stop.
I can figure out everything. I can figure out the route. I can figure out the places that they're going. I can figure out where they're gonna end up when they're coming back. Now I can be more intentional about where I wanna end up and what I actually want, because I'm asking questions. Curious. Alright, so all you need to do, it's very simple, is just.
Notice where in your life could you ask yourself some questions? Or where about yourself? Could you start asking some questions? Is it within yourself? Are you unhappy? Are you unfulfilled? Are you bored? Are you feeling stuck? What is it? What questions could you ask yourself to get some focus and some clarity on what to do next?
But you gotta, you gotta make sure that they're [00:23:00] open-ended , you have to make them solution focused or outcome focused. . So make them really purpose driven or action oriented.
Like, what can I do about this? Okay, I'm feeling stuck.
What are some steps that I could take to start moving in the direction that I want?
And here's just a couple questions that I, I came across that I really like and one of them is, how would my life look if there was nothing holding me back? Isn't that fun? Isn't that fun to just kind of be like, how would my life look if there was nothing holding me back? If there was no money holding me back, if there was no self-confidence holding me back, there was no limiting beliefs holding me back, society holding me back. What would I do? How would my life look? Isn't that fun? I just like, I like to play with stuff like this.
Or what ways could I improve my life? What areas that do I wanna focus on? And what in those areas could I focus on to improve my life? How could I improve others' lives?
Or ask yourself, how does my life look [00:24:00] if I don't make any changes? Nothing. Right? I'm not gonna ask myself any questions. I'm gonna just stick down this path and just keep living life the way I've been living for the next however many years.
What does my life look like in five years? If I don't ask myself any questions, I don't make any changes. What does it look like? And is that what you want, when you have that vision of what your life looks like in five years with no changes, with no questions, are you good with that? If not, then you probably need to start asking some questions
for me. , If I ask myself that, like, how would my life look in five years? If I make no changes, if I don't ask any more questions within myself or circumstances, I'm probably gonna guess it's gonna feel really uncertain, right? Because you don't have that direction, you don't have that focus.
you're gonna react to life circumstances, to situations, , you're not gonna know. It's either gonna be, it's going to be how it is now, or I have no idea how it's gonna look. [00:25:00] Nobody wants to feel uncertain. That's not a good feeling. But if you are intentional and you ask that same question, you're gonna have a more confident answer.
So if you're saying, how does my life look? If I start asking myself some questions about what I want and I get clear on what I want and I get clear on the areas that I want to improve, and I have that focus and that, that destination that I'm working towards, how does my life look in five years, it's probably gonna look a lot better, a lot smoother, because it's gonna be more aligned with what you want and what you wanna get out of life, because now you know what you want, you know what you need to do, and then you can start building towards it.
Because your future ultimately is just a result of what you do every single day. So where you are now, whether or not you wanna admit it is a result of everything that you've done previously. So all those little daily habits and actions and thoughts and questions, that's all led up [00:26:00] to where you are now.
So this week, I just want you to ask yourself a few questions. a really good one to start with is, what do I want? What do you want? I've said this multiple times, I said it in my first episode, but so many people do not ask themselves this question if your life isn't exactly how you want it right now, then ask yourself, what do I want?
And if you're like, I don't know, I'm not really sure what I want, I just know it's not really what it is right now. Then ask yourself, how do you want it to feel? if you could picture your dream life, your ideal life, how does that feel or, or break it down to like a day. Let's say you could design your perfect day, starting from the moment you wake up,
how does that day look? What are you doing when you wake up? Who are you with? Where are you living? How are you spending your time? Define that. [00:27:00] that's a good starting point it'll give you a little bit more clarity, at least on the little steps and little habits that you can build along the way
or the other one. This kind of relates back to the obstacles episode. If you are experiencing problems in your life right now, rather than focusing on the problem, rather than asking yourself, why is this happening? Ask yourself, how is this happening for me? Or what can I learn about this? how can I grow from this?
is there a pattern? Are you experiencing the same problems over and over? Ask yourself like, where are the patterns in my life? When you have patterns that is, I feel the universe, the higher power trying to talk to you. It's saying, okay, you didn't get it the first time.
I'm gonna show you again. Okay, you didn't get it that time. I'm gonna show you again and it's gonna keep getting louder. So what are the patterns that are repeating in my life and where do I need to put some attention?
And if you're still fuzzy on what it is you want or how you want that perfect day to look, what could you [00:28:00] do every day to get a little bit more curious? I was there, I had no idea. I did not know what I wanted. I wasn't even really sure what I wanted my perfect day to look like.
I had like a fuzzy idea, but I wasn't really sure, like that whole, how do you wanna spend your time? I'm like, I don't, I don't know. I know I don't wanna just be a lazy bum all day. I wanna do something productive, but I didn't really know what it was. So I was on this hunt for, you know, searching for my purpose.
So I just started getting curious. I started reading a lot. I started listening to a ton of podcasts. what action could you take to start to get clearer?
Or what could you, what could you play around with? What could you experiment with? Just take little steps each day.
All right, guys. You have just discovered the most powerful, underrated tool in your life, and that is the power of asking questions. Just start asking yourself some questions. Get curious, and I wanna hear from you. What did you take away from this episode? What mistakes have you been making?
What questions do you [00:29:00] wanna start asking yourself? How do you wanna see your life improve over this next year? All right. If you're not following me already on Instagram or YouTube, please follow me at Starlit success.
Tag me, send me a dm. Let me know what you thought about this. Let me know what resonated. Let me know what you took away. I can't be the only one making these mistakes.
lemme know your thoughts. I wanna hear from you
Thanks guys. See you on the next episode.
Sunshine.
