Questions are powerful. Behind every question lies a universe to be explored.
Today I’m sharing a technique that is very useful to me: sometimes it’s time to flip the script and open a pathway to new universes: ask the unasked questions.
What are unasked questions?
How can I maximize my impact? What do I love? How do I find happiness? How can I increase my salary? What movie would I enjoy the most now? What’s my favorite food? Where’s the best restaurant in town?
Those are the type of questions we ask ourselves on a daily basis. The type of questions that have been asked a million times before. The internet is full of advice, discussions and philosophies to become the best version of yourself. Maximize your success, maximize your happiness.
Here are some examples for unasked questions:
How can I maximize my frustration in my current job? How do I make sure to get fired? How can I minimize my income? How can I get rejected by women? What’s the least important thing I could do right now? How can I minimize my impact?
One way to generate unasked questions is to flip around those questions that come to your mind immediately. There are several contributions unasked questions bring to the table.
Thinking outside of the box
Turning things around completely has a shocking effect to our minds. How do I get fired at my job? Wait a minute, I don’t want to get fired! Well, that’s the point. Your brain remembers to think again. Or better: your brain forgets to think for a moment…
Confusing our mind for just a moment is helpful, because it helps us break out of our usual thinking patterns.
Identifying limiting beliefs
Our beliefs create our reality. Our reality is our subjective interpretation of our actual experiences.
Unasked questions encourage us to go beyond our limiting beliefs and inverts them instead. Once inverted, it may be easier to see them for what they are. This awareness is needed to resolve them in the next step.
You’d be surprised by how bad you are at predicting the universe and other people’s behavior for things you never tried before - because you labelled it as “bad” or “dangerous”.
Exercise: ask yourself: “how can I make sure to experience more rejection in my life?”
My answer goes along these lines: For example by becoming more vocal and expressing myself more firmly. This makes me seen. By being seen, I am bound to be rejected, right? Right.
But, being vocal and direct in my communication will almost guaranteed have the reverse effect.
I will be rejected and also be welcomed with open arms, by a different crowd! And I will likely encounter all other possible reactions within this spectrum. It’s a numbers game to be my boldest, most authentic self, and let others take their responsiblity in resonating with me (or not).
Secondary learnings
The benefits of unasked questions is not always directly related to the domain of the question itself. For example, asking yourself what the easiest way to get fired is at your job, could reveal several interesting things about your relationship to work or the culture at your job.
That is to say, I don’t (necessarily) recommend outright going for getting fired, but simply facing this question will already contribute a lot of insights.
Getting out of local minima
Getting out of local minima is a more visual metaphor to drive home the point of unasked questions.
Sometimes, when facing an optimization problem and being stuck in a local minima, it helps to start completely from scratch again, rather than taking a step from where you currently stand.
Local minima are characterized by the fact that you’re basically surrounded by mountains, and climbing mountains isn’t always appealing. Especially if you have been climbing for months and have not seemed to moved at all.
Unasked questions can move mountains… or rather, they teleport you into the middle of an entirely new landscape to explore.
Bonus: asked questions about unfamiliar topics
Above we discussed unasked questions about familiar topics… as a bonus, let’s take a look at the reverse: asked questions about unfamiliar topics. We sometimes face questions that deal with a subject that’s typically is labelled negatively, such as stealing.
Stealing is BAD, and you should feel BAD!
An interesting question to ask yourself then is, was there a time you enjoyed stealing? What did you like about it?
To repeat myself verbatim here: I don’t (necessarily) recommend outright going for stealing, but simply facing this question will already contribute a lot of insights.
Asking questions is a means to start a journey of discovery. Asking questions to reach conclusions is like buying plane tickets to go to the airport. Remember; the best questions are asked with curiousity and openness to discover the world. The worst questions are asked to find the answer.
All these being said, go out there and ask the unasked questions! Ask asked questions! Don’t ask any questions at all! Keep questioning yourself and the universe!
Above all, enjoy the ride and have fun!!