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October 9 - October 14, 2020
active questions focus respondents on what they can do to make a positive difference in the world rather than what the world can do to make a positive difference for them.
1. Did I do my best to set clear goals today?
2. Did I do my best to make progress toward my goals today?
We don’t just need specific targets; we need to see ourselves nearing, not receding from, the target.
3. Did I do my best to find meaning today?
4. Did I do my best to be happy today?
We find happiness where we are.
5. Did I do my best to build positive relationships today?
6. Did I do my best to be fully engaged today?
Active questions reveal where we are trying and where we are giving up. In doing so, they sharpen our sense of what we can actually change.
• Did I do my best to be happy? • Did I do my best to find meaning? • Did I do my best to have a healthy diet? • Did I do my best to be a good husband?
Suddenly, I wasn’t being asked how well I performed but rather how much I tried.
Adding the words “did I do my best” added the element of trying into the equation. It injected personal ownership and responsibility into my question-and-answer process.
your Daily Questions should reflect your objectives.
Your only considerations should be: • Are these items important in my life? • Will success on these items help me become the person that I want to be?
Injecting the phrase “Did I do my best to…” triggers trying.
It is incredibly difficult for any of us to look in the mirror every day and face the reality that we didn’t even try to do what we claimed was most important in our lives.
One of the unappreciated benefits of Daily Questions is that they force us to quantify an unfamiliar data point: our level of trying.
Intrinsic motivation is wanting to do something for its own sake, because we enjoy it,
Extrinsic motivation is doing something for external rewards such as other people’s approval or to avoid punishment.
Behavioral change demands self-discipline and self-control.
Self-discipline refers to achieving desirable behavior. Self-control refers to avoiding undesirable behavior.
It’s one thing to ask ourselves, “Did I do my best to limit my sugar consumption?” and another to ask, “Did I do my best to say no to sweets?” The former calls for self-discipline, the latter self-control. Depending on who we are, that subtle adjustment can make all the difference.
Daily Questions, by definition, compel us to take things one day at a time. In doing so they shrink our objectives into manageable twenty-four-hour increments.
At the most basic level, a coach is a follow-up mechanism, like a supervisor who regularly checks in on how we’re doing (we’re more productive when we know we’re being watched from above). At a slightly more sophisticated level, a coach instills accountability.
reading off our scores every night to a “coach” becomes a daily test of our commitment—a good thing given our inclination to bear down when we know we’ll be tested.
The Coach meshes our inner Planner with our inner Doer. This is how successful change happens: in situations big or small, we make choices that marry intention with execution.
eventually we become the Coach.
Am I willing, at this time, to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic?
getting mad at people for being who they are makes as much sense as getting mad at a chair for being a chair. The chair cannot help but be a chair, and neither can most of the people we encounter.
They’re doing it because that’s who they are, not because of who we are.
From wake-up to bedtime, when we’re in contact with another human being, we face the option of being helpful, hurtful, or neutral.
AIWATT is the delaying mechanism we should be deploying in the interval between trigger and behavior—after a trigger creates an impulse and before behavior we may regret.
Am I willing implies that we are exercising volition—taking responsibility—rather
At this time reminds us that we’re operating in the present.
To make the investment required reminds us that responding to others is work, an expenditure of time, energy, and opportunity. And, like any investment, our resources are finite.
To make a positive difference places the emphasis on the kinder, gentler side of our nature.
On this topic focuses us on the matter at hand.
Honesty is stating enough truth to satisfy the other person’s need to know. Too much disclosure has a more ambitious reach—often to a point where the other person suffers and feels ashamed.
Confirmation bias—our tendency to favor information that confirms our opinions, whether it’s true or not—is
We can’t eliminate confirmation bias in others or, for that matter, in ourselves. But we should avoid its more pernicious forms. Of all the pointless debates we can get trapped in, the worst is when facts and beliefs commingle. It never ends well.
“Every decision in the world is made by the person who has the power to make the decision. Make peace with that.”
we go through life grumbling about what should be at the expense of accepting what is.
our environment tempts us many times a day to engage in pointless skirmishes. And we can do something about it—by doing nothing.
“Am I willing, at this time, to make the investment required to make a positive difference on this topic?”
We do not get better without structure.
We’re telling ourselves, “In this area I need help.” And structure provides the help.
Asking ourselves, “Did I do my best…” is another way of admitting, “In this area I need help.”
• Where are we going? • Where are you going? • What is going well? • Where can we improve? • How can I help you? • How can you help
