Learn the Three Questions That Will Change Your Life - Every Day (Part 3)

The Three Daily Questions (3Ds) are extremely simple, in concept - almost too simple. And that's why many people ignore their value. They think that simple doesn't work - for if it did, everyone would already be doing it.

But simple and easy are not the same thing. As simple as the idea of daily analysis is, VERY FEW people manage to do it. Distractions of everyday life get in the way. And without consistency of making small changes each and every day, the changes they expected to see in their lives, never happen - habits stay the same and results are seen.

The past two day, in Parts One and Two of this three part article, I focused on the first two questions, "What three things worked for you today?" and "What three things didn't work for you today?" Today's article is focus on the third question.

What ONE thing can you do differently tomorrow to make it a better day than today?

All too often, we look at our lives and try to change everything at once - we go on a diet (because we are overweight), try to better manage our time (because we feel disorganized), start training for a marathon (health, health, health), and spend more time with our family (because our home life is struggling). This is truly akin to trying to eat the whole metaphorical elephant in one sitting. And without a doubt, no matter how motivated you were when you started this life changing effort, one by one, you will quit each of the activities until you are back to square one. It's just too much, too quick for our psyche to handle.

So the question is . . . are you serious about changing your life, or changing your lifestyle. If you want to change your life, then keep doing what you've always done and getting the same results - on and off diets, clean up and mess up, run and quit, and / or a confused family not knowing what you are going to do next. You will change again and again and again - some in the right direction, but most in the wrong direction.

If you want to change your lifestyle, it's not about how much you change today, but how permanent you can make that change.

That's the essence of the third question of the series of daily questions. It's easy to understand this at a cerebral level, but our passion still wants to change it all RIGHT NOW. Give it up - it ain't gonna happen. The more you try, the more you subconscious resists - the more you create the "peaks and valleys" of life.

So rather than making large changes once a week or once a month, make small changes every day and watch the immense growth that takes place in your life - not today or tomorrow, but over the course of the next months and / or years.

Ask yourself, "What one small thing can I do in my life, to change how I look at life, that will help tomorrow be a better day than today was?"

And do your best to make that one thing a part of your life from this day forward. Some days, it's simple, other days it's much harder - but the key is to do it and make it small, subtle and sustainable.

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If you are interested in learning more about the 3Ds and / or the Daily Accountability that is the basis of our coaching process, or want to test drive it for one week (just to see), please contact me at coach.jj@impossiblefutures.com.

Learn the Three Questions That Will Change Your Life - Every Day (Part 2)

Although, I believe that mine is the only Coaching model built around these three questions asked on a daily basis, the truth is the origin is not even within the coaching world. You see, in my past life I was a pilot in the US Navy. And I believe I have brought to the coaching industry, the most powerful learning tool that Naval Aviation uses - the Brief / Debrief process. And I've developed them into a tool that any one can use to make a real difference in their life, their job or their business.

Over the course of the past nearly 100 years, Naval Aviators have had to learn skills faster than most are use to and have had to learn their skills where even the smallest inattention to detail can cost lives.

Standardization, systems and consistency aren't just buzz words, but mantras that define flight operations around an aircraft carrier.

So as I began looking at how to best help individuals and small business grow and achieve their vision, I turned to my roots - my roots as a pilot, and brought forward the concepts that I lived every day for 20 years.

The "Three Daily Questions" are in fact built on the questions that Naval Aviators face daily. And applying these three questions every day to your life can have a dramatic effect on how you live your life every day, and help you achieve your dreams in ways you never thought possible.

Yesterday, in Part One of this three part article, I focused on the first question, "What three things worked for you today?", but today the focus is on the second question.

What three things didn't work for you today?

Before going too far, let me remind you that I define "working" as those actions or thoughts that helped you achieve or get closer to your goals or desired outcomes.

Truth is, as beneficial as it is, most people don't want to face the things that happened during their day that "didn't work" for them. First, they want to just put the things they perceive as "bad" out of their head and move on. And second, because we all tend to personalize the issue, we really don't want to feel like a failure at the end of the day.

We would all rather just go to bed and forget the day than have to face it.

Putting them out of your head doesn't make them go away.

Just because you don't want to face the things that didn't go well for you that day or that you "feel" bad about, they don't go away. In fact what it does is almost guarantee that you will face those same struggles again . . . some day in the future.

So the essence of question two is to help you face what happened and figure out exactly what you can learn from those struggles.

You have to forgive yourself before you can learn from your past

Unfortunately though, as much as you may want to, there is nothing you can do to change the past - I'm sorry. It's over and done with. So before you can learn from our past, you must work on forgiving yourself - letting go of regret and anger / frustration with the current outcome.

If you don't forgive yourself, you will not only have the burden of your mistake, but you will find a way to punish yourself this time, but also many times over in the future - causing 100x more damage than the original misgiving created.

You can wish your past was different, but it ain't gonna happen.

Everyday, we look at our past, see things we could have or should have done differently and we dwell on it. We blame ourselves for those errors and live in pain and regret in the present because of it. But, to be honest, you might as well live in pain and regret today over the holocaust or slavery as well, because, there is as much you can do to undo the tragedies as you can your own mistakes.

Get over it RIGHT NOW, so that we can move on. The good news is that "all growth actually takes place in the future, the only realm of living you actually have control over.

Learn from the past, live the present and define the future.

So instead of punishing yourself for your past - accept it as it was and figure out what you can learn from it. How can I change my circumstance today, so that you never see that situation again. How can you influence the way I think so that when the same events unfold in the future (and they most likely will), you won't make the mistake again - you will instead see the handwriting on the wall and do something (whatever you decide) differently.

This isn't easy to do, but that's where our process kicks in, looking at each day, each week, each "any time frame / event" and deciding facing what worked first, what didn't work, and then what you can do better next time. It gives you a systematic way to look at everything in your life a little bit differently - giving you tools to make today better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today.

Join us tomorrow when we go further into the final question of the Three Questions That Will Change Your Life - Every Day. The third question is build on the premise that incremental daily growth is the only truly successful way to make permanent dramatic change in any environment.

Learn the Three Questions That Will Change Your Life - Every Day (Part 1)

One of the key elements of my coaching process is daily analysis. As simple as it may seem, when you conduct the mental exercise each and every day to look at your day in an objective manner, it forces you to look at your life differently. And you will see new possibilities that you've never seen before.

This basic "daily" analysis comes down to ending your day - every day - with three "simple" questions. These questions give you the power to look at your day with a whole new perspective while giving you the tools to learn both from what worked and what didn't work for you that day.

The Three Daily Questions - The "3Ds" (as one of my clients likes to call them) - each provide three very important aspects in the daily routine:

1. Recognize the things that worked well for you that day - so that you can do everything within your power to make sure they happen again and again in the coming days and weeks.

2. Face the brutal truth of the issues that didn't work for you that day - whether you had any say in the outcome or not.

3. Find the one thing that you can change for tomorrow that will have the biggest impact on your day / life - this may sound easy to do, but it is the one thing that most people completely ignore, but the truth is small daily changes generate tremendous growth over time.

The First Question:

What three things worked for you today?

How often do you, either in the end of the day or anytime during the day, ask yourself "What am I doing that is working for me right now?" If you are like most people . . . you don't.

That's not a bad thing, it just is. None of this is meant to judge your life or who you are, just figure how to make things in your life better than they are today. In fact, one of the keys to the 3Ds is that they are not intended to lay judgment on what you are or aren't doing. The questions are simply intended to help you understand what is helping you get closer or further from your goals.

So if you are wondering how I define "working", let me start there. The things that "work for you" are those actions or thoughts that helped you achieve or get closer to your goals or desired outcomes.

Nothing hard about that, right? It's not supposed to be hard - it's only supposed to help you understand your life a little better. Here are some actual example "things that worked" just in the past couple days from my clients:

• One of the building managers for my most reliable customer sent pictures of our progress on a new project to three other building managers as testimonials of our work.
• Customer was thrilled with work ethics of John, my brand new employee.
• Watched Training CD - now I better understand Internet Marketing
• Not giving up on what I'm doing. I may not be perfect in everything I do, but I will do my best anyway.
• Had a great coaching session - learned more insight on how to implement daily analysis (sorry couldn't resist the plug)

Those are all good examples, but why waste time on looking at what worked, when what most people are concerned about is fixing everything that's broken. The reason for starting the analysis on the positive side is actually three fold:

1. It's very important to recognize all the things that are working for you every day because all too often, at the end of the day, we just feel completely frustrated and want to give up on everything. We forget to look back and see all the things / people that helped us get closer to accomplishing our goals. By making yourself do this exercise you can find the silver lining around any raincloud.

2. If you spend all day long focusing only on what doesn't work, it is quite possible to actually break the things that are working for you in order to fix the ones that aren't. And that wouldn't be good.

So as you look at what's working make sure you remind yourself, not to break these things. Literally, I tell my clients to think to themselves as they look for what worked for them to think of all the things that they would love to see happen every day - automatically.

3. The last reason we want to review what worked during the day is to capture the memory of those actions and thoughts in a way that helps ensure their repeated use and success. Unfortunately, our subconscious mind is not very smart at knowing good from bad, success from failure, and working from not working. It just knows what happened. So if we don't reflect on things (especially new processes or ideas) as working, there is no guarantee that it will be stored properly - only that you did it.

So, what worked for you today?

Can you name three things that helped you get closer to your goals or your life's vision?

This is just the first of three blogs in a three part series. If you are interested in learning about the other two questions and the hows and whys of their, please stay connected to this site over the next two days, as I reveal each of other two questions and how they fit into the daily analysis.