3 Questions That Upgrade the Quality of Your Life, Guaranteed!

Start with a situation in your life that troubles you. You're looking to find solutions. Answer these three questions as specifically as you can pertaining to a difficult circumstance you’re facing now.

1. Name at least two or three good things for you about this situation?

2. Identify at least two or three bad things for you about this situation?

3. What are your options to make this situation better for you? These are not things others could do. What action steps can you take to make things better for you? Trying to persuade someone else to change is not one of them.

Here is an example.

Joan’s partner has suffered a disability. He cannot walk much on his own and needs a cane, a walker or a wheelchair to get around. Together they have made plans for adventure travel soon. These plans are exciting and adventurous for Joan to think about and plan for. Now it looks like the couple is grounded, and Joan is disappointed.

Question 1. What can Joan identify in this situation that is good for her?

It helps her to see how much she not only wanted these exciting travel plans but wanted to do them with her partner. She may now have come to realize that being with him was more important to her than the travel itself.

This situation gives the two of them an opportunity to re-examine how they collaborate and become mindful of what they can do to support each other.

Joan can be grateful for this opportunity to examine good times they've had together in the past. With this new awareness that being together with her partner is more important than the travel itself, she now can look at options to facilitate their togetherness under the present circumstances.

Question 2. What about this situation is bad for Joan?

She is disappointed and angry that she can't have what she wanted the way she wanted when she wanted. She doesn’t like giving up something she sincerely cared about.

Some of the couple's plans involved deposits and other commitments that will now have to be undone and renegotiated. Bah humbug. She has other things she’d rather be doing, such as packing for the trip.

Joan fantasizes about a negative future, scenarios around the possibility that her partner may not entirely regain his mobility. Their fun times together will be limited or even over, undoubtedly different from what they have previously enjoyed.

Question 3. What are Joan’s options and things she can do herself to make the situation better for her?

Joan can identify and express her feelings around this shift in plans. To do that, she might want to journal, discuss her feelings with her partner, get some counselling or learn about the grief process and how to manage it.

She could identify new options for travel that would be fun and exciting for her. She may discuss with her partner alternatives such as finding another travelling partner or different adventure travel that is shorter and perhaps closer to home.

Joan may want to encourage her partner to express and process his feelings around this shift in plans. He, too, may be disappointed, saddened and angered by the loss of an anticipated high time in their life. Together they may re-plan around options more suited to their current conditions. This would be especially useful if Joan and her partner both place a top value on being together and, secondarily the activities around which they practice togetherness.

This may not sound like exciting stuff, more like drudgery and hard work. I didn't say it was easy. It's like mining for gold: hard, dirty work at the beginning with a potential for a big payoff later.

What makes this process work?

First, asking questions 1 and 2 reminds us that there's something good and bad in everything, every situation. That's reality. Nothing is all bad or all good. Don’t get stuck being a Pollyanna or a pessimist. You can be either, both and something else, as well.

Looking at both sides of this coin can help us get more neutral and calmer because we now see other ways to look at this situation. We have options and can choose how to relate to the situation in a way that’s good for us. Problem-solving is best done with a calm and proactive (not reactive) mind that can see many perspectives/options on a given situation.

Focusing only and/or always on one aspect of life locks a person into polarization. To escape that restriction, identify multiple perspectives. Then choose to use the one that can give you the best outcomes for action in each situation.

The third question serves as a reminder that we have the power to affect the quality of our own life. No matter what cards you have been dealt, you have options. You can always do something that will benefit you, if only a little bit. Waiting for others, the government, your employer, or your partner to make up for what they did you wrong leaves you in a dependent, disempowered spot at the mercy of external forces.

You have the power. Now use it.

Let me know if I can help you take charge of the quality of your life.

Paul W Anderson