One Question, One Question Only Technique

We are pleased to feature a guest post  by Karen Okulicz  author of Decide! How to make any Decision today!

Can’t Decide?

Try this “One Question, One Question Only” technique.

At times your mind can cloud the waters with a thousand reasons by your should or should not do something. Your mind may get stuck in the loop of indecision, pondering and pondering of something. Agonizing over something. This is immobilizing

Nothing gets done. No decision is made. No movement forward.  To settle all those demons of indecision I use a real time saver technique.

This technique I call is “One Question, One Question Only”.  Asking yourself one question, at a time and ask so the answer is YES or NO. This simple technique eliminates that wasted time of ponder and agonizing.

When starting my business with writing and doing workshops.  The income did not equal the amount of time and effort that was going out.   So I would ask myself one question “Should I continue this?” YES or NO.  I wasn’t asking anyone else for input.   Surely I would have been told to stop.   Give up.   I knew that.   No, I was asking myself.   “Should I continue this?”   The answer would always come back YES.

Now, where does that answer come from?  It comes form a sense of knowing.  A confident feeling of comfort with the initial answer.  It is a comfort similar to the feeling when you had multiple-choice test, and you put one answer down automatically.  If later you doubted yourself and went back to changed it usually you found out the first answer was the correct one.  Same thing.

Do not second-guess yourself.  Although there are some days you may have to ask yourself the same question every half hour, the more you use this technique you will learn to trust yourself with the first response.  It doesn’t matter whether the outside world is in line with the answer.  The initial response is the way to proceed.

Let’s practice.  Is there something you are waffling about.   Indecisive?  Should I or should I not?  Ok, sit still.  No sips of coffee not munching of snacks. No distractions.

Pose the question so it is a YES or NO. Now ask the question.

Should I move?
Should I go back to school?
Should I buy new sneaks?

Get the answer YES or NO.  Then proceed accordingly.  Proceed with looking for a new house, getting school catalogs or off to the mall for new sneakers.

Sometimes we have difficult answers to face.  Am I in the wrong work?  Does he/she love me?  The answer may be YES, you’re in the wrong work or NO, he/she doesn’t love you.  Not easy to hear, but your answer are never wrong, if you are following  your values.  Your values are the core beliefs of what is right for you.

I believe we can live with being unhappy for long lengths of time.  However, we all have that instinct of knowing what particular level of unhappiness is not a natural state for us.  There will a constant whisper that we hear or feeling that something is not right.  A nagging that says, “You can be.”  “You can do.” “You are better then where you are.”  “Better than what you’re putting up with.”

Do you have something nagging at you?  On the edges of your mind pulling at you at you?  Things aren’t right.  Things aren’t working.  Something it missing.  Something that needs attention.   Also, use this technique for a clearer direction : Go through a list of life elements to figure out what it is that is nagging at you.

Is it the family? YES or NO.
Is it your health? YES or NO.
Is it the marriage? YES or NO.
Is it your finances? YES or NO.
Is it not getting into that 2, 6, 10, 14 comfortably? YES of NO.
Is it not being happy? YES or No.

Whatever the “it” is will assist you in the pinning down the “what” that bothers you.  Armed with YES or NO  Answers to the question, you can then head in the direction of adjusting whatever the situation is.  To many commitments to your time.  Start to delegate, or say no to things.   Not feeling well.   Make that appointment with a Doctor.  Clothes too tight.  No way around it but to diet and exercise.  Jeez.

The answer to “One Question, One Question Only” is immediate.  Just ask yourself the question.  I promise, you’ll get the right answer.

Karen Okulicz is the author of the books “Try! A Survival Guide to Unemployment”,“Decide! How to make any decision” and “Attitude! For best lived life”. You can find more details at www.Okulicz.com . Karen can be contacted at [email protected].