You’ve probably heard the phrase:
A picture’s worth a thousand words.
Well, I think a good question is worth a thousand answers.
Which is why I love today’s reader question which is all about how we can use better questions to improve our emotional health…
A reader asks:
In the past, I’ve used journaling as a creative practice (a la Morning Pages). The other day I was thinking it might also be beneficial for mental and emotional wellbeing. What are some questions you’d recommend to journal about or contemplate as a way to improve my emotional health?
Here are the first five that came to mind—the first three being nice morning questions while the last two are more suited toward evening.
1. What’s one meaningful thing I’d like to accomplish today?
I hear from a lot of people who struggle with confidence issues and low self-esteem. And inevitably, they always start by wanting to understand the origins of their low self-esteem or confidence issues. While understandable, this is usually far less helpful than working to improve your self-esteem and confidence in the present by taking small actions on a regular basis that align with your values.
Being consistently productive in work that matters to you is one of the most underrated sources of self-esteem, confidence, and emotional health generally. The key is that you don’t need to be hyperproductive, you just need to be meaningfully productive.
Choose one small but meaningful thing you’d like to accomplish each day. Or if it makes more sense, one small meaningful thing you’d like to accomplish consistently each day. And if you do this one, I’d recommend using Dan Harris’s concept of daily-ish as a guiding principle.
2. What’s an expectation I have—either for myself or someone else—that I want to let go of today?
Expectations exert tremendous influence on every aspect of our lives—physical, emotional, social, even spiritual. And everything from negative self-talk and limiting beliefs to procrastination and interpersonal conflict frequently stem from established but rarely examined expectations that are either unrealistic, unhelpful, or quite often both.
For example:
- A lot of people maintain unhealthy forms of negative self-talk like worry for instance because they assume or expect that when they feel anxious they need to do something to feel less anxious.
- And because worry feels like problem solving, it temporarily distracts them from the feeling of anxiety and makes them feel productive.
- But in reality, worry only generates more anxiety long-term.
- However, if you can undo this expectation—actually, I don’t have to do anything when I feel anxious—you can avoid a much more costly habit of worry.
If it helps, you can break this down by area of life (work, immediate family, extended family, politics, friends, etc.) or specific relationships (spouse, son, manager, mother, etc.)
Learning to be aware of our expectations and update them when necessary is one of the single best things anyone can do to improve their emotional health.
3. Who’s someone in my life who would appreciate hearing from me today?
As a culture, we’re increasingly aware of how much our physical health impacts our emotional health. But we’re still less aware than we should be about how our relational health affects our emotional health.
When I did therapy, a strong pattern I noticed was that people with emotional struggles also tended to have a lot of relational problems. Of course, intuitively, most of us understand that our emotional health impacts our relationships. But the reverse is at least as true: our relational health significantly impacts our emotional health!
So, if you want to improve your emotional health, focus on improving your relational health. And a simple way to get started here is to take a minute or two out of your day to text an old friend, send your daughter a quick email, or write your spouse a little note before leaving for work.
4. What’s something I did (or failed to do) today that I regret?
Regret is an uncomfortable emotion. But regret is not bad. In fact, the willingness to confront regret is one of the best ways to learn, grow, and strengthen our emotional health. So this question isn’t about beating yourself up or stewing on your mistakes, it’s about acknowledging what didn’t go well so you can try to be a little bit better every day.
Not only will reflecting on regret generate opportunities for yourself to grow and learn and improve, you will also practice acknowledging mistakes and failings reflectively and compassionately rather than judgmentally and critically. And this alone is a huge benefit because so many of our emotional struggles are maintained by the habit of being critical and judgmental of ourselves for struggling emotionally.
5. What’s something I did today that I’m proud of myself for?
Pride is one of the most psychologically vital emotions—contributing to everything from self-compassion and confidence to motivation and self-esteem. And yet, most of us tend to avoid it or judge ourselves as soon as we get a whiff of it.
Well, this question is here to remind you that it’s perfectly normal and quite healthy to savor the emotion of pride in a job well done—whether that’s nailing a presentation at work, coaching your kid’s soccer team to victory, or apologizing to your spouse.
If you want a simple but highly effective way to get better at savoring success and cultivating a healthy sense of pride, try to practice accepting rather than dismissing compliments.
Next Steps
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