What Are You Looking For?

How the questions we ask shape what we see—and where we go.

Can the human brain resist answering a question?

Of course it can. We don’t have to answer every question we hear, or even every question we ask ourselves.

And yet, something interesting happens when a question catches our attention. Our mind often begins searching for an answer, considering possibilities, recalling experiences, looking for clues.

Questions invite us to look somewhere. And where we look matters.

When the View Changes

A few weeks ago, looking out of my kitchen window meant looking at a wall of green, barely five metres away.

Now the last leaves have fallen. I can see across the creek again.

The trees are almost bare. There has been frost, and the cool nights remind us that winter is approaching. Some days are still surprisingly warm, others are grey with drizzling autumn rain. I have heard sandhill cranes passing overhead, and the flocks of Canada geese seem to grow larger as the season progresses.

So much is changing.

And yet, much of what I can see now was there all along.

The creek, the trees on the other side, the landscape beyond. They haven’t suddenly appeared.

What has changed is my ability to see them.

I find myself wondering whether something similar happens in our lives.

The Questions That Lead Us

We ask ourselves questions all day long, often without realizing how much they direct our thinking.

Why is this happening to me?
Why isn’t anything working?
How am I ever going to manage?

These are understandable questions, especially when we are worried, tired, disappointed, or uncertain about what comes next. And they deserve to be taken seriously. But notice where they invite us to look.

If I ask, “Why does nothing ever work out?” my attention is likely to turn toward disappointments, failures, and obstacles. There may be plenty of evidence to support my concerns. But what else might I be overlooking?

What happens if I ask instead:
“What have I learned from what hasn’t worked?”
“What might I try differently?”
“What possibilities have I not considered yet?”

The circumstances haven’t changed. But the direction of my search has.

Psychologists have studied how questions can influence thinking and even subsequent behaviour. The effects are neither universal nor magical. Still, there is something worth paying attention to here: the questions we encounter and ask ourselves can influence what we consider and, sometimes, what we do.

A question doesn’t simply ask for information. It can give our attention a direction.

Is This It?

Perhaps some of the most difficult questions arise when we begin looking at our lives as a whole.

Is this it?
This is my one life. What am I doing with the time that is given to me?
How do I earn a living doing something meaningful?
Where do I even begin when nothing seems to work?

These are not small questions. They touch on purpose, security, identity, responsibility, and the awareness that our time is limited. Sometimes we ask them quietly. Sometimes they keep us awake at night.

And sometimes we become so accustomed to asking them in a particular way that we no longer notice how they shape our view.

“Is this all there is?” may keep drawing my attention toward what is missing.
“What would make this next chapter meaningful?” invites me to explore what might still be possible.
“Why can’t I make this work?” may send me back through everything I have already tried.
“What is this experience teaching me?” might reveal something I had not considered.

Neither question changes the facts of my life. Neither removes financial obligations, responsibilities, disappointments, or the limitations of the systems in which we live.

And sometimes the problem isn’t our perspective at all. Sometimes something in our circumstances genuinely needs to change.

But the questions we ask can influence how we engage with those realities. And that can make a difference.

What Are You Looking For?

One of the things I value about coaching is the opportunity to explore the questions beneath the questions.

• A person might arrive asking, “How can I get everything done?”
  But perhaps the more useful question is, “What actually needs to be done, and what can be left undone?”
• Someone might ask, “How do I become better at meeting everyone’s expectations?”
  And discover that the question worth exploring is, “Which expectations are mine to meet?”
• A leader might ask, “How can I get my team to perform better?”
  When it might be worth asking, “What is making good work difficult for them?”

This is not about replacing uncomfortable thoughts with cheerful ones, or finding a clever way to avoid difficulty. It is about becoming curious enough to examine the frame through which we have been looking.

• Sometimes we need more information.
• Sometimes we need support.
• Sometimes we need to question an assumption, acknowledge a limitation, or accept something we have been trying hard to change.
• And sometimes we simply need to ask a different question.

This is also at the heart of Self-Leadership: learning to recognize our assumptions, our patterns, and the choices that remain available to us, even when circumstances are difficult.

There Is Always a Way

I have long believed in not giving up. It is not over until we give up.

But I don’t mean that persistence guarantees we will achieve whatever we set out to accomplish. It doesn’t.

Some doors remain closed. Some opportunities pass. Some losses cannot be undone, and some circumstances are beyond our control.

Nor do I think perseverance necessarily means trying harder, or continuing along a path that is clearly not taking us where we need to go.

Sometimes perseverance means changing direction. Letting go of an expectation. Asking for help. Resting long enough to see clearly again. Or acknowledging that the way forward may look very different from the one we imagined.

There may not always be a way to achieve the outcome we hoped for. But as long as we remain willing to look again, there may still be another way to respond to the life in front of us.

That is what I mean by not giving up. Not an insistence that everything will work out. But a willingness to remain engaged with what is possible.

Looking Again

Outside my kitchen window, the leaves have fallen. The landscape looks emptier now. The colours have faded, and the cold is gradually settling in.

And yet, I can see farther. Perhaps we can learn something from that.

We don’t always have to change the world around us before we can see it differently. Sometimes we need to notice what has been obscuring our view. Sometimes we need to ask whether the questions we have been carrying are still helping us. And sometimes, when we find ourselves standing before what looks like a wall, it may be worth asking:

What am I looking for?
What have I not noticed yet?
And where else might I look?

Perhaps the way forward begins not with finding another answer, but with asking another question.

Three Questions for When You Feel Stuck

When we feel stuck, we often search harder for answers without noticing that we keep asking ourselves the same questions.

This week, consider:

1. What question have I been asking myself lately?
   Especially when I am worried, disappointed, or uncertain.
2. Where has that question been directing my attention?
   What does it help me notice? What might it cause me to overlook?
3. What different question might help me see something I haven’t considered yet?
   Not necessarily a more positive question, but one that opens another direction of inquiry.

You don’t have to find an answer immediately.

Sometimes becoming aware of the question is already a meaningful beginning.

Research and Further Reading

The idea that questions can influence our thinking and behaviour has been explored in psychological research, particularly through what is known as the question–behaviour effect.

This effect describes how asking people questions about their intentions, expectations, or future actions can sometimes influence what they subsequently do.

Two research reviews offer useful perspectives:

1. Wood et al. (2016) — The Impact of Asking Intention or Self-Prediction Questions on Subsequent Behavior: A Meta-Analysis

Published in Personality and Social Psychology Review, this meta-analysis examined 116 tests of the question–behaviour effect.

The researchers found that asking questions about intentions or predicted behaviour had a small positive effect on subsequent behaviour overall. However, the strength of the effect varied depending on the type of question, the behaviour involved, and the circumstances.

Read the research paper (PDF) →

2. Miles et al. (2020) — Asking Questions Changes Health-Related Behavior: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, this review examined whether asking people questions about health-related behaviours influenced their subsequent actions.

The researchers found a small but statistically significant overall effect, while emphasizing considerable variation between studies and limitations in the evidence.

Read the research paper (PDF) →

What does this mean for our everyday questions?

Neither study demonstrates that the human brain cannot resist answering a question. Nor does the research establish that changing a question will necessarily change our perspective or solve a problem.

What it does suggest is that questions are worth taking seriously. Under some circumstances, simply being asked about a behaviour can influence what people subsequently do.

The broader invitation of this reflection is to become curious about our own questions: where they direct our attention, what they help us see, and what we might discover by asking something different.