Marilee Adams and Andrea F. Lipton - Change Your Questions, Change Your Life Workbook

Intentional change is a sign of courage.

Well, here we are. Youre holding the Change Your Questions, Change Your Life Workbook, so, its a safe guess that youre here, at least in part, because theres something in your life that youd like to change. Perhaps you were excited by the possibility of learning to master your mindset, as the subtitle promises. Or maybe you were intrigued by the idea of Question Thinking and wanted to learn more.

Whatever led you to pick up this workbook, welcome! My name is Marilee Adams, and I created the Question Thinking (QT) tools that youll be learning in this workbook. Im thrilled that youve chosen to take this change journey and Im excited for you to get started. As you progress through the activities on the pages that follow, Ill be your coach and guide. The skills you learn here will teach you new ways to become aware of your own thinking; that awareness will in turn give you greater control over your thoughts and reactions. You will also learn how to approach communication and relationships so that new possibilities for connection and collaboration naturally arise.

As your coach, I can promise that by engaging wholeheartedly with this workbook you will:

Discover how changing your questions can change your life

Learn how to use Question Thinking to master your mindset

Increase your ability to remain calm, present, and strategic

Enhance your ability to communicate successfullyeven when youre frustrated or under pressure

Become more effective at creatively collaborating and solving problems

Apply what you learn to a personal or professional situation that you want to changeand see some progress!

Many years ago when I was in graduate school, I was struggling to complete my dissertation. I was plagued with frustration and self-doubt. I felt like I was spinning my wheels in the mud and just couldnt get out. One day, out of desperation, I decided to just watch how I was thinking about my work, hoping that might provide clues about getting out of the awful rut I was in. Little did I know that what I discovered would lead to a major personal breakthrough, a whole body of work, and eventually to this workbook.

As I began observing myself, watching how I was thinking and not just what I was thinking, I realized that all the negativity that made me so unhappy was in the form of questions I was asking myself. They were questions such as: Whats wrong with me? Why cant I ever get anything right? What makes me think I have anything to offer? How come everybody else is so much smarter and more successful than I am? Why did my advisor wait so long to share this feedback? Didnt he know it would have been helpful to know this sooner? Anyone whos spent much time trying to answer questions like these will recognize how stuck and frustrating that can feel.

What deflating questions like these do you ask yourself?

On that day when I sat observing my own thoughts, something very different occurred. I got curious about the I questions I was asking myself and the impact they were having on me and my dissertation work. I noticed that some of those thinking questions pushed me deeper in the mud and another kind of thinking question lifted me up and even helped me envision new possibilities. Some examples of the second kind of questions were: What excites me about this topic? What will energize and inspire me? What resources do I have that can help me make this work? What have I learned from past struggles that I can use to be successful in this one?