When to start with why… and when to ask, what now?

Most of the time you want to do well.
Sometimes you don’t.
Sometimes it’s just not awesome.

I hate those times.

Mostly I hate them because I’m a big fan of answers. Questions are nice, too, of course. But when something isn’t awesome, the question I most want the answer to is “Why?”

Why wasn’t it awesome?
Why didn’t they think it was awesome?
Why wasn’t I awesome?

And, yes, the answers can vary. And those answers can be useful… if you ask one more question: “What now?”

“Why?” explains what happened.
“What now?” guides what will happen.

Without that follow-on question, we can get stuck in what was rather than what comes next.

And change only happens moving forward.

So when something isn’t awesome, go ahead and ask “Why?” Get those answers. You can even let yourself stew in pity for awhile, as a result, if you need to.

But as I used to say to my Weight Watcher members, like any good party, a pity party also needs a start time AND end time. And that starts with a different set of answers. Different kinds of answers.

The kind that comes from asking — and answering — “What now?”