Where have you come from? How would you explain the story of your journey up until now? What are the key milestones of personal history thus far?

The ‘where’ question is an important one. Where have we come from? Where are we now? Where are we going?

We will look at each of these in turn and firstly we will consider the question that relates to our past, as that is the first step in developing a deeper self-awareness, a better understanding of our present situation, and a clearer picture of our future prospects.

“It is important that we know where we come from, because if you do not know where you come from, then you don’t know where you are, and if you don’t know where you are, you don’t know where you’re going. And if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re probably going wrong.”

– Terry Pratchett

Understanding our past without being held back by it

We all have a history, a different personal story of our past. Along that path there will be various milestones; important experiences that have left an indelible mark on the way, shaping our character and direction.

Some of these milestones mark positive achievements, whilst others are more like tombstones of darker remembrances. All these experiences, good and bad, shape us. For example, consider the story of Victor.

Victor Emil Frankl was born in Austria and his fascination with psychology led him to become a successful psychiatrist. But, as a Jew, he was deported to a concentration camp in the 1940s and ended up in Auschwitz. He suffered incredible hardship and loss. His father, mother, brother, and wife were all killed or died in the years before the end of the war and his release.

Knowing his personal history, it would be perfectly understandable if Frankl had been consumed by loss, hatred, or desire for revenge, but that was not his response.

Man’s search for meaning

Victor Frankl went back to practising psychology after the war and he also wrote about his experiences in the bestselling book, Man’s Search For Meaning. The book is full of inspirational wisdom (and I highly recommend reading it). Here is a section where Frankl talks about how we consider our life and past:

“The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest.

What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?

No, thank you,’ he will think. ‘Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy.”

– Victor E. Frankl

Frankl’s positivity is all the more striking when we know what he went through. As therefore, as the experience of Victor Frankl demonstrates, the challenges in our past, even our pain, do not need to shackle us. We can choose how to react to our circumstances and our past. He found wisdom and meaning through the most horrific of experiences. It is his perspective, understanding and response to his past that makes him so inspirational.

It is an encouragement for us all. What can we learn from our past, no matter how painful? What wisdom can we take from our past and how can our experiences be used to make the world a better place?

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The ‘Where From’ Tool: The Logbook (your personal history)

My personal history is nowhere near as dramatic as Victor Frankl’s, but I do make a record of what I do and think about past experiences.

For example, as a Mountain Leader, it is important to keep a logbook. Logbooks demonstrate eligibility for qualifications and currency of experience. I have logs that cover mountaineering, rock climbing, mountain biking and ski touring. It can be a chore to maintain them (and it is often the requirement of a course or qualification that gives me the motivation to update them) but it is always satisfying to see what has been accomplished over the years.

Sometimes, in the struggle of the now, or in our focus on the future, we can forget how far we have come. Taking time to consider the journey to date can give you feelings of progress, satisfaction, and thankfulness. Reflecting on our past also increases our understanding of self.

“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom” – Socrates

So that is why we consider the question, ‘Where have we come from?’ And, as we can think of a logbook that records our milestones, in The Right Questions Toolkit, the ‘where from’ question is related to the Logbook Tool.

Logbook Tool Exercise: Updating your CV, résumé or LinkedIn profile

We don’t tend to keep a logbook of life, but we do have other records. These can help build a personal history. One classic one is the CV (curriculum vitae) or résumé. If you have ever applied for a job, then it is likely that you have created a résumé. Equally, if you are on LinkedIn, or a similar form of social media, then the details you put on your profile are effectively an online CV.

We can fill out our conceptual logbook by updating our CV, resume or LinkedIn profile and using the process as a reflective exercise. Just follow these steps:

1.        Update your curriculum vitae.

You can choose whether to create a CV from a plain document, use a resume template or fill in a LinkedIn profile online. The process is the same.

If you are preparing a CV for a specific position, it is worth tailoring the content accordingly. But in this exercise the aim is to capture as much as possible and, unlike with a work-focused resume, remember to include other important experiences beyond just job roles and qualifications.

For example, moving location, getting married or starting a family are not usually on a CV but are worth noting in this exercise (although you may not want to add these to an online profile).

When filling in my logbook, if I need help remembering what I have done, then my journal, photos and calendar usually give me the prompts I need. Similarly, when you are thinking back on past experiences, you can use your diary, schedule, and pictures as ways to jog your memory.

If you would like further advice on writing your résumé, then check out my article on How to Write a CV.

2.        Identify your personal history milestones.

If you were to draw a map of your journey thus far, what would you say were the key milestones? What were the most important achievements, decision points, or changes? Make sure to identify and list these milestones.

3.        Reflect on your key milestones.

Now take some time to reflect on your milestones, noting down the answers. Ask yourself:

• If you had to pick the five to ten most important milestones, which would they be and why?
• Are the milestones connected in any way? Which ones led naturally on to another?
• How did these milestones shape you? What difference do they make to the person you are today?
• What would be the logical progression from these milestones? How do you feel about that?

Well done! Thinking about our past can be tricky, even painful at times, but it is useful. It improves our perspective, understanding and self-awareness. Armed with this knowledge, we are better placed to think about where we are now and where we are going, the subject of the next two sections.

“You can’t really know where you’re going until you know where you have been.” – Maya Angelou

Where are you right now? What is your location and present situation?

Having an accurate assessment of our current circumstances is very important. As novelist and poet Wendell Berry notes:

“If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are.” – Wendell Berry

The importance of situational awareness

“Show me where you are.”

The sergeant looked at me expectedly, waiting for me to point out my location on the map. It was a simple question, and in most cases, a simple thing to answer but in this situation, it was not straightforward.

I, along with a group of other military trainees, had just been dropped off from the back of a truck. We had been travelling for over an hour and, during that time, we had not been able to see much due to the canvas covering the vehicle. The only glimpses of the outside world were through the flapping material to the rear, and that view was usually little more than a receding track.

So, in this case, the question (from the slightly scary senior non-commissioned officer) triggered immediate feelings of anxiety.

I took some deep breaths to stem the rising panic.

Having wrestled my pre-frontal cortex back from this temporary amygdala hijacking, I started to think. Where was I? What clues could I see that would help me identify my exact location?

We were not allowed to use a GPS device but there were other things to help me. I knew where I had started and, with a rough time and distance appreciation, I could at least guess at the general area we had been dropped at. Next, looking at the relief of the land, I could see a couple of distinct hills and the track intersected with a nearby stream in a re-entrant (small valley). I found similar features on my map and then made sure their alignment was correct by using my compass.

Don’t start moving forward until you know where you are

I looked up from the map and, using a blade of grass, pointed out where I thought I was to the sergeant. He gave no sign that I was either right or wrong. He just said, “Your next checkpoint is at grid 385957. The clock has started.”

The pressure of the situation rose again. More deep breaths. This was a timed march and we had to finish the course in under the set time or risk failing the course. I quickly found the grid reference on the map and started to take a bearing that would give me my starting direction.

As I was trying to do this, I saw people running off in various directions. Worry again. How had they finished so fast? Were they trying to go to the same place? If so, weren’t they going the wrong way? Or had I got the location wrong?

I suppressed the urge to start running. As people left the area, I swiftly re-checked my logic. I came to the same conclusion. my location was correct; I was ready to set off. Stowing my map, I fixed my eyes on a feature in the distance, as indicated by my compass, and started the shuffling run of the over-burdened soldier.

Fortunately, I got it right and I completed the test. Not everyone was so lucky. Hours later, after the cut-off, various figures hauled themselves and their heavy rucksacks back into the wagon. Their bodies sagged with defeat. I recognised many of the same faces that I had seen dashing off prematurely at the start.

The GPS Tool: A Personal SWOT Analysis.

I was not fortunate enough to have a GPS then but most of the time now, when I am in the mountains or on an expedition, I carry a GPS device. It is a great tool for quickly and accurately confirming one’s location. Along with other tools, such as a map and compass, one can build a good picture of the situation.

In our life’s journey, it is also important to periodically confirm our current position so we can make good choices about our next steps. We need to understand where we are to ensure we successfully get where we want to go.

Various conceptual tools can help with this, but it is hard to beat the SWOT analysis. Like a GPS, it gives us a quick snapshot of where we are and provides the data we need to do an effective situational assessment.

You have likely come across the SWOT Analysis tool before, but you might not have used it as a tool to examine your personal circumstances. We might think we know where we are and roughly what our situation is, but what does that actually mean? As Malcolm Gladwell puts it:

“The key to good decision-making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter.” – Malcolm Gladwell

The SWOT analysis allows us to quickly identify the key themes of our current situation and then analyse them to have a better understanding and then make better decisions about future direction.

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How to do a Personal SWOT analysis

To do a personal SWOT analysis you can follow these simple steps:

Step 1: Create

The SWOT table is created this way:

• Strengths and weaknesses are usually listed in the first row of the matrix; S and then W. These relate to internal factors.
• Opportunities and threats are external issues or circumstances. These create the second row; O and then T.
• In this layout, the first column, strengths and opportunities, are the positive or helpful factors
• The second column, weaknesses and threats, are the potentially negative or harmful issues

Step 2: Brainstorm

Now, brainstorm as many different considerations as you can under each heading to fill out the matrix.

Here are some questions to help you:

Strengths (internal/personal):

• What are your key skills, areas of experience or expertise?
• Can you define what makes you different? What is your USP (unique selling point/proposition)?
• What are your core values? What do you love, enjoy, or prioritise?

Weaknesses (internal/personal):

• What do you not enjoy doing?
• Where have you failed or fallen behind others?
• What skill gaps do you have?

 Threats (external/circumstantial):

• What circumstances are most troubling you?
• Who is your major competition?
• Which challenge is the most important right now?
• What is the worst thing that could happen to you/?

Opportunities (external/circumstantial):

• How can you leverage your present situation?
• Who/what could most help you right now?
• How is change providing new openings?

Step 3: Prioritise

Now prioritise the items in each section and work out which are the top three to five things in each quadrant.

Step 4: Analyse

Look at each item in turn and consider the actions you could take. Here are some questions to help:

• How can you play to or maximise your strengths?
• What personal development goals, people and processes can help address your weaknesses?
• How can you exploit, expand or multiply the opportunities?
• What control measures do you need to put in place to limit the threats?

Now look for any further relationships you can identify across the columns, rows and diagonals.

Remember that weaknesses are often a reflection of strengths. For example, if you have a strength in that you are very good at coming up with lots of ideas, or you are a business with lots of products, a weakness might be that you find it hard to focus on just one of them.

Similarly, look at the flip side of external factors; you may find that threats can also provide opportunities.

Personal situational awareness: know where you are and what that means

The instructions above are taken from a longer post, so if you would like more background on the SWOT analysis and an example then please read How to Do a SWOT Analysis

You can also watch the YouTube video for further explanation and a visual of how to create a personal SWOT template.

Once you are happy, take some time to do a personal SWOT analysis and note down your findings. Sometimes that means facing some unpleasant realities but confronting the brutal facts (as per the Stockdale Paradox) is a crucial element of planning for a successful outcome. As writer James Baldwin observed:

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced” – James Baldwin

Where have you come from? Where are you now? And where are you going? When we travel, we can answer these questions and connect these things using a map. When we want to think about the journey of our lives, we can create a conceptual map to help us.

Having such a map gives us perspective on the past, awareness of the present and a plan for the future. It helps us understand our history, take responsibility for the current direction of our lives, and ensure that we don’t just follow someone else’s path.

“Life is a journey. How we travel is really up to us. We can just flow with the tide or follow our own dreams.” – Paul Coelho

Life is a journey: what does yours look like?

The metaphor that life is a journey is a popular one. Many of our favourite stories, from historical literature such as The Odyssey and The Canterbury Tales, through to modern classics including The Lord of the Rings and The Alchemist, use this premise. We are naturally drawn to such adventures and can relate to the idea of travelling and challenges in life (even if not faced with actual sirens or orcs!)

We can apply the same idea to our own lives. When we thread together the events in our past, and the hopes for our futures, we can picture a path joining these moments together; a road that we travel along.

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.” – Walt Whitman

We are pilgrims, each on our individual quest. The words ‘quest’ and ‘question’ both have the same Latin root; ‘quaerere’ meaning ‘to seek’ or ‘to ask’. This is why The Right Questions framework is about how we lead our life’s adventure.

Fellow seekers are Questors. travellers on their own pilgrimages, that we coincide with along the way. We travel alongside them for varying distances. This might be a few steps, a few miles, or almost the whole journey, with a select few.

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The Right Questions Life Journey Map Tool

Creating a map to represent your life journey is a fun and informative reflective exercise. It helps to pull together the core ‘where’ questions of:

1. Past: Where have you come from?
2. Present: Where are you now?
3. Future: Where are you going?

Capturing these things visually can be powerful and inspirational, as well as very satisfying. Just follow these easy steps to make your own:

Step 1: Get a blank piece of paper

This exercise is best done with a large piece of plain paper. A1 or AO is great but you can do it on smaller paper (or digitally) if you prefer.

Step 2: Identify the milestone and terrain you want to add to the map

Have a look back at the other ‘where’ exercises you have done, using the logbook tool (your CV or resume), the GPS tool (personal SWOT analysis), and the picture/photo tool (vision statement). Choose the key milestones (events, decisions, or achievements) and terrain (situations, obstacles, and challenges) that you want to transfer onto the map.

Step 3: Add the milestones and terrain to the map

Next, you transfer the milestones and terrain onto the map. You can either directly draw these, add photos or pictures you have printed out, or use Post-it notes, using a separate note for each item.

It can be good to use a combination of these techniques. For example, you can first add the information using sticky notes and then, when you are happy with how you have them organised the way you want them, you can draw or stick things directly onto the paper.

Step 4: Draw on your path

Now you can connect up the various items you have added with a path that illustrates your journey. You might want to show where the road was easy or hard, and where there were splits in the way and you had (or will have) choices of direction to follow.

Step 5: Reflect on the path

Now step back and look at the whole life journey map. At this stage, seeing the big picture, you might decide to add or adjust a few details. Take a few moments to be thankful for what you have achieved and to be excited about the next steps of your adventure.

Display the map somewhere you can see it. This will help you to further reflect upon your journey and inspire you in the coming days.

“Anytime I feel lost, I pull out a map and stare. I stare until I have reminded myself that life is a giant adventure, so much to do, to see.” – Angelina Jolie

What do you tell people when they ask you what you are about? What is your life purpose and how would you sum it up?

When we talk about ourselves, we frequently share details such as what we do for a living, what we are studying, where we live or where we are from. But even though those things give some clues to who we are, they don’t necessarily reveal our principles, dreams, or life purpose. Often, even our family and close friends can be unaware of these deeper life themes.

We don’t go around advertising these things and yet we are willing to purchase items that market the slogans, ideas or values of other people and companies. Why is that?

It makes sense that we should be clear about our purpose and willing to share it with others. Having a purpose is important. Research has shown that living a life of meaning is connected to better health, relationships and greater achievement.

“One thing is clear: that having a purpose in life is something that Humans thrive on.” – Steve Peters

So, how would you express yours? What would be the slogan that you could live by?

A T-shirt can say a lot about a person

Do you have a favourite T-shirt? What designs or words does it have on it?

I love a good T-shirt. I have owned some favourites over the years that I have worn until they were so thread-bare they almost fell off before I took them off!

Some of my favourite ones have had pictures and slogans on them. For example, as a teenager, I thought it was highly amusing to wear a t-shirt that boldly said, “Only here for the beer!” A few years later I owned a North Face shirt that I loved, which had a picture of a mountain and the slogan “Never Stop Exploring” written on it.

I am partial to beer but (not surprisingly) the second t-shirt was a better reflection of what I care most about. I love the mountains and one of my core values is adventure, so the words on the t-shirt spoke to me, and they reflected to other people some of my dreams and desires for my life.

We often purchase clothing and other items because they express something of who we are. Therefore, if you could design something yourself, with your own slogan and logo, what would that be?

The Right Questions Life Purpose Tool: The T-Shirt Exercise

Not all of us are talented designers but this is where the humble t-shirt comes to the rescue. We can all think about what we might put on a t-shirt (and many of us already have!)

So, if you had a t-shirt that could sum up what your life is about, what would it say?

This is a fun exercise to go through and we can think about it from four different perspectives:

1. A slogan
2. A quote
3. An elevator pitch
4. Logo

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Slogan

If you had to sum up your life goal in a slogan or tagline, what would it be?

Marketers spend a long time crafting slogans for companies that try to capture the essence of what they are about (or what they are selling). A good slogan is pithy mand memorable. Consider these examples:

• Google: Do the right thing (previously: Don’t be evil)
• Samsung: Do what you can’t
• Airbnb: Below anywhere
• Ford: Go further
• Apple: Think different
• Nike: Just do it
• Adidas: Impossible is nothing
• IMAX: Think big
• Electronic Arts: Challenge everything
• Harley Davidson: All for freedom, freedom for all

What phrase would you like to be associated with? Have a go a drafting something now.

Quote

Sometimes it can be hard to find the right words. When that is the case, we can lean on the wise words of other people. I certainly do and that is why I include so many in my writing. To help, you can follow these steps:

1. Think about your favourite books, movies, and songs. Which lines stick with you and why? Write down as many as you can.

• Remember your core values and search for quotes that contain those words. This can be very easily done on the internet.
• Now consider which quote means the most to you and then paraphrase it. Use your own words and personalise the quote.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” George Bernard Shaw

Elevator pitch

An elevator pitch is a short marketing pitch. The idea is that you can share your idea in the time it takes to ride a lift.

It is a helpful exercise to try and make things succinct. As with a mission statement, it forces us to break down a goal into its essential parts and find the essence of a concept.

So, if you only had a few seconds to share your life purpose with someone, what would you say? How would you explain what you are about, what drives you and how you want to help others?

My advice is start with writing out something quite long and then edit it down. Whittle away at the phrase, carefully selecting the words, until you can get it down to a short paragraph.

“If you care about being thought credible and intelligent, do not use complex language where simpler language will do.” Daniel Kahneman

Logo

Instead of words, you can also think about pictures. What image or logo would best sum you and your philosophy of life? You can use these prompts to help you:

• Think about your favourite photos or works of art. If you could choose just one, which would it be and why?
• Bring to mind your vision statement. What image could you create to sum that up?
• Consider your values. What logo could express your core principles?

Make your t-shirt design and wear your life purpose statement with pride!

Once you have a slogan, quote, or elevator pitch that you are happy with, write it out and put it somewhere you can see it. Draw out your logo. Let it be a prompt and inspiration. Why not put it on a T-shirt? It could be a great conversation starter!

Life goals (when chosen correctly) are beneficial as they give us a target with direction and focus. We use goals to initiate about change in ourselves and the world around us. They are a tangible measure of action, improvement, and achievement.

Goals are more than just a good productivity hack. Setting and achieving self-development goals supports good mental health by giving us a sense of purpose and then triggering the release of positive neurotransmitters such as dopamine when we succeed. What’s more, goal setting is related to having a growth mindset. We need to set and fulfil targets to remain in learning mode and continue our personal improvement.

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes.” — Andrew Carnegie

How to select the big life goals

Setting and achieving goals can be highly beneficial, but we do have to set the right type of goals. We need to set ourselves targets that stretch us (forcing us to grow) but they do need to be achievable. Goals can be bold, such as the Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG) advocated by Jim Collins (author of Good to Great), but however big the idea is, it still needs to be broken down into actionable steps.

Therefore, if we want to benefit from all the benefits of goals — the productivity gains of setting them as well as the positive effects of achieving them — then we need to set what I call Goldilocks goals. These are goals that are not too easy but are also not completely unrealistic.

These Goldilocks goals can be ambitious, right on the edge of what we might believe is even possible, but then we must employ the important next step, that of chunking the goal down to make it manageable. For example, we might set ourselves the goal of climbing Mount Everest but there are hundreds, if not thousands, of intermediate tasks we need to complete in order to succeed.

“I think goals should never be easy, they should force you to work, even if they are uncomfortable at the time.” Michael Phelps (Olympic Gold Medallist and World Champion Swimmer)

The need for focus when achieving personal growth goals

Achieving challenging goals takes focus, and here I can speak from experience. For example, I set myself the target of completing several arduous mountain races which required single minded application over the course of several years.

In 2017 my target was to complete the CCC race in the Alps, one of the Ultra Trail de Mont Blanc (UTMB) courses. The route is a partial circumnavigation of the Mont Blanc massive. The path goes continually up and down, traversing the steep mountain trails; up over high passes and then back down into deep valleys, only to start climbing once again.

By the time I got to the checkpoint at the 50 km mark, it was getting dark. I had been running all day and felt exhausted, but I was still less than halfway around the course. The start had been in Italy and the final destination was the town of Chamonix in France, but at that point, I was still in Switzerland. With so far to go it was very tempting to just give up. I needed real discipline and focus to keep going.

As I left the checkpoint, I switched on my headtorch and immediately a bright, comforting circle appeared before me. I used it to first check my map, identifying the next check point, and glancing again at the end point, my goal.

I willed my stiff legs into movement and started off. My torch created a pool of light that I was running into. My focus narrowed to that small, enlightened patch of path as I got into a rhythm, despite my protesting muscles, and I encouraged myself on. All I needed to do was to keeping running into that light and I would achieve my goal.

“I don’t care how much power, brilliance or energy you have, if you don’t harness it and focus it on a specific target, and hold it there, you’re never going to accomplish as much as your ability warrants.” — Zig Ziglar

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The Right Questions Torch Tool: Focussing on the self-development goal

If we want to achieve our big life goals then we need determination and focus. When it comes to The Right Questions Framework, and the conceptual tools that we pack in our bag, then we can think about the torch as something that helps us with that focus. A lamp has many uses, and is an essential item to pack for most adventures.

On our journey, just as like in my race, it is the metaphorical headtorch that helps to light our path, giving us the clarity to push towards our goal. To help gain that greater clarity there are some exercises we can work through.

Step 1: Clarify your life goals

Here are some questions to work through to help you hone your life goals. These questions are based on coaching tips from Michael Neill in his book Supercoach. They are questions that I have found particularly helpful, both for setting my own personal goals and for helping people I coach as they set their life goals.

Answer each one in turn, brainstorming as many goals as possible at this stage.

What things should you achieve?

In other words, what do you feel duty-bound to do? What do you feel is a responsibility or a necessity to achieve?

Which goals are logical?

Another way of asking this question would be, what is the rational thing to progress to? What would be a natural thing to achieve if you follow the course you are presently on?

Which goals give you déjà vu?

Which goals are always on your list and never seem to go away? What goal have you always wanted to do but never succeeded in?

What goals would somebody else set you?

If you asked your best friend or a family member, what sort of goal would they set for you? Think about your spouse or partner, what would they say should be your goal?

Which dreams express your deep wants?

Which goal reflects the deepest desires of your heart? What would give you the greatest satisfaction to achieve?

What would you ask for from your fairy godmother?

If you could wish for anything, what would that be? How about three wishes? What would you ask for?

What are your happy wants?

Which things do you want to achieve that will make you happy? Which ideas make you happy even just thinking about doing them?

What are your naughty wants?

Which goals do you have that you have never told anyone about? What would you like to achieve but have been too embarrassed to share with anyone or too scared to try?

What do you think “if only” I could have achieved?

When you look back in life, what do you wish you had achieved? If you could turn back the clock what would you have done differently?

Step 2: Prioritise your life objectives

After answering all the questions above you should have a long list of ideas and dreams. The next task is to prioritise these goals and work out which one you want to achieve first.

This is where the torch tool helps to spotlight the goals that are the most important so you can focus on them. We can use this tool in conjunction with other tools from our toolkit, combining the information we have from the other ‘why, where and what’ exercises.

Now answer these questions to help you narrow down your goal selection:

• Combine with the compass: Which goals are aligned with your personal values?
• Think about the photo: Which dream, if you did not achieve it, would you be most disappointed about?
• Consider your map: What target would best support your life purpose or overall vision?

Step 3: Focus on your most impactful goals

Finally, make the decision of which targets you are going to focus on. To do this, when considering large life goals, I would recommend that you pick no more than three big goals, and you also decide on which is the primary focus. As with a torch light, we can only focus on a certain amount with any clarity, so the more we concentrate our viewpoint, the more likely we are to achieve our objective.

“By recording your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands — your own.” — Mark Victor Hansen

What does success look like? Is achievement in life about realising your big goals or maintaining a good work-life balance?

In many ways, success is a bit of both. Certainly, unless we maintain some balance, we will likely undermine our ability to achieve our goals. It is important to remember that the journey to achieving our ambitions is actually as important as the destination itself. Success is daily progress, continual personal growth and character development, as well as hitting our targets.

“Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success.” – Zig Ziglar

So, if we want to achieve success and our life goals, we need something equivalent to work-life balance. The problem with thinking about balance in these terms is that it is purely binary. But work is an aspect of life, not a separate entity, and there are many other aspects of our lives that we should consider when maintaining balance. I found this out the hard way when I burnt out, physically and emotionally.

The danger of getting out of balance: physical and mental burnout

One day I woke up, but I could hardly move. I felt smothered under a leaden blanket – utterly drained of energy. Trying to sit up induced waves of fatigue making me fight for breath. What was happening? It was as though someone had replaced my body. This faulty one could surely not belong to me.

I assumed I had some infection, probably the flu. But a day in bed became a week and I was still no better. By the end of the second week, I was getting scared. I had never been ill for this long before. I wondered if I would ever recover.

“There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” – Jack Welch

But it was not a virus that I was suffering from, it was fatigue. I had burnt out. I was suffering from complete mental and physical exhaustion. Having run my tank to empty, and my body had shut down. I did eventually recover, but it was many weeks before I was close to normal.

On top of feeling bad physically, I also felt terrible mentally and emotionally. I had not realised how much of my self-worth related to my physical well-being until it was taken away from me. I also felt guilty. Guilty for letting people down at work. Guilty that my wife had to look after me. And guilty that I did not have a ‘proper illness.’

And why now? I had been tired before. In my military career, on exercises and operations around the world, I had been frequently tested to the limits of my endurance. But now? My colleagues were my friends, and I was passionate about what I was doing. I lived in a comfortable flat with a loving wife. How could I be so weak as to collapse?

Avoiding burnout by keeping balance

In the aftermath of my burnout, I started to examine my life and the causes of my exhaustion. Medically, I had not developed full-blown chronic fatigue syndrome but my illness had shaken me. Situationally, there was no one moment or big event that tipped the balance. My collapse was the compounded effect of a lifestyle I had been living for several years.

I realised that I needed to to keep my life in better balance and to do this I would need metrics, like dials on a car, to monitor. I researched what were considered the key things that are needed to keep physically and mentally healthy, and then created my own way of managing my well-being. This became my mental activity monitor.

“Be moderate in order to taste the joys of life in abundance.” –  Epicurus

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Keeping life balance by watching your metrics

When I am ski-touring I rely quite heavily on my watch. That is because it does a lot more than just tell the time. It is also an altimeter and smartwatch which allows me to monitor metrics such as my speed, elevation, and heart rate. When trying to pace myself, high in the mountains, over long distances, the ability to be able to measure my progress is invaluable. Watching the dials gives me the short-term indicators to ensure longer-term success.

That is why, in The Right Questions Framework, the tool we use to monitor our balance and ensure success is the Activity Monitor. This conceptual tool helps to think about the factors that we need to manage in order to stay in good physical and mental health, as well as keeping on track to achieve our goals.

The Right Questions Balance Tool: The Activity Monitor

The conceptual Activity Monitor is broken down into four major quadrants that each have four further sub-divisions. Each of these sixteen elements can be used as a metric to manage our well-being across various important aspects of life.

This breaks down in the following way:

• Body
  • Health, fitness
  • Diet, nutrition
  • Sleep, rest
  • Vacation, holiday
• Heart
  • Emotions, feelings
  • Family, community
  • Friends, network
  • Relationships, romance
• Mind
  • Career, vocation
  • Money, finance
  • Learning, personal development
  • Safety, security
• Soul
  • Mindfulness, thankfulness
  • Spirituality, faith
  • Reflection, understanding
  • Fun, recreation

To help make these qualitative factors more quantitative, we can rate how we think we are doing in each area by giving ourselves a score from 1 to 10.

A higher rating usually means we are doing okay whereas a lower ranking reflects an area where we likely need to take action. A low score is like a dial going into the red that warns us that this area is unsustainable. For example, you might not get the sleep you need one day, but if this continues it is likely to compound into a problem.

We may have some scores that are middling or not quite as high as we would like. In these cases, we can then assign actions to help improve the rating. We can ask ourselves, what do I need to do to increase this score by one?

The Activity Monitor Balance Questions

To help you think about your rating, here are some questions to help you:

Body

• Health, fitness
  • How much exercise have I had today/this week? Is it enough?
  • How is my general health? Am I well or sick?
• Diet, nutrition
  • Am I eating at appropriate times or am I snacking too much?
  • What proportion of my meals would be considered healthy?
• Sleep, rest
  • Am I getting more than 7 hours of quality sleep at night?
  • Am I watching screens, snacking or drinking alcohol or caffeine just before trying to sleep?
• Vacation, holiday
  • When is my next day off and how will I protect my recovery time?
  • When was your last vacation? When should you have your next holiday?

Heart

• Emotions, feelings
  • How do I feel today, am I happy or sad, energised or depressed?
  • How well am I managing my negative emotions such as anger or fear?
• Family, community
  • Am I spending quality time with my family and loved ones?
  • How well am I connected to my community?
• Friends, network
  • How well am I maintaining and deepening my friendships?
  • Am I connecting with new individuals and increasing my network with positive people?
• Relationships, romance
  • How fulfilled do I feel in my relationships?
  • Am I getting quality time with my romantic partner or significant other?

Mind

• Career, vocation
  • How satisfied do I feel in my career at the moment?
  • Am I progressing the way I want to in my work?
• Money, finance
  • How secure do I feel financially?
  • How worried am I about money?
• Learning, personal development
  • What are my development goals and how I am progressing?
  • What new thing did I learn today?
• Safety, security
  • Are threats in my physical environment affecting my thoughts and emotions?
  • Am I fearful about the response of people to what I think, say, or do?

Soul

• Mindfulness, thankfulness
  • How thankful am I, or can I be today?
  • How well am I doing in taking time to find peace and enjoy the moment?
• Spirituality, faith
  • How well am I acting out what I believe in?
  • Am I prioritising the things I care most about?
• Reflection, understanding
  • How well am I developing and reaching my potential?
  • How closely am I living to my core values?
• Fun, recreation
  • How much fun have I had today or this week?
  • How much space do I have for my pastimes and recreation?

Improve your life balance and increase your daily sense of well-being

Monitoring your metrics doesn’t just help you maintain balance; it also gives you a daily sense of well-being. It is satisfying to achieve goals, no matter how small, and the measures on our dashboard allow us to tick off small achievements every day.

For example, today I went for a short walk (reflection and mindfulness), wrote an article (vocation), did some exercise (fitness), and had a healthy lunch (nutrition) while listening to a French podcast (learning). After work, I will have supper with my kids (family), play a game (fun) and then make sure I get to bed on time (sleep).

So, you can see, when I look at my day I feel good about it. The metrics give me a sense of achievement, even on an ‘ordinary’ day. This in turn increases my sense of well-being and improves my mental health.

We may not always feel like we are making significant progress towards achieving a big life goal on any single day, but these incremental measures help us. When we look at the smaller things we accomplish, we can be satisfied and appreciate the journey as well as the destination.

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

Which brainstorming technique do you use to get new ideas? How do you improve your creative thinking? What do we mean by brainstorming?

What is brainstorming and why should we do it?

Brainstorming is about thinking creatively and generating new ideas to start initiatives or solve problems. Effective brainstorming encourages lateral and divergent thinking, allowing us to explore ideas beyond the expected approaches to challenges.

To achieve our life goals, we must employ some brainstorming. If we have big dreams, then we are likely to face big challenges and therefore we are going to need some creative thinking to help us achieve them.

“Until we are free to think for ourselves, our dreams are not free to unfold.” –  Nancy Kline

The Swiss Army Knife approach to problem-solving

When growing up I used to love going into the woods and pretending I was in a survival situation. I would make shelters, build fires and forage for food. The more experienced I became, the more I would enjoy limiting the tools I would take with me. In some instances, I would take little more than a penknife.

One of my prized possessions was a Swiss Army Knife. As with most Swiss Army knives, mine had several built-in tools, each with a different use. The more I used this multi-tool, the more I found alternative uses for each item. For example, the large blade was good for cutting but could also be used as a small mirror. The flat screwdriver head could be used for screws (not that there were many in the woods) but was also very handy for prying bark off trees. The small saw blade could be used for sawing through branches but could also be used as a scraper to create wood shavings or even as a sort of grater for food.

Having only one tool, even a multi-tool, forced me to think of novel ways to solve problems. I not only started to look at the penknife in a new way, but I also looked at the challenges in a new light. My brain was more open to finding new ways to approach each issue.

How to brainstorm ideas: The Right Questions Multi-tool

And that is the power of creative thinking. By forcing our brains to think divergently or laterally about something we can come up with new ways, and often multiple ideas, for tackling a problem.

The idea of The Right Questions Multi-Tool is to use forced association (or forced connections) as a creative thinking technique. These are approaches that I first came across from Edward de Bono, author of Lateral Thinking, and have proven useful on many occasions, both in my work and personal life.

Here are three of my preferred approaches to brainstorm ideas, options, and solutions:

Forced number association

Forced number association helps generative thinking by giving the brain a target number of ideas to create. For example, using the Rule of 3, you can give yourself a goal of creating three different options to achieve your aim. This is a common approach when developing courses of action for achieving your goal, a subject we will return to with The Right Questions Guidebook tool.

When brainstorming you can give yourself a larger number. Ten or twenty is a manageable number which will also create a good number of divergent options. Therefore, for this technique just follow these steps:

1. Pick a target number for your ideas (10-20 is recommended)
2. Now brainstorm ideas until you have hit your target number, recording them as the thoughts emerge.

Handy hint: I often like to use Post-its for this sort of exercise and put them onto a wall or flipchart. In this way, you can play around with how you arrange the words which can lead to new connections, insights and ideas.

Forced word association

Forced word association uses random words, that are generally un-associated with the issue at hand, to force you to think laterally. As with the number association technique, you might want to set yourself a target number of ideas and then follow these steps:

1. Select a word at random. This can be done by opening a dictionary at random, having random words written on slips of paper you can pull out of a hat, or using an online word generator. There are web options you can use for free such as https://randomwordgenerator.com

• Consider how the random word could help address the issue you are thinking about. This might not be easy, and the answer might seem to be crazy but don’t worry, the idea here is creativity.

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Word Association Worked example 1:

For example, your goal might be to run a marathon and the random word could be ‘rose’. A rose could be a colour, a flavour, a flower, or the name of a person. Maybe you like roses and can reward yourself with some for achieving a run. Perhaps there is a person called Rose who can support you in some way. Maybe you could fuel yourself with rose-flavoured Turkish Delight! It might be you don’t use any of these ideas in the end but forcing the brain to make new connections will help you to look at the challenge from new perspectives.

Word Association Worked example 2:

Another example could be to consider what to do in the holidays. I used randomwordgenerator.com to give me a random word and it gave me ‘morning’. By thinking of the word ‘morning’ along with the idea of ‘vacation’ my brain starts to prompt questions such as what do I like to do in the morning? Where would I like to wake up in the morning? What would the perfect morning look like?

I am also flooded with pictures and memories; the sun coming up over a mountain as my feet crunch through frost-crusted snow, the smell of great coffee in an Italian café, the snuggly feeling of waking up in fresh hotel linen (knowing that I don’t have an alarm forcing me to get up). Suddenly I am full of ideas of things I want to do! And that is just one word and a few seconds of thinking.

“It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all” – Edward de Bono

Forced picture connections

The forced picture association method is the same as forced word association, except, as the title suggests, you use pictures instead of words. You can use magazines, photo albums or books for your pictures or free online resources such as https://randompicturegenerator.com. Just follow the same steps as used for the word association.

Expert tip: combine all three techniques by setting yourself a target number and then using a mixture of words and pictures for inspiration. Place them all on a large surface and experiment with their placement. Get some friends involved with the process to improve the diversity of thought in the creative process.

“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” – Edward de Bono

Making creative thinking a habit

The best way to become more creative is to experiment with these and other techniques. We can improve our ability to think of ideas if we practice so why not start now? Pick a goal you want to achieve or a challenge that you need to overcome and apply one or more of the exercises above. Once you have tried a technique, even just for a few minutes, you are much more likely to use such a tool again and develop better thinking habits.

As well as brainstorming with lateral thinking techniques, the other tool I often use is Mind-maps. You can find out more about mind mapping in my article on What is Mind Mapping and Why Should I Use Mind Maps?

“To find yourself, think for yourself” – Socrates

Which risks are you facing? How do you identify the biggest risks? How do you do a simple risk assessment and make contingency plans?

Everything has an element of risk. We might decide to act or to do nothing but both options carry risk. If we want to achieve big goals and dreams then we will certainly face risks, but these don’t necessarily need to stop us. But we do need to acknowledge and plan for the most serious risks if we want to successfully achieve our mission. Therefore identifying, assessing, and managing risk is an important part of completing our life goals.

“Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks.” – Herodotus

When risk becomes reality

The wind was so strong that the thunderous gusts were slapping the tent roof down into our faces. I lay there in the dark praying that the shelter would survive as the poles were continually flexed and bent by the invisible, but highly audible, attacker.

The camp was high on a glacier with little protection from the arctic storm. We were there to explore some of Greenland’s unscaled peaks, but at that moment no one was thinking of stepping anywhere outside the tent. We could only lie there, feeling pretty helpless.

Then, as the poles were cruelly buckled once again, I heard a shark crack, only just distinct above the noise of the storm. There was little to see in the darkness, but the tent had lost some of its shape and now some of the canvas was lying against my face. Not good.

A little preparation saves the day

It was the middle of the night. We were at least a day’s travel from any habitation, and no one was launching a rescue mission in this weather even if we could contact them. The air temperature was generally around -20 degrees Celsius or lower, but with the wind chill it could be double that. If we lost our tent we would be fully exposed to the elements and would be at serious risk of cold injury or death. With the structural integrity of the tent compromised and the storm still raging, it was a long night; me holding a prayerful vigil for our survival all the while.

Thankfully, after some hours, a pale dawn crawled in, and the winds dissipated and then ceased completely. The resulting quiet was eerie; made even more so by the snow banked up on the tent that muffled every sound. We dug ourselves out from the entrance to survey the scene. The tent had been largely buried but in our case that had been a mercy, as the snowy shroud had helped protect the sides from the gale.

After we had dug out the accommodation, I was able to examine the broken pole. The carbon fibre was splintered close to one of the connection points. I got out the emergency repair kit and looked through the few precious items we had with us. Fortunately, we had foreseen this risk and although we could not carry a complete set of spare poles, we did have a metal sleeve that could slide over the damaged section and be taped in place as a splint. It was not a pretty repair, but it worked. It was enough to ensure that the tent – and we – survived the rest of the expedition.

When to identify, assess and manage risk

One of my life goals was to make at least one first ski ascent and descent of a mountain. The expedition to Greenland saw that goal fulfilled but the whole venture was full of risk. As well as storms there were polar bears, crevasses and the chance of injury, often days travel from the nearest help. But that didn’t stop us; we just planned and acted to mitigate these risks.

As with my adventure, the risks we face to achieve our goals can be daunting. That’s why you don’t want to think about risk as the first thing when considering big life goals. If you do, the problems could easily put you off before you even start.  But, if you plan without considering the risk, you could quickly become disillusioned or make a serious mistake that could be hard to recover from.  Therefore, it is at the point when we have a clear idea of what we want to achieve, and are then considering different options to achieve that goal, that we look at risks.

That is why in The Right Questions Framework we consider risk as part of the ‘which’ question, having already thought about the ‘why’, ‘where’ and ‘what’.

Unnecessary risks can be avoided by careful planning and this process is part of your risk management process.  Your approach to risk – which risks you tolerate and those you treat – becomes your risk management strategy.

“Take calculated risks.  That is quite different from being rash.”  General George S Patton

The Right Questions Emergency Repairs and Spares Kit Tool: risk assessment and contingency planning

One way to treat risk and reduce its impact on an expedition is by carrying emergency equipment and spares. But if we were to carry too much, we would cause ourselves other problems. So, we need to limit what we take to the absolute essentials. Therefore, when it comes to The Right Questions Emergency Kit Tool, we identify and focus on the ten most critical risks.

This is how you can use this tool to identify, assess and manage the key risk that you face.

Here is a simple risk identification and assessment process. If you follow this exercise, you will be able to ascertain your key risks, analyse them, and create a basic risk management strategy:

1. Risk Identification – how to identify risks

• Play devil’s advocate for a moment. Give yourself 5 minutes to try and think of as many things as you can that could put a stop to your venture and list all these threats.

2. Risk assessment – how to analyse likelihood and impact

• Give each risk a likelihood score. Use a scale of 1 to 5 of how likely it is to occur (5 being the most probable).
• Now do something similar, scoring 1 to 5 for the severity of the impact of each of the risks.  In this case, a ‘1’ might be a minor inconvenience whereas a ‘5’ would be a show-stopper.
• For each risk multiply the probability score and the impact score. You will then get a score of 1-25 for each risk.  You can now list all the risks by rank in a table.

3. Risk mitigation and management – how to tolerate or treat the risks

• Identify your top 10 risks for further analysis.
• Start at the top with the biggest risks and think about how you can avoid, prevent, limit the damage, or otherwise manage the risk.  This is called mitigation or treating the risk.  Write down the plan for each risk.
• Then, after the mitigation measures have been applied score the risk again. Do this for likelihood and impact to see how it has improved and whether it is acceptable to you.
• Sometimes we cannot treat a risk and reduce its likelihood or impact any further. At this point, we must choose to either tolerate (accept) the individual risk or decide that we need another goal or plan.
• Finally, consider all the risks together against achieving your goal. Decide whether the opportunities outweigh the dangers for the goal you have chosen.

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Worked examples

Risk assessment example 1

For example, on an expedition, there are risks that are common but not necessarily catastrophic (high likelihood and low impact), such as poor weather. We might consider the likelihood of bad weather as being a 3 or 4, but if we mitigate the situation by taking waterproofs or warm clothing then the impact of that risk might only be a 1 or 2.

And then there are risks, which are less likely but more hazardous (low likelihood, high impact), such as an accident where someone gets injured. That is why we carry a first aid kit. Equally, as per the story I shared, a critical piece of equipment could get damaged and that is why we carry an emergency repair kit.

Risk assessment example 2

The same goes for our life goals. One dream might be to start your own business. This carries the risk of a reduced income, particularly at the beginning. So we might say the likelihood was 3 or 4. The loss of security, having given up a regular work position, depends upon our financial position. The impact for a single person with few outgoings might be low, say 2-3, but for someone with a family and mortgage, it could be significantly higher so we would likely want to treat the risk. This was the case when I started my own business.

This risk could be mitigated in various ways. The business could be initially set up as a side hustle that you do in your spare time. Perhaps you could reduce your hours and work part-time in your present role leaving time for your new business. Or you might build up some savings before leaving full-time employment to act as a financial buffer. There are lots of options but the aim is to find the right balance for you, one that allows you to minimise the risk in your particular situation while still achieving your aim.

“Decide whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.” – Amelia Earhart

Don’t be paralysed by risk. Identify, assess, mitigate then get moving

There will be risk. Accidents and mistakes will happen. That is life. If we want to press forward and achieve our goals, we need to accept that. As management guru Peter Drucker points out:

“People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.” – Peter Drucker

Using the ‘Emergency Kit Tool’ and doing a risk assessment is a helpful aid to decision-making, but remember, don’t make a decision out of fear.  Some risks will be big – you just need to know whether that danger is acceptable to achieve your aim.  We consider the risk and then we manage it.

Effective risk management helps us to achieve our mission, with the risks considered and reduced as much as possible, but not at the exclusion of risk entirely.  Remember, it is more important to do the right thing than the safest thing. Don’t let fear stop you from acting if it’s the right thing to do and the risk is acceptable. As to fear, we will talk about that some more in the next section.

Which is your worst fear? Which anxiety is holding you back from your goal? How do you overcome fear to achieve what you want to do?

As mentioned in the section on risk, if we want to achieve anything, we will likely face dangers, accidents, and mistakes. But we must not let fear of failure stop us from acting. That is why we need to reduce the risks where we can but then take courage and act. Remember, courage is not the absence of fear, just the decision to act despite feelings of fear.

“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” – Muhammad Ali

When fear strikes

I was in my room, watching the Lord of the Rings (The Return of the King) on my laptop. I had my earphones in, and, despite the small screen, I was gripped. It was the battle of Minas Tirith, and the city was surrounded by an evil horde of orcs with their siege engines. As the army attacked the city and the rocks flew from the catapults, pounding the citadel I could almost feel the walls shaking. Another huge stone soared through the air to strike. Boom! My chair wobbled.

The sound on my laptop was good but I had definitely felt something. I took out my earphones and listened. The was a crashing sound, this time from outside my room, not from my computer.

A moment of realisation;  we are under attack, in the real world.

I was in a military base in Iraq in 2004. It just turned out that, in a weird bit of synchronicity, the local militants had decided to attack our base with rockets, just when I was enjoying a bit of downtime and watching a movie.

My first thought was how inconsiderate of them it was. I genuinely needed a break!

Then, a flood of other thoughts, with accompanying images involving the destructive power of exploding rockets, rushed into my mind and I could feel my heart start to race.

Overcoming fear: breathe, think, do

But now my training and preparation kicked in. I took some deep breaths, regained control over my thoughts and then got ready to act.

I put on my helmet and body armour, a drill I did not really need to think about but helped me further regain my composure and prepare myself for action.

Then, doing my best to exude calm, I walked out of my room into the chaos outside and headed to the operations room. When I stepped into the room, I saw numerous wide eyes turned towards me. Many of the young soldiers were dealing with shock, fear, and anxiety.

This actually helped me as I could now focus on alleviating their feelings rather than dwelling on my own. A little time, some simple actions and something to focus on meant that my head was now clear enough to take control of the situation, direct tasks to my team and check for casualties.

How fear of a worst-case scenario can hold us back

The best start to overcoming fear is understanding the psychology behind it. Fear and anxiety are natural emotional responses, but they can limit us. We generally think of fear or stress as relating to external pressures, whereas anxiety is generally used as a term to refer to internally generated worries.

Many things can trigger fear and anxiety, but once initiated, these emotions can overwhelm us and stop us from thinking or acting rationally. Some of this is linked to our natural defence mechanisms and the ‘fight or flight’ physiological response to threats. Neurologically, because rational thought is slower than intuitive thinking, our brain shuts off the pre-frontal cortex and relies instead on the limbic system, in a process often referred to as ‘amygdala hijack.’

Amygdala hijack happens when the amygdala interprets something as threatening and then sends a signal to the hypothalamus, the brain’s command centre. The hypothalamus then stimulates the sympathetic nervous system which activates the adrenal glands, pumping epinephrine (adrenaline) into the bloodstream.

This adrenaline prompts physical effects such as expanded airways, an increased pulse and heightened heart pressure. Senses – such as sight and hearing – are sharpened and sweat glands are opened. The epinephrine also starts a release of glucose and other nutrients into the bloodstream.

These changes impact other parts of the brain. The frontal lobes, the areas of the brain that deal with reasoning, decision-making, planning and evaluating emotions, can be temporarily crippled. The amygdala overrides the frontal lobes if it perceives something as a significant threat. When this happens, our responses become more primal and less rational.

All these things prepare the body for action; to fight or to run away. This is useful if you are stepping into a boxing ring or up to compete in a race, but slightly problematic if you are trying to think rationally to overcome a problem. So, what can we do?

Well, understanding this is the first step in learning to manage these responses. From there, some tools can help us.

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The Right Questions First-Aid Kit Tool: prepare for the worst and overcome fear

When thinking about The Right Questions Framework and the equipment we want to pack for our adventure, we can think about a first-aid kit when it comes to worst-case scenarios. We carry a first-aid kit just in case disaster strikes but we also learn how to use the items it contains and we train ourselves to deal with crises. This preparation reflects our mental preparation to deal with our fear as well as the circumstances themselves.

We can take this concept into how we plan for other goals we want to achieve, the aim being to identify the fear-inducing scenario, plan for it and prepare ourselves (for example with kit or training) to deal with the situation, should it arise.

To use the conceptual tool, follow these steps:

1. Creative thinking. Brainstorm what you think is the worst-case scenario or most fear-inducing situation (you can use the previous brainstorming multi-tool exercises to help)
2. Emotional regulation. Take a moment to analyse how this potential scenario makes you feel. Write down the emotions evoked by that situation
3. Critical thinking. Now think critically and rationally about the situation. Ask:
   1. How likely is this circumstance to come about?
   2. What can you do to prevent or prepare for it?
   3. If does happen, how could you respond to it, in a positive way?

This helps in a couple of ways. Even just visualising and thinking through such situations can limit the adrenal response you get if that event should ever occur. It also pre-wires the brain to help you think more clearly if the worst happens.

“Truth – more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality – is the essential foundation for producing good outcomes.” – Ray Dalio

Worst case scenario example:

For example, if achieving your goal or dream requires a change in your professional life you may face fears about your job, your promotion prospects, or your financial security.

This can trigger thoughts such as “I can’t do that – I would lose my job!”  This is reasonable enough, as losing one’s work can have major consequences, but many less rational defeater beliefs can jump into our minds at this point such as:

1. “I won’t be able to pay my mortgage/student loan/credit card bill/monthly streaming subscription*”, or
2. “My boss/parents/family/imaginary friend won’t let me*”, or
3. “I will lose my friends/the good favour of my colleagues/the respect of my dog*”

(*delete as appropriate)

So, make sure you pause and think it through.  After considering this worst-case scenario you may realise that:

1. If you are smart about how you do things then you probably don’t need to lose your job, or
2. That it would be worth the risk as you do not like your job anyway, or
3. You are pretty confident you could find a new and better job

How to overcome fear: what to do if still feeling anxious

Once you have thought through any worst-case scenarios, faced up to any fears and done your best to prepare then it is time to take action. As you press on towards your goal it could be that your fears are realised. If that happens and anxiety strikes, then remember BTD:

1. Breathe
2. Think
3. Do

Here is a little more detail on each step.

Breathe

The first thing to do when feeling fearful is to pause and take some slow deep breaths. This is proven to be the most effective way of managing feelings of anxiety as it gives time to overcome the amygdala hijack whilst slow breathing reassures the brain, helping it out of the fight or flight response, as well as maintaining the oxygen needed for clear thinking.

Breathing techniques can maximise your effectiveness at this stage and you can read more about different breathing techniques in The Best Breathing Techniques to Reduce Anxiety.

Think

Having settled down physiologically and neurologically you can now bring your pre-frontal cortex back into play. There are a few useful things you can do at this stage, such as the 3 Rs:

1. Re-name your emotions. Labelling your feelings helps to deal with them rationally
2. Reframe the situation. Every crisis brings opportunity. What positive things can you do in your new circumstances?
3. Remember. What experience might help you? Recall other times when you have overcome problems. Think who could help and what they might do in similar circumstances

Do

Now take positive action by using these 3 Bs:

1. Baby steps. Start small. What little step can you take to make things better? If you are still struggling with feelings of anxiety then concentrate on small, simple activities, things you know you can achieve. As with my example, this could be as simple as putting on your coat when it starts raining.
2. Building confidence with every success. For everything you achieve, log it as a success. This will help build your confidence as you work towards a positive outcome.
3. Be encouraging. Encourage others and use positive affirmations in your self-talk. Tell yourself and others positive things to boost confidence. You have got this, you can manage it, there is a way through the situation.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced” – James Baldwin

Choices. We have so many options when it comes to ways to achieve our goals. But what is the best option? How can we make sure we are doing the right thing? Can we ensure that we are choosing the right way and the best course of action?

One of the biggest challenges of decision-making is generating, assessing, and then choosing from among the different solutions there are to any given challenge. This is why for most decisions we use heuristics – simple rules of thumb – to avoid the extra brain power needed to make decisions. In neurological terms, we save load on the pre-frontal cortex by using automatic routines saved and accessed through the limbic system.

But we can’t always do that. Often, we are faced with a new or more important decision where we cannot entirely rely on previous experience. That might be buying a car or property, changing jobs, or just working out what to do in our free time, but if the choice has a large impact on time and money then we are likely to spend longer considering our options. Working out the best course of action (or “COA” in military parlance) is therefore a critical element of effective decision-making.

Options and choices

One summer I was mountaineering in the French Alps with a group of friends.  We had just spent a few days bagging some routes when someone had the idea of tackling a nearby climb. It was not one we originally planned to do as it was a higher grade than we were generally comfortable with.

That season there had been very little snow and the ridges were more exposed and icy than usual. So, as this route was following a ridge, I argued that it would be in bad condition. It was likely to be even harder than the guidebook suggested.  The weather was also set to change for the worse, so as far as I could see, the risks outweighed the opportunity.

I thought my logic was sound but the person who had proposed the climb was more charismatic than me. He managed to persuade the other two members of the group to agree with him. They wanted to give the climb a go.  It was three against one, and I knew they needed four people to attempt the route. Therefore the pressure was on for me to accept the majority decision. But I genuinely believed it was not a safe option. It was a tough conversation. I then made myself very unpopular when I refused to do the climb. It was a stand-off. They needed a fourth climber and therefore all we could do as a group was head back down the valley.

The right course of action

Fortunately for them, they found another willing climber to make the fourth member of the party. I meanwhile, by now feeling somewhat of an outcast, decided to go solo trekking for a couple of days. As I was on my own I decided to stay below the snow line and try and avoid the bad weather by heading to another valley.

I spent most of the next few days feeling guilty about being stubborn but when I returned I found that my decision had been justified.  The weather had deteriorated and the route proved to be in poor condition, as I had predicted.  After a few hours of struggling in dangerous conditions, my old climbing partners were forced to make an emergency descent. The deteriorating weather meant they also had to make a hasty retreat back down to the town. We exchanged stories and made up over a couple of beers, ready to find new routes and climb again when the weather improved.

It turned out that we were the lucky ones; that weekend ten people lost their lives in the Mont Blanc area as high winds whipped people off icy ridges.

“A moment of choice is a moment of truth. It’s the testing point of our character and competence.” – Stephen Covey

The Right Questions Guidebook Tool: considering options and courses of action

Whatever we do in life we are faced with options and choices. As in the story I shared, even if we are progressing towards our goal, we might be presented with new opportunities to consider and decisions we need to make.

Therefore, this stage of the decision-making cycle is all about considering options and we use the interrogative “which” within The Right Questions Framework. In other words, we are answering the questions:

• Which options (courses of action) are available to me?
• Which risks and opportunities will impact my decision?
• Which is the best course of action?

To explore these questions fully we can use The Guidebook Tool. It is called the Guidebook Tool because we use guidebooks to inform our choices. If we travel overseas on vacation we might use a guidebook to help us with options of places to eat or things to see. When I do long-distance walks I take a guidebook to help with route options and choices of places to stay. As per my climbing story, I had a mountaineering guidebook to help consider different climbs and their grading of difficulty. So, whatever adventure we are on, a guidebook can help us consider courses of action.

Here we use The Right Questions Guidebook Tool to generate our own options. The tool breaks down the important questions into several steps. These steps are:

1. Brainstorm multiple options
2. Refine several courses of action
3. Assess the courses of action
4. Identify obstacles and risks
5. Decide the preferred option

This can be remembered with the acronym BRAID.

Having made the decision, we then move on to the next phase of decision-making where we develop the plan (and answer the how, who and when questions). But for now, let’s examine the four steps outlined above.

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Brainstorming your options

When facing an important decision, it is generally a good idea to brainstorm multiple ideas before narrowing down the options. This is an important phase as it can unearth new ways of approaching a problem and can free us from certain assumptions. If we restrict ourselves at this stage to what we think is just sensible, affordable, or realistic then we might miss out on important opportunities or insights.

For brainstorming techniques, you can refer to the associated post, Brainstorming Ideas of How to Achieve Your Goals.

“Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists.”

Edward de Bono

Generating courses of action

Once you have brainstormed a long list of potential options, the next step is to refine this list down to a few preferred courses of action. Using the heuristic of The Rule of 3 I generally recommend three courses of action which can be developed in outline and inform a decision.

You could prioritise your list from the options using your intuition and what feels like the best option.

For example your intuitive options might be:

1. What is the most exciting option?
2. What is the most sensible option?
3. Which is the scariest option?

Alternatively, you might want to apply some rationale to the selection of your courses of action. One simple way to come up with three courses of action is to look at resources. You might ask:

1. What is the option if money is no object?
2. What is the option if time is no problem?
3. What is the option if people and skills are no problem?

Example of 3 Generic Courses of Action for projects and tasks:

When making a business or project plan then there are some other questions we can consider to create courses of action. For example:

1. Which course of action best fits what is most likely to happen?
2. Which course of action represents the worst possible situation?
3. Which course of action allows for the swiftest outcome?

Answering these questions allows three courses of action and outline plans that reflect

1. The logical plan (most likely)
2. The contingency plan (worst case)
3. The fastest effect plan (which is often the riskiest or costliest)

These questions work well when dealing with a critical (time-dependent) issue, so if these questions don’t suit (for example if money rather than time was the most important factor) then you could also ask:

1. Which is the most elegant (gold-pated) option?
2. Which is the simplest (silver) option?
3. Which is the cheapest (bronze) option?

Once three courses of action have been selected then the next step is to explore a simple outline plan for each. To do this we answer the questions:

• How will we achieve the goal (what are the necessary milestones, tasks, or steps)?
• How will this course of action be resourced?
• When could or should each step be achieved?
• Who can help or support each activity?

At this stage, we are not doing detailed planning so the answers to each of these can be simplified.

It is worth noting that this technique tends to favour business plans rather than personal plans. If you would like another way to prioritise your courses of action, I would recommend seeing which ones align most with your values (be that your personal values or organisational values). Using principles also helps us assess our three courses of action so we will explore that in the next section.

“There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs” – Thomas Sowell

Assessing the courses of action using values and principles

Once we have three courses of action (with outlined plans to check their feasibility) the next stage is to assess them against each other and come up with the chosen course. As previously, you can just use your intuition to make the choice, but you may also want to apply some further logic. If you do have an initial gut feeling about which one you like, then make a note of it. Our intuition is based on our experience and preferences – so it is certainly worth considering – but it is also subject to our biases so it is worth noting to avoid subconscious bias subverting our decision-making.

My preferred way of assessing courses of action is by scoring them against a set of principles or values. To start, I will generally create a matrix, listing the courses of action on one axis and then the principle on the other. I then fill in the grid, scoring each course of action against each value out of 10. I then create a total score for each per the example below.

	Principle 1	Principle 2	Principle 3	Total Score
Course of action 1	(Score 0-10)
Course of action 2
Course of action 3

There is no limit to the number of principles you want to employ but for simplicity, I would not recommend any more than 7-8.

The principles you choose are dependent upon the decision. You might want to use your personal values if it is a choice that most impacts you, such as a change of career. If you are making a business decision then you may want to use your organisation’s corporate values. Equally, there may be a set of specific principles you want to apply. For example, in an investment decision, you might want to employ principles from an expert such as Warren Buffet. It is worth taking a little time to make sure you have the most appropriate precepts to score your courses of action against.

Assessing courses of action with opportunity and risks

An alternative or subsequent way to assess the course of action is considering opportunity versus risk. Here you might use the risks identified when using The Emergency Kit Tool explained in the section on risk assessment.

These risks should then be weighed against the overall opportunity. As with risk, it might be that your chosen principles best summarise the opportunity of a given course of action. If not then consider the potential pay-off, in time, money or quality, for each course of action. Then you can weigh the risk versus the reward. For example, sometimes it is riskier to move quickly on a decision but the payoff – in terms of cumulative gain, time saved or first mover advantage – might be a risk worth taking. This is effectively a simple cost-benefit analysis of your courses of action.

Making the right choice (and better future decisions)

Finally, having assessed the courses of action you can make your choice. Depending upon which course of action scored the highest or had the best balance of risk versus opportunity, you can now commit to that option.

Having made the decision, you can then go on to more detailed planning. You will likely find that your new plans will also incorporate lessons from the other options you looked at. For example, you might well keep the worst-case or contingency plan up your sleeve just in case something goes wrong. Equally, you might have a plan that has stages that incorporate further decision points, dependent upon the balance of risk and reward. As the plans develop, you will discover that the thinking at this stage is not wasted.

Going through this process of creating and assessing courses of action has a further benefit. The formal process forces us to think deeper which will reinforce any learning points for the next decision. Recording the process, and the final choice, also allows us to go back and measure how effective our decisions were. We will not always get things right, but this reflective process will help improve overall decision-making. Decision-making is a skill like any other and for effective learning, we need to be able to reflect on what we have done.

Picking the best course of action

So, if you have options and want to make the best-informed decision follow these BRAID steps:

1. Brainstorm multiple options (be creative)
2. Refine courses of action (down to 3 ideally)
3. Assess the courses of action (against principles or values)
4. Identify obstacles (and mitigate the risks)
5. Decide upon the best course of action (make the choice)

And one final tip, think about when you want or need to make the decision. It is easy to prevaricate, put off a decision, or miss an opportunity entirely. Setting a deadline and creating a timeline for your decision-making helps to avoid these outcomes. Depending upon the impact of the decision you might want to spend 5 minutes or 5 hours thinking through your choice, but as productivity experts will tell you, the best starting point is assigning time to make the decision, as that is a task in itself.

So, what decision do you need to make and when? If you can’t make the choice now, then take a few seconds to schedule time in your diary. And if you want some further advice on the steps to take then check out A Blueprint for Better Decision-Making.

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”

Sun Tzu