The Six Whys

Researchers estimate that we have over 70,000 thoughts a day. From the moment we open our eyes until the time we drift off to sleepy, sleepy land we spend our days thinking, thinking, thinking.

The sad fact is that we only catch a few of these precious gems a day. What’s even sadder is that we aren’t even aware of what time bombs are lurking in the back of our head causing all kind of havoc in our lives and our bodies.

You may think that you are aware of all the thoughts you think each day and I beg to differ. The majority of your thoughts focus on the things you have to do (scheduling or doing thoughts), quite a few are fear based thoughts (what we hope will never happen) and then there are a few happy thoughts that make us squeal with delight just thinking about them.

My friend Maya is a perfect example. She thought she needed to start dating again. She thought she’d never meet a man if she didn’t do something about it (fear based thought) so she signed up for one of the online dating sites. Her goal was to go on three dates before the end of the summer and the thought of actually going through the the dating process again made her a bit apprehensive (fear thought).

By the end of the month she met 5 great guys. Two never contacted her after a few emails, one really wasn’t her type and she ended up going on dates with the last two men.

Before each meeting she wondered if they would look like their profile pictures (fear thoughts) and if they would like the way she looked (even more fear). The first date went relatively well and the second one wasn’t all that great.

So what were Maya’s thoughts about her dating experience? She thought it was all a waste of time and she should have used that time to do more productive things like clean her attic or plan a much needed garage sale.

Upon further examination I found out that Maya really wasn’t ready to date anyone right now. She just did it because she was tired of people asking her if she was dating and she hated explaining all the reasons why this wasn’t important to her right now.

It wasn’t until she dug a little deeper that she realized she was only doing this to make others happy. Her dating experiment failed miserably because deep down she didn’t “think” it would work out because she really didn’t want to do it.

The lesson here is that you, like my good friend Maya, need to look a little deeper at the thoughts that make you angry, sad, or confused. Perhaps there’s a message just below the surface that’s wants your attention. Perhaps there’s a golden nugget just waiting to be mined. How do you do that? Easy.

Let’s look at Maya’s example. She thought she needed to start dating because she thought people would think she was weird because she wasn’t.

The first step is to identify your thought and then ask Why.

“I thought I needed to be able to say that I went on a few dates this summer when people asked who I was dating,” said Maya.

The second step: Ask Why again.

“Well I haven’t been on a date for over a year and I thought that was kind of weird.”

The third step: Ask Why again.

“Well I’m not getting any younger and it would be nice to have a steady boyfriend and a great relationship that would someday lead to marriage.’

The fourth step: I think you already know. Ask Why again.

“I don’t want to live alone for the rest of my life and women should date men.”

The fifth step: Yep, Ask Why again.

“Because that’s what I think I should do when in reality I don’t want to. I really want to spend my spare time working on my new business and creating a new workshop and helping people.”

The sixth and final step: Ask Why one last time.

“Because working on my business and doing this kind of work makes me incredibly happy and I think I’ll meet a nice man to date when it’s time and obviously it’s not time because he would be here for me to date.”

Now we have the truth that was hidden under the six Whys.

Maya spent money to go a dating site because she didn’t want to appear weird and she thought she wanted to date when in reality she wanted to focus on other things that make her incredibly happy. Should she have done this before going on the dating site? No because she “thought” this was what she wanted to do. Will she use this technique in the future? Yes. She’s sold on this method of getting to the truth.

Will it always take six whys to get to the truth? No. Sometimes it may take four but most times it will take six because we’re expert manipulators of our thoughts and tend to keep them hidden Six Whys below the surface.

You homework this week is to try to catch one or more of your thoughts and try the six why test and see what happens. I’m sure you’ll be glad you did.

Just ask my friend Maya, who was cleverly disguised as yours truly for the purposes of this forum, and I will tell you that getting clear about my thoughts allows me the freedom to spend my time pursuing interests and activities that make me extremely happy knowing that Mr. Right will appear when he’s supposed to and forcing him into existence because I “think” I should is a recipe for disaster and what part of this leads to a happy life?

None.

Exactly.